Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Writer: Jackson Lanzing, Collin Kelly
Artist: Ibraim Roberson, Arabson Oliveira
Colorist: Daniel Brown
Letterer: Haley Rose-Lyon
Release Date: 4th November 2026

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While there have undoubtedly been some utterly fantastic Dungeons & Dragons comic books over the years from a variety of publishers, the bulk of them have relied on creating interesting new characters and inserting them into the rich, varied world of the World’s Greatest Roleplaying Game(tm). Taking a markedly different approach here, the Hivemind (Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly) have instead assembled a veritable all-star team of iconic D&D characters for this new ongoing Dark Horse Comics series, and boy does this first issue deliver!

If you’re looking for a central character for an all-new story, Mordenkainen the wizard – originally created as a player character for Gary Gygax himself back in 1973 – is a pretty solid choice. However, as you can see from the gloriously illustrated preview below, Mordenkainen isn’t adventuring alone here, and the wonderful dialogue exchanges between he and the equally iconic Volothamp “Volo” Geddarm adds both humour and energy to this opening chapter.

Like all good campaigns (stories), we haven’t even begun to delve into the meat of the story yet after this first session (issue), but Lanzing and Kelly do a great job of keeping the pages turning throughout, throwing in two more all-time iconic characters into this makeshift adventuring party and leaving things on an absolute jaw-dropper of a cliffhanger.

On the visual side of things, Ibraim Roberson and Arabson Oliveira bring a wonderfully cinematic feel t0 the artwork, packing the pages with expressive characters and dynamic action moments. I’m also a big fan of keeping this series on the more realistic side of things rather than the more cartoony approach that a lot of D&D comics tend to go for.

As I mentioned, the final page cliffhanger is an absolute belter, and will all but guarantee that the majority of readers will be itching to pick up issue two right away  Honestly, if you ever wanted to read an Avengers-style D&D comic with Faerûn’s mightiest heroes coming together to combat a deadly new threat, this is absolutely the series for you. A barnburner of an opening chapter for a new series that every self respecting fan of Dungeons and/or Dragons needs to add to their pull list right away.

Rating: 4.5/5.

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[PREVIEW ARTWORK – CLICK TO ENLARGE]

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The writer of this piece was: Craig Neilson-Adams (aka Ceej)
Article Archive: Ceej Says
You can follow Ceej on Twitter

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