Comic Stack – 06/03/15

The Displaced #1 by Rick Troula (writer, illustrator)
Publisher: Chaos Factory Comics (November 27, 2013)
Genre: Fantasy, Mythology, Action-Adventure

I am going to be completely honest with you guys about today’s comic. I have no earthly idea how I ended up with this comic, but after reading it, I’m not sorry that it found its way to me. While browsing through my stack of digital comics, I saw this one many times, but I’d passed it by just as many times. I wasn’t drawn to it as something I immediately needed to read, but the description sounded interesting enough that I knew I’d get around to it eventually. I don’t know what made this week different, but I decided to give it a read just to see the story behind this comic. I don’t have anything bad to say about this other than it’s too damn short. I think I was sort of holding my breath by the end of it.

The Displaced starts with a tale, a biblical legend of sorts that conjures up shades of Cain and Abel (the biblical story of the first murder committed by one brother against another brother), about something called “the wildling amulet.” The story goes that the first men of Zarconia, the wildlings, worshiped their gods to the point of fanaticism. Like any good religious fanatics, their fervor resulted in violence, especially when people tried to introduce new religious ideas. The comic says killing comes easy for the wildlings. However, the story cautions that it’s never easy to kill one’s own and this displeased the gods.

From this crime, the wildling amulet comes into fruition forged from the blood of those slain. The amulet is considered a living thing that stayed hidden nurturing its dark power until it was ready to be found. Then, it continued to feed on people’s strength, corrupting those who held it, until the gods “shattered” the world, which reminds me of how the biblical floods supposedly created continents and oceans, but the amulet was soon found again by men and used throughout the years by its wielder to seize power until the owner couldn’t control it. Finally, one woman finds the amulet and uses it to conquer the lands with her war maidens.

However, the power of the amulet is unable to corrupt her, and she has it locked away with very strong dark magic. The shaman who created the amulet hid away from civilization because men didn’t forget the amulet. However, the shaman is eventually found and killed by an ambitious young merchant, a merchant who spends most of his years trying to free the amulet without success. This is the point where the story stops being a parable and shows us the merchant as an old, bitter man being attacked by a group of men. What do they want?

Of course, a fight starts and we meet our main trio. We have some kind of battlemage type dude that creates weapons with magic. I love battlemages. They are my absolute favorite because they combine two things I love–magic and brawling. I don’t know this guy’s name, so I will dub him Sorcerer Supreme. He looks like Dr. Strange a little and he uses magic. Perfect name for him.

We also have our handsome archer dude, popping in from out of nowhere and shooting all the things. I don’t know his name, either, so I’m going to call him Robin of the Hood.

Finally, we have our tank. Where the hell would we be without our tank? Another nameless soul, so I’m going to call him Frank the Tank. Friendly reminder: Never disrespect the tank.

The scuffle ends with a lot of injured (and dead?) men, but the Sorcerer Supreme, Robin, and Frank make off with the wildling amulet while sparing the merchant’s life. Who are these guys really? The comic doesn’t tell us yet. What do they want with the amulet? The book doesn’t tell us that either. In fact, we only get a few additional pages about the group before the comic ends, which means I scrambled in search of the next one because this was a really compelling story.

I loved the combination of history telling, action, and mysteriousness this managed to blend together. The parable type telling at beginning of the book gave a brief, but totally understandable, history of the amulet. The story made an impact even with its brevity. It gave me just enough of a peek to know that this amulet’s power is dangerous and terrifying. That leaves me with this question: “What the hell do these guys want with this amulet?”