Our last adventure ended rather abruptly with Jasmine’s kidnapping. The resolution to that story doesn’t happen in the pages of the Forgotten Realms comics, though. Instead, DC tried to introduce a new line of D&D comics, bringing in the brand-new Spelljammer setting.

Released early in 2nd edition AD&D, Spelljammer served as a way to connect other settings. By using a magical form of space travel, characters could leave the Forgotten Realms to journey to Oerth, Krynn, or one of the many other settings that came out as 2nd edition got rolling. For the comic stories, this meant a chance to tie the two existing Forgotten Realms-based lines in with a new cast of characters, creating a grand crossover.

Quite honestly, I’m surprised that Hasbro hasn’t tried to duplicate this effort in the modern day. In an era where every major corporation sees its creative properties as content to iterate upon and where shared universes are all the rage, the many worlds if D&D offer a potential goldmine.

Then again, maybe I shouldn’t give Hasbro any ideas…

D&D in SPAAAAACE!

The comic wastes no time in getting right to the heart of the Spelljammer setting: it’s D&D in space.

In fact, it may push things along a little too quickly. Our heroine, Meredith, is an experienced space pirate who zips from planet to planet with ease. Having seen a lot, she knows more about the setting than the audience and acts like it. If you didn’t know what neogi are, for example, all you have to go on is Meredith’s vague description of them as “spider-crits.”

It’s not all experienced adventurers aboard Meredith’s crew, though. Her employers send the inexperienced Tember, the nephew of the captured priest.

Tember turns into a liability rather quickly. Umber hulk slaves (who are, strangely, not umber) seem drawn to him and attack.

The umber hulks destroy the ship that Meredith came in on, and her crew have to fight their way to a legendary ship known as the Spelljammer. Unfortunately, fighting their way there means sacrificing most of the crew.

In the end, only Meredith, Pax, and Tember get aboard the Spelljammer. Everyone else dies in battle.

Now free but on the run from space pirates, the small crew makes their way into space. Well, it’s not really space as we know it, but the Phlogiston. The Spelljammer setting, and therefore all D&D settings in this era, used an outdated model of the universe from the 18th century. It adds a layer of fantasy to a setting that could otherwise be too sci-fi in feel, but it also feels confusing to someone used to the modern idea of space.

By opening up a portal that leads into another crystal sphere floating in the Phlogiston, the crew makes their way to their first stop: the world of Krynn.

This all happens within the span of seven pages, and I think that’s to the detriment of the new cast this comic is meant to introduce. The adventurers at Selûne’s Smile and the crew of the Realms Master both had big multi-part introductory stories where they could breathe and show off their interesting quirks. Meredith’s tale, by contrast, is crammed to the gills with action and also has to tie in with two other comics while wrapping up an ongoing storyline.

First Stop: Krynn

Calling Krynn “Land of the Dragons” is a bit of hyperbole, since it doesn’t have any more dragons than most other D&D settings. However, it’s a quick way to identify this world as the home of the Dragonlance setting, popularized by the novels of the same brand. Dragonlance was actually the first setting to be used in DC’s D&D comics line, but I don’t have those issues and as near as I can tell the story there doesn’t really cross over with this one.

Meredith sends Tember on a simple scouting mission: look around, avoid talking to locals. He feels very confident that he can do it without messing up.

Naturally, he is wrong.

Tember only lives because some jewels fall out of his pocket and his attackers decide they should interrogate him first to get some more treasure. The negotiations go nowhere, however, because a group of tigerskin-clad warriors interrupts.

The Tiger Clan isn’t much friendlier to Tember, but at least they let him live. Moreover, one of their priests claims to have seen a vision of him emerging from the belly of a great winged beast–which Tember realizes means the spelljamming vessel he arrived in.

The Tiger Clan helps Tember rob some goblins for supplies…which isn’t really noble, but we’re still in the days where it was okay to assume that creatures listed in the Monster Manual were okay to kill without asking further questions.

Tember leads the elves back to the ship, much to Meredith’s chagrin. Moreover, the warriors attack the priests because an accurate prophetic vision means they are a threat to their true master, Ulan.

Luckily for the two spellcasters, Meredith has some tricks of her own. By conjuring up a wall of fire, she keeps Tember’s saviors alive before leaving Krynn.

