wow Reunion Digital Comic Focusing on Jaina out Now!

[Starym 3,800]

 

The start of Battle of Azeroth will be crucial to the story of the expansion itself, as many players seem uneasy about the story development that's been found out so far, with many "morally grey" memes and complaints of the Horde being the villains etc. floating around. So this new series of comics that will be arriving soon will be very important and need to set up the events leading to the war well.

Today we have the first one, focusing on Jaina and you can read the whole thing right now!

Reunion (source)

Join Jaina Proudmoore in “Reunion,” the first in a series of digital comics leading up to Battle for Azeroth.

As the Horde and the Alliance reckon with the aftermath of their war with the Burning Legion, Jaina finds herself doing some soul searching in the ruins of Theramore. Alone with the ghosts of the dead city, she reflects on a bitter past full of heartbreak and betrayal—and resolves to confront it with a return to her homeland of Kul Tiras.

We invite you to read and download the free comic here.

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About

Written by Andrew Robinson and illustrated by Linda Cavallini and Emanuele Tenderini, “Reunion” is the first in a series of comics leading up to Battle for Azeroth.

Andrew Robinson is a senior writer on Blizzard Entertainment’s creative development team, where he helps build and expand upon the fiction of our universes through comics, cinematics, and more. He started at Blizzard in 2014 as a writer focusing on animation projects, and has written and consulted for more than 30 animated TV shows over the course of his full career.

Linda Cavallini is an Italian freelance illustrator who has worked on various children’s illustrated books since 2008. She is currently on working on the fantasy/sci-fi comic Lumina with Emanuele Tenderini through their publishing house Tatai Lab, which they established in 2015.

Emanuele Tenderini is an Italian comic book artist who began his career at various French publishers. He later worked with famed Italian comic book writer and publisher Sergio Bonelli before forming Tatai Lab in 2015 with Linda Cavallini.

[Dejo93 1,023]

Dat Garrosh face, holy shit XD

[Badadada 184]

I often view this kind of additional lore just for the beatiful illustrations, but this...well, let's say the artists were a bit too heavily influenced by Japanese culture. Altough I'm not sure the playerbase of Blizzard likes this visual style - I prefer the old-school oil painting (-ish?) we had in the burdens of Shaohao or Harbingers story videos.

[VinsX 33]

47 minutes ago, Dejo93 said:

Dat Garrosh face, holy shit XD

Hentai material xDDD

[Dejo93 1,023]

23 minutes ago, VinsX said:

Hentai material xDDD

reminds of this gem 

[Plergoth 277]

Don't talk to me or my water elemental ever again 

[Hoods 40]

1 hour ago, Dejo93 said:

Dat Garrosh face, holy shit XD

Indeed :O But then again, its a image warped by Jaina to seem more monstrus, more evil to justify her hatred. But we all know Garrosh in the end was a Monster and he is deserving of being viewed as such. Look at Rexxar for example, looking super evil when he is killing her father.

Edited May 22, 2018 by Hoods

[Lampanelli 75]

See, they say that it is not all black and white, yet from everything in the beta so far, and now this comic, they are painting the Horde to be generally just pure evil, with the Alliance as the shining city on a hill.

Also, I still think it makes no sense that Jaina became a warmongering lunatic just because of Garrosh, unless the mana bomb screwed up her head too. Just because of one action by a lunatic, throwing out years of work with Thrall seems stupid.

[Hoods 40]

2 minutes ago, Lampanelli said:

Just because of one action by a lunatic, throwing out years of work with Thrall seems stupid.

Well, Garrosh did destroy Theramore, killed her apprentice, made her friend Rhonin sacrifice himself to try and contain the mana bomb, general warmongering, and ALOT more. And Thrall wasnt even the Warcheif when this happend, Garrosh was, and the work she put in for peace was nulified when he took power.

[Migol 433]

19 minutes ago, Hoods said:

Well, Garrosh did destroy Theramore, killed her apprentice, made her friend Rhonin sacrifice himself to try and contain the mana bomb, general warmongering, and ALOT more. And Thrall wasnt even the Warcheif when this happend, Garrosh was, and the work she put in for peace was nulified when he took power.

Yes, but that completely ignores how she's also fought with the Horde for many years, the battle for Hyjal, the old empire, against Arthas...

