Dota 2 The Official Comic Book Review – Is It Possible To Get To Know The Universe Through It?

Traditional disclaimer: I know little bits of information about the world of Dota, gleaned from anime and several videos. However, colleagues suggest that this is more than that of many average players.

Strange legends

The first thing I want to draw your attention to is that there are only eight stories in the book, and not in the order in which they were published. If the first official comic from Valve told about the appearance of creeps, then in the Russian edition everything starts with the adventures of Ax. In the comic, he travels with an elf bard who chronicles the hero’s deeds, emerging victorious from insane alterations over and over again. Discussing future travels, the bard reminds him every now and then that this or that feat has already taken place, and in the end they decide to go to the Battle of the Ancients, just to boost sales of new books about Ax’s adventures.

How much it fits with the image in the game is an open question: according to the lines in Dota 2, the image of a cruel and bloodthirsty warrior with a specific sense of humor is formed. And this seems to be available in the comic, but does the story help to reveal the character from a new side? More likely no than yes. Particularly surprising is the introduction of the bard, who does not appear in any form in the game: given that the story in the comic is largely built around the dynamics of their relationship, the question arises why this was done, since it ultimately does not lead anywhere.

However, the plot of Ax, for all its strangeness, seems to be one of the most interesting and complete – most likely, that is why it was put up first in the collection. Other heroes were less fortunate: for example, the chapter on Phantom Assassin is only seven pages long and does not reveal anything at all. Unless you know that the comic has announced an Oracle appearance in the game, its value is minimized. The whole story is a small dialogue that does not in any way reveal the events of the game itself.

Gods and mortals

If anyone is revealed here, it is Monkey King. For some reason, the book contains two chapters, and in total they occupy almost half of the total volume. The first of the stories reveals the character and demonstrates how Sun Wukong decided to go to the Battle of the Ancients, and the second reveals the nature of his immortality. The situation is doubly strange, not only because in the end the hero takes up more space on the pages than anyone else in this book, but also because Sun Wukong is the hero of the ancient Chinese novel “Journey to the West” by Wu Cheng’en, and all of it biography almost unchanged migrated from there.

With Legion Commander, to which one of the chapters of the book is devoted, the situation is a little more interesting: the comic strip reveals the background of the events described in the biography of the heroine in the game itself. The story of how she rose from slave to her current title is interrupted by the sight of Stonehall in flames, the city whose destruction brought Legion Commander to the battlefield. However, with a good explanation of the reasons for the battle in the game itself, the question of the need to further deepen the story through the comics remains open.

But the history of Zeus raises the most questions. In Dota 2, it is directly stated that the Thunderer refused immortality and strength on his own at the request of Hera’s wife, who was tired of her husband’s eternal betrayals. In the comic, Zeus talks about divorce and the selected forces, some of which are eventually returned to him by Arc Warden (for some reason, in Russian translation, he also refers to himself in the feminine gender). However, this chapter may seem attractive to fans of Dota, if only because you can see a dozen other characters in the background – it’s time to play a guessing game and try to find as many familiar faces as possible.

As it turned out, the comic strip about Zeus was intended to reveal the story of the appearance of the arcana for the character. It may be that he reveals it, but the character of the hero is not quite.

Instead of a conclusion

“Dota 2. The Official Comic Book” seems to be a thing in itself: it weakly reveals the details of the world and a person who is not familiar with the Dota universe is unlikely to help plunge into the lore and make you want to get acquainted with the game (it didn’t work with me, although before writing the material, I spent a couple of hours studying the “Wiki” and the video with lore). How much reading will be interesting to fans is no less an open question, since for one successful chapter there are a couple of much less informative ones. Plus, there are a lot of confusing details that are simply not mentioned in DotA itself or contradict what players are familiar with.

However, one cannot fail to note the overall quality of the comics. The artists presented more than high-quality work (some chapters are just a sight for sore eyes), and the dialogues are clearly written with knowledge of the matter. Despite the low information content, the comic is still capable of captivating – although after reading it remains a little bewilderment like “And what was it all for?”

Separately, a few words about the Russian edition of the comic. The World of Hobby company approached the matter responsibly and released a high-quality publication in a somewhat non-standard format. Instead of the usual vertical implementation, an enlarged landscape format is used here, which is even larger than many artbooks released in Russia, not to mention standard comics editions. With bonuses, however, sparse: in addition to eight chapters, there is only a small gallery of black and white sketches of three stories. They were added, according to sensations, for volume, and even for clogging up space in an unfinished block for printing.

The value of such a publication is extremely collectible: if suddenly you, as a big Dota 2 fan, wanted to have a physical confirmation of your love for the game, an official comic book can be a good investment. Collect action figures, T-shirts, or stuffed animals isn’t all the same. Otherwise, the chapters are available for free on the official Valve site.