Overall, the sojourn to Krynn doesn’t really do a lot for me. It doesn’t highlight what makes Dragonlance special and should really have involved some of the Heroes of the Lance. If someone were brand new to D&D, they would assume that Krynn was filled with warring berserker tribes…which do exist, but it also has so much more.

Regardless, this was just an appetizer before the spelljamming crew arrives in more familiar territory: Meredith’s home world of Toril, where she meets some familiar faces.

On to Toril

Pax tries to give Meredith a break by taking the controls, but the Spelljammer fights him and only seems happy with Meredith as its captain. She steers the team to Toril, where she checks in on an old acquaintance: the innkeeper at Selûne’s Smile.

Through Luna, we learn how the separate storylines fit together. Meredith traveled with an adventuring group on Toril, and her old companions are dead now. One of her companions, Rose, had a child named Jasmine before she died. That Jasmine was recently captured by a lich in the Forgotten Realms comic.

It turns out that Luna isn’t the only one present who knows Jasmine: Vajra used to raise Hell with her when they were younger.

This annual is drawn in a totally different style than the other titles, but luckily each of the characters in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons had enough unique flair about them that they are immediately identifiable, be it Kyri’s glittering hair, Vajra’s headband, or Onyx’s distinctive cap.

Meredith needs a magical charm that Rose once possessed, and which Jasmine now owns. But Luna doesn’t know where the winged hellion is; she left Waterdeep in the company of somebody known as Chaos Carter.

Luckily, Kyri is able to quickly track Carter down through the use of her “contacts.”

Carter is currently out to destroy a caravan belonging to the Gold Grain Merchant Company, and is disguised as one of the guards. Unfortunately, that means the adventurers have to put themselves in harm’s way to find him.

As the caravan approaches, Meredith summons an illusion of attacking dragons. Unfortunately, Timoth sucks at acting, so to make him really worried the act requires…um…hitting Vajra with a fireball.

I’m sure there will be no hard feelings.

Kyri gains the confidence of the caravan through her “helpless damsel” routine, then gets close to the merchant leader Gorm through her talents at “listening.”

Kyri’s charms prove useful, because after all the trouble the caravan has faced, punctuated by an attack from giant bats, the guards are considering abandoning Gorm. However, they are split on the decision because some of them can’t bring themselves to leave “helpless” maidens like Kyri and Meredith alone.

The troubles only get worse, though, as a purple worm attacks.

By this point, the comic is reading very much like a dull D&D adventure: one encounter after the other strings together, and it’s mostly just a way to showcase creatures from the Monster Manual. There’s not much logic to the encounters, and none of them showcase any clever strategy for bypassing them: everyone just hits with their swords until the thing is dead and then waits for the next monster to come along.

I think this poor pacing is largely a result of the issue’s need to fill so many purposes at once. It probably would have been better to give Meredith a four-issue story arc to introduce herself like the heroes of the other titles have had. Then potentially exciting encounters like a fight with a purple worm are reduced to a couple of panels.

The guard leader ultimately arranges a “wisp,” where the mercenaries abandon their job. Only Raymond, one of the guards who wanted to protect Kyri, remains before. But Meredith realizes that the seemingly-altruistic guard is in fact the man they’ve been looking for.

The news of Carter’s real identity confuses Kyri, because the lead guard admitted to her that he was the infamous killer. Of course, Onyx has a simple explanation:

So I guess Kyri’s network of “informants” isn’t always reliable.

Carter left Jasmine in Saerloon (presumably shortly before “Triangles“) because she couldn’t keep a low enough profile for his liking. Meredith returns to the Spelljammer to look for her, meaning that our heroes from the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons title end their part in this story back in Selûne’s Smile.

For those who are disappointed that we didn’t get a crossover between the Waterdeep crew and the gang aboard the Realms Master, don’t worry…that will come in a future story.

Spelljammer versus Realms Master

Stupid fights between heroes that could have been solved with communication is a tried and true comic book tradition, and the D&D comics make no exception. The lich who kidnapped Jasmine is looking to delay her would-be rescuers, and his floating skull minion identifies the Spelljammer crew as just the ones to do it.

The skull disguises himself as Jasmine’s ghost and spins a tale to Meredith that blames the Realms Master‘s crew for her death.