 

...Oh, and to overthrow Garrosh.

 

If she had no ties to Horde characters that'd be one thing, but she's had long standing friendships within the Horde and knows they're not intrinsically evil.    Yet despite helping overthrow the one responsible for the bomb, she's suddenly written into the smarmy "Oh, look at them conspiring" person at the end of the Orgrimmar raid.    It's a complete 180 on her personality established in War3 and previous expansions, and part of the reason people thought she must have died and been replaced by a dreadlord or something.

[Pauly02 0]

I think its rather odd how the events of Daelin's death is presented in this comic. I mean, that guy was nothing more than a psychopath at that point. He had to be killed and blaming Jaina for not helping him is kinda weird. Also the fact that Jaina is blaming the entire Horde for the actions of a few individuals within that alliance ignoring the fact that the Horde now consists of those who actually rebelled against Garrosh and fought to put him down... I dont know. It's just too much ignorance there. Also, wasnt she one of those Kirin Tor who were trying to slaughter Aethas and the other Sunreaver when they got kicked out of Dalaran? Oo Honestly at some point in BfA I hope that some character shows Jaina her place once and for all. Would be nice if it was Aethas Sunreaver of Lor'themar himself.

[Narev 2]

When I was going through the Legion storyline, I used to joke with my guild that some of these people deserved a war crimes trial. Then came the thing with Jaina ordering you to murder noncombatant Blood Elves. From what I understand, that tipped the balance to make the Blood Elves side with the Horde. She also ran off to try and confront Sylvanas on her own. Why the Alliance not only hasn't publicly denounced her actions, but continues to allow her to make command decisions is beyond me. There may be part of this story I'm missing, but she's unstable at best and a full-blown psychopath at worst...

I understand the desire to show questionable choices one has to make in war, but when my options include following orders (Nuremburg anyone?) or abandoning the storyline, I feel like I'm just being led through a story with no choices to make. This feeling started for me early in the Argus storyline when the Naaru attempts to force redemption on Illidan. He replies that it's not her choice to make, and I agree. I thought we might get a little "Are we really the good guys here?" moment. Nope! Let's denounce him as a traitor, then continue to work with him cause he and his followers are a means to an end. The storytelling is getting pretty sloppy in my opinion, and I feel like they could do much more to keep people interested. But hey, at least we get yet another Elf race! *gag*

[Plergoth 277]

27 minutes ago, Narev said:

This feeling started for me early in the Argus storyline when the Naaru attempts to force redemption on Illidan. He replies that it's not her choice to make, and I agree.

That event and everything about the subplot of bringing Illidan's useless ass back to life like five times just for him to bring about the literal apocalypse and then kill one of the few beings in the entire universe not actively trying to obliterate us is infuriating to think about, not to mention willingly dying / sacrificing itself to get a message to Azeroth, tell us about Illidan, encourage us to retrieve his soul, bring his body back to life and then attempt to give him powers (ala Void Alleria), which was his choice to ultimately take or reject, but he just simply vaporised the creature that had literally been keeping nearly everyone in that room alive for thousands of years instead of just blocking her or knocking her out during his little emo tantrum. 

The Blizzard writers don't seem to mind either way if their main characters dabble in literal murder sprees or genocidal rampages every now and again. Part of me thinks that the writers for content in game and those that do comics and books are seldom on the same page in terms of character development, which is why EU characters commonly end up dead, whereas characters that originated in the games, WoW or RTS wise, get constantly fleshed out, redemptions or entire expansions built around them out of nowhere, even if it means reaching. 

Edited May 23, 2018 by Plergoth

[Starym 3,800]

12 minutes ago, Plergoth said:

That event and everything about the subplot of bringing Illidan's useless ass back to life like five times just for him to bring about the literal apocalypse and then kill one of the few beings in the entire universe not actively trying to obliterate us is infuriating to think about, not to mention willingly dying / sacrificing itself to get a message to Azeroth, tell us about Illidan, encourage us to retrieve his soul, bring his body back to life and then attempt to give him powers (ala Void Alleria), which was his choice to ultimately take or reject, but he just simply vaporised the creature that had literally been keeping nearly everyone in that room alive for thousands of years instead of just blocking her or knocking her out during his little emo tantrum. 

