Critical Role: Vox Machina — Origins vol. 1

“Critical Role” is a hugely popular web series where voice actors roleplay their Dungeons & Dragons characters over the course of an evolving storyline that has spawned its own fandom, a ton of merchandise, and the most-funded TV & Film Kickstarter in history.  Because it’s always easier for me to find an entry point into things I’m unfamiliar with through comics, I decided to make my first experience with it through the comic-book miniseries it spawned. As the “Origins” in the title would imply, it shows what the cast was up to before the series started.  What they were up to involves mucking about (literally and figuratively) around the swamp town of Stilben. Half-elf rogue and ranger siblings Vax’ildan and Vexahlia are investigating a potential curse on the town, gnomish bard Scanlan and goliath barbarian Grog are adventuring with a party that has just raided a nearby cult stronghold, and dragonborn sorceror Tiberius and half-elven druid Keyleth have found themselves with some very unsavory people who are also trying to figure out what’s going on with the town.

I’m not giving away anything to say that all of them team up to eventually get to the bottom of the happenings in Stilben.  What matters is that series creator Matthew Mercer with writer Matthew Colville and artist Olivia Samson make it an engaging and generally amusing journey to get there.  While the characters are likeable and the dialogue and art frequently filled with funny bits, this first volume of “Critical Role” could’ve used some judicious editing. While I generally liked the dialogue, there’s honestly too much of it in this particular story.  Were I to hazard a guess, the main appeal of the web series is from having the actors act out and ad-lib with their characters as much as they can. I’m assuming this because it’s the only explanation as to why Mercer and Colville would have their characters ramble on as long as they do here.

Still, what’s here isn’t bad and it makes for a decent fantasy adventure with some good comedy along the way and appealing art from Samson.  This wouldn’t normally be enough to get me excited about the next “Critical Role” comic, but this one will have a seasoned veteran of licensed comics at the helm:  “Star Wars: Thrawn & X-Wing” writer Jody Houser. Based on her work with those titles, I’m optimistic about vol. 2 being a substantial improvement over this one.