I think there must be something off with the art direction in this case, because what the crew immediately identifies as a ghost looks just like normal Jasmine to me. She’s not even beaten up or bruised. If they had given her a different pallor, the art probably could have sold the ruse better without making the crew of the Spelljammer look like idiots.

The skull uses an ESP spell to learn enough about Jasmine’s mother to convince Meredith that Jasmine is really dead. Meanwhile, Captain Omen has tracked Jasmine to a castle by honing in on the trail of her magical wings. Ship-to-ship combat ensues.

Pax makes the wise decision to approach the situation diplomatically. Unfortunately, Tember immediately confronts Vartan, and the two shortest-tempered members of the crews quickly start a brawl.

Pax tries to go with diplomacy again, but Foxy jumps him from behind because there’s no ganging up on crew members…even if it is Vartan.

From afar, the skull enjoys the chaos he’s caused, but he’s not as unnoticed as he believes.

Agrivar and Ishi find themselves teleported into the lich’s castle. But Minder spots the skull, and a truce is called so both crews can whoop some undead butt.

Agrivar and Ishi stand little chance against the lich, but they fight well enough that he calls an extraplanar entity to take both Ishi and Jasmine through a magical gate. Agrivar only has time to save one of them, which conveniently makes the “duel of hearts” that Ishi and Jasmine are secretly engaged in relevant.

Fortunately, the rest of the crew defeated the skull, and they show up just in time to save Jasmine from a grisly fate. It kind of takes the drama out of the paladin’s dilemma, of course: “Oh no! I can only save one of them! Whatever will I–oh, wait, it turns out I could have picked either because someone else saved the one I didn’t.”

The lich flees from the assembled forces, but it turns out that keeping a harem of dead wives isn’t as good a plan as he thought it would be…

When peace reigns once more, Jasmine chooses to leave the Realms Master and join Meredith’s crew.

And thus the Realms Master bows out of the story. It’s a shame the crew got involved in this annual mid-storyline, because it feels pretty unrewarding for the tale from their own title to get wrapped up so haphazardly. At the very least, considering how fiercely Ishi vowed to save Jasmine in the last issue, it would have been nice to see some of that emotion carried over into the actual final battle.

Ah well…let’s see where the Spelljammer is off to next.

An End and a Beginning

Satisfactorily or not, the events that kicked off in “Undead Love” over in the Forgotten Realms title have resolved. Meredith, Pax, Tember, and their new companion Jasmine set off for the stars. Or so they think.

A giant worm-like monster rips itself out of the ground and follows the Spelljammer to the stars. The ship seems frightened of the creature and takes over despite Meredith’s best efforts.

Maybe it’s just the Doctor Who fan in me, but I’m a sucker for a sentient vessel that doesn’t always listen to its pilot.

After the ship opens a portal for itself and escapes Realmspace with the creature hot on its heels, Jasmine finds herself undergoing a cosmetic change.

The crew ultimately shakes their pursuer through a stroke of luck. The monster breathes fire, and the Phlogiston is filled with flammable gas. The quirky magical physics of the Spelljammer setting save the day.

The ship is in for a rough landing, so Pax encases the crew in protective wooden cocoons. Unfortunately for Meredith, she needs to stay at the helm to guide the vessel.

What happens next? Well, I don’t have the Spelljammer comic, which ran for 15 issues before a corporate dispute between DC and TSR ended all D&D licensed lines. But maybe I’ll circle back to the fate of the Spelljammer crew in the future.

The fact that I’m not rushing out to buy those comics, though, points to the problem with this issue: it’s not a very good introduction to a new series. The trip to Krynn is pretty much pointless and doesn’t show off the setting. Seeing the adventurers from the two Forgotten Realms-based comics is a good time, but the story takes a meatier storyline from one of them and wraps it up pretty much as an afterthought. Through all of this, we don’t really get a good sense of our main cast, outside of the fact that Meredith is experienced and Tember is impulsive. Overall, I can only hope that Spelljammer #1 gave a better introduction for new readers.

As we’re staying on Toril, you’ll be happy(?) to know that we’ve got another crossover in our future. No Phlogiston-faring antics this time, as it’s time for the crew of the Realms Master to finally spend some time at Selûne’s Smile!

_{Images: DC Comics}