The Blizzard writers don't seem to mind either way if their main characters dabble in literal murder sprees or genocidal rampages every now and again. Part of me thinks that the writers for content in game and those that do comics and books are seldom on the same page in terms of character development, which is why EU characters commonly end up dead, whereas characters that originated in the games, WoW or RTS wise, get constantly fleshed out, redemptions or entire expansions built around them out of nowhere, even if it means reaching. 

While I'm the last person to actually defend Blizzard's, ahem, let's call it "uneven" writing and not say "shit" which is what I want to say, the Illidan cutscene actually made sense to me. Although I agree with most of what you're saying that particular moment worked for me as Illidan didn't seem to have a choice in the matter, it was get assimilated by the light-borg aka lose your identity in the next 5 seconds or do something, anything. I don't even think he was trying to kill Xera but just basically trying to survive and not get borgised, basically just lashing out any way he could. And then it was whoops headhsot (not that he cared and he'd be fine with killing Xera anyway). The idiocy of Turalyon and the whole army of the light being ok with the event after 1-2 inspiring sentences by Illidan is beyond words however, as they either should have realized how nazi the naaru actually are and had a bit of a think on their lives so far OR just flat out kicked Illidan out (or just left the ship since it's not really theirs in the first place). Instead it's just business as usual after 5 mins of Xera cleanup detail.

But hey, it's an MMO and honestly thinking too much about the storyine is... unproductive to say the least so it's all good :D

[Narev 2]

I'm still bogged down in the Argus storyline with my 110, mainly cause there are so many things that don't make sense to me. I know I probably have an incomplete picture (Well, I know I do) it's just really easy to miss out on an important piece of lore if you don't do a certain raid or whatever. Like letting Sylvanas run her own squad, and being shocked when she betrays you. I am not a great strategist, but maybe put her in command of Alliance troops, and have a similar unit of Hordies commanded by an Alliance commander? Not just to keep everyone honest, but it'll also allow them to share tactics and coordinate better. Normally I'd say this is a little nitpicky, but a whole council of career military people couldn't see that coming? I dunno.

Edit: I'm a little unclear about what the Naaru did to earn everyone's undying worship. Actually, I didn't even know what a Naaru was, I thought it was just some gods that Draenei pray to. I remember saying to my guild "That big crystal thing? THAT'S what a Naaru is? WTF?" They say that they're beings of ultimate good, only that's not true cause we've seen them turn to evil.

Edited May 23, 2018 by Narev

[Plergoth 277]

1 hour ago, Pauly02 said:

Also the fact that Jaina is blaming the entire Horde for the actions of a few individuals within that alliance ignoring the fact that the Horde now consists of those who actually rebelled against Garrosh and fought to put him down... I dont know

The same rebels who are watching Teldrassill burn? I'm not sure either. I hope there's some sort of huge Alliance retaliation and reaction going on here outside of the battle for Lordaeron that provokes the rest of the Horde into defending themselves rather than simply following another genocidal leader. 

[Plergoth 277]

2 minutes ago, Starym said:

they either should have realized how nazi the naaru actually are

I'm 99% certain Illidan just had a vendetta against the Naaru for fucking his conveniently retconned plans up on Outland. I'm all for grey in between the black and white, but this whole thing about the Light / Naaru being just a glorified Scarlet Crusade the entire time seems far too stretched thin and reeks of current social and political influence. It's also left my Holy orientated characters in a bit of a loop. What will my Priest do now if he can't use Void without going loopy or tap into the Light without being a Nazi? Shoot snakes out of his fingers? Summon crackers with his wand? 5 minute life hack videos? 

[Starym 3,800]

16 minutes ago, Plergoth said:

I'm 99% certain Illidan just had a vendetta against the Naaru for fucking his conveniently retconned plans up on Outland. I'm all for grey in between the black and white, but this whole thing about the Light / Naaru being just a glorified Scarlet Crusade the entire time seems far too stretched thin and reeks of current social and political influence. It's also left my Holy orientated characters in a bit of a loop. What will my Priest do now if he can't use Void without going loopy or tap into the Light without being a Nazi? Shoot snakes out of his fingers? Summon crackers with his wand? 5 minute life hack videos? 

