Review – Dungeons & Dragons: Saturday Morning Adventures II #2 (IDW Publishing)

February 28, 2024

2–3 minutes

Publisher: IDW Publishing
Writer: David M. Booher
Artist: George Kambadais
Colorist: John-Paul Bove
Letterer: Ed Dukeshire
Release Date: 28th February 2024

Hot on the heels of a solid opening issue last month, David Booher and George Kambadais continue the second volume of their Saturday Morning Adventures D&D series this week as our heroes find themselves shipwrecked on the Sword Coast during their quest to find a cure for Dungeon Master’s mysterious affliction. Under the protection of fan favourite mercenary leader Jarlaxle, they head into the city of Luskan to try and track down Bobby, who disappeared during the cash, only to find themselves crossing paths with yet another iconic D&F fan favourite (as you can see below), and his diminutive companion!

While your individual mileage on the succession of Forgotten Realms cameos may vary, the content here focused around our heroic teens is really interesting. Sure, certain members of the party, like Eric and Presto, fall into their familiar character tropes, but the development of Bobby the Barbarian and his relationship with Sheila throws an interesting wrinkle into the proceedings. And while the overall tone is still unmistakably light, some of the questions being asked here – like what happens when a group of teenagers start actually growing up in this strange new world and becoming brand new people in the process – have some surprising depth to them.

This latest issue is distinctly light on action, but the artistic partnership of George Kambadais and John-Paul Bove do a fantastic job of keeping things visually interesting throughout, throwing us into a lot of interesting locales and presenting us with an intriguing array of characters, from Dragonborn Pirate Captains to the aforementioned Minsk and Boo. Once again, Kambadais does a good job of keeping things faithful enough to the source material while still managing to injecting the proceedings with his own unique visual wrinkles (still not a fan of Hank’s new hairdo, though.)

The final pages take things in a fairly unexpected direction, providing some more much-needed character development for our young Barbarian and throwing up some intriguing storyline possibilities for the remainder of the series. Once again, the surprise appearances and cameos are fun, and serve as a nice way to connect the cartoon version of Dungeons & Dragons to the main Forgotten Realms continuity, but I’m far more interested in our six teenagers (and one unicorn) and how they navigate this dangerous new part of world. Thankfully, Booher and Kambadais seem to be of the same mind, and the next couple of issues have the potential to deliver some sweeping changes for our youngsters.

Rating: 3.5/5.

[PREVIEW ARTWORK – CLICK TO ENLARGE]