I dont think it was intended to be that extreme. It's just that the light is a bit absoslute and cant see that maybe sometimes they're wrong. It's the old lawful good D&D thing, they're just too rigid, especially with nonsense like prophecies and the like. I didnt see it as a "they're bad now" but simply a conflict between free will and destiny. Aka we prolly would have had a better chance at beating the legion with light Illidan (except no, wait, he didn't do shit to actually defeat either Argus OR Sargeras, he just pointlessly decided to stay in a prison and do nothing for eternity. Yep. Great arc there buddy.

[Narev 2]

31 minutes ago, Plergoth said:

What will my Priest do now if he can't use Void without going loopy or tap into the Light without being a Nazi? Shoot snakes out of his fingers?

I like that you brought that up. I remember playing on my Shadow priest doing some quest about a Naaru falling to the void or whatever, and I thought "You guys know I use the Void, like, all the time, right?"

[Badadada 184]

1 hour ago, Plergoth said:

The Blizzard writers don't seem to mind either way if their main characters dabble in literal murder sprees or genocidal rampages every now and again. Part of me thinks that the writers for content in game and those that do comics and books are seldom on the same page in terms of character development, which is why EU characters commonly end up dead, whereas characters that originated in the games, WoW or RTS wise, get constantly fleshed out, redemptions or entire expansions built around them out of nowhere, even if it means reaching. 

Altough I somewhat agree, I think it's also fair to remind everyone that we have seen the lore in far worse shape before. Remember Green Jesus? He was Metzen's love child and ruled the story for expansions. Basically there was no space on the Horde's side to present new protagonists because of Thrall (and even Alliance players felt neglected seeing how much they care about the other side). He was like a random Marvel superhero written by a 9 years old, I'm so glad he got "nerfed" and is the only person (fictional or real) who deserves hair loss. Now we don't just have more complex factions and neutral heroes, but with the addition of class-centered storytelling in Legion, we had the chance of exploring a bit of class-pride and got tons of knowledge on minor characters.
So I think we can't really complain about the variety of hero archetypes currently in the official lore, but overcomplicating the personalities of the main actors (see Jaina above) may indeed pose a danger.

Edited May 23, 2018 by Badadada

[Rooach 34]

14 hours ago, Dejo93 said:

Dat Garrosh face, holy shit XD

Wants that jaina booty

[blackstar128 30]

im not defending her but just try to see it from her point of view. first of all even though garrosh died and horde helped with that, it wasnt because of theramore event. her hatered of blood elf mages and their archmage is because they were the ones that made the mana bomb.

[Valhalen 1,484]

I think this comic truly expresses Jaina's feelings, something we've been needing for so long. Everyone says she is a bitch, that she is a dreadlord, that she went ballistic, but seeing everything from her perspective is touching. She lost everything. Even though she worked with the Horde before and always tried to maintain the peace between the factions with the help of Thrall, the attack on Theramore was a huge backstab. If I were in her shoes I'd feel the same.

"How naive I was to let fairness and tolerance be my only guides."

"My desire for peace was a weakness... One the enemy was always happy to exploit."

Edited May 23, 2018 by Valhalen

[lChronosl 182]

15 hours ago, Plergoth said:

I'm all for grey in between the black and white, but this whole thing about the Light / Naaru being just a glorified Scarlet Crusade the entire time seems far too stretched thin and reeks of current social and political influence.

When I read that I immediately remembered the direction the new Star Wars trilogy is taking, with that whole Grey Jedi and stuff.

[PatrickHenry 293]

17 hours ago, Starym said:

I didnt see it as a "they're bad now" but simply a conflict between free will and destiny.

Amen.

Like the Alleria questline showed, the 'light' sees one truth as absolute, while the void sees them all as absolute.  

Extremes each, and neither inherently 'wrong,' but neither correct an worthy of zealous following either.  

 

17 hours ago, Starym said:

that particular moment worked for me as Illidan didn't seem to have a choice in the matter, it was get assimilated by the light-borg aka lose your identity in the next 5 seconds or do something, anything.

Exactly.  It wasnt like Xe'ra was passionately pleading with illidan to embrace a lightforged future, he physically chained him, and forced the 'destiny' upon him.

Edited May 23, 2018 by PatrickHenry