I’m going to put my conspiracy hat on for a moment and speculate on why the penultimate issue of DC’s Forgotten Realms comic series is a spoofy fourth-wall breaking story…

By 1991, DC knew that their licensing agreement for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons was nearing its end. TSR, the company that owned AD&D, decided to produce their own comics. This ended the ongoing comics quite abruptly, giving the creative teams a short window to wrap up their ongoing stories. I think both Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and Forgotten Realms had their stories ready to print when they received the notice that the arcs they were working on would be their last. That likely necessitated the insertion of a quick one-shot to make sure the current story arcs ended with the license’s expiration.

Why do I think this? Because both titles had a single-issue fill-in ahead of their final stories. AD&D has “Summer in the City,” which could at least use the familiar setting of Selûne’s Smile for its one-off. But the Forgotten Realms comic was in no place to run a silly one-off when their heroes were still struggling with the aftermath of Labelas Enoreth destroying their ship. Thus, my theory goes, “Everybody Wants to Run the Realms” happened. We’ve had some fourth wall breaks in the past, such as with “Players,” but nothing that ever as explicitly meta-fiction as this.

Behind the Curtain

Of course, the biggest argument in favor of my theory is the fact that the first four panels of the story basically admit to it.

Vartan, acting as our tour guide, leads us into a call center where several familiar faces are working behind the scenes. A quick glance shows Luna, Mirt the Moneylender, Alias, and Lhaeo.

I’d normally get excited to see the return of old friends, but it’s hard to do so this time around. These aren’t the characters we’ve come to know and love, but the equivalent of actors during their off hours.

Vartan asks the assembled wizards about the secrets of magic. Khelben and Kyri dash off, while Dwalimor is evasive to the point of rudeness.

With the wizards offering no answers, Vartan turns to the fighters…

Lessons in Battle

Agrivar and Ishi are dueling, and even in a meta-tale like this it’s nice to see Agrivar back to his normal self.

Agrivar gets an advantage over Ishi when he smashes her wooden dueling sword, but the fighter turns the tables by giving a “lesson” in armor types. This ends with her knocking a suit of plate mail on top of Agrivar.

Ishi is also kind enough to give a geography lesson, showing off a map of Faerûn.

Ishi’s right–the Realms is a huge place, and the continent of Faerûn itself is comparable to or larger in size than Europe and Asia in our real world. Ishi comes from the far eastern portion of the continent, Kozakura. Dwalimor Omen comes from Halruaa in the south (but not as far south as Zakhara, the location of the Al-Qadim setting). Our crew’s adventures have taken them across a large portion of the western heartlands. They all met in Baldur’s Gate, then fought the Tarrasque near Shadowdale, and eventually met up with Agrivar’s half-sister in Waterdeep. The Realms Master was refitted in Ruathym before being destroyed, and the crew recently stumbled through the Anauroch Desert.

One of the things I miss from the 2nd edition Realms was how huge the setting was and how much loving detail went into every corner. The success of video games, especially the Baldur’s Gate series, led to an over-emphasis on the Sword Coast, and much of Faerûn has been sorely lacking in detail since the early 2000s.

The geography lesson continues, with Vartan giving a tidbit of lore as to why the setting is known as the Forgotten Realms.

The idea that the Realms could be reached through portals connecting to other worlds was an early conceit of the setting, but it got abandoned early on in its publication life. The Satanic Panic of the 1990s led TSR to downplay that lore, worried that kids might go looking for these other portals and get hurt or lost.

I had no such worries when I wrote Greystone Valley. While I didn’t take this idea from the Realms specifically, I obviously liked the notion of otherworldly portals enough to make it a focus in my own setting.

Chaos on the Set

After Vartan shows off and accidentally knocks a suit of armor onto Dwalimor, Foxy takes over and presents some slides about the many peoples of Faerûn.

The slides proceed in a straightforward manner, until…

A fight breaks out as the crew jumps into action to slay the attacking dragon. But we never get to see the ending of that battle…

With the mention of R&D, Vartan decides to take the tour there. He finds a very unhappy Minder listening to the writers and artists pitching new ideas for her.

Luckily for Minder, Vartan’s arrival leads the creative crew to decide that somebody else needs an overhaul…

Minder wonders aloud how they get their ideas. Vartan suggests that maybe they roll dice, to which Minder responds, “That’s a scary thought to be ruled by random chance.” Somebody failed her Intelligence check to notice dramatic irony…

And so our tale concludes with Vartan addressing the question of where this story fits into continuity (hint: it doesn’t).

With the last panel, Vartan turns the page (literally and metaphorically), bringing us to the closing panel of “Unreal Estate” where Agrivar walks away from his smashed mug.

Honestly, my only problem with this tale is its timing. It would have been a perfectly fine fill-in issue. Unfortunately, it was the penultimate comic in this series, making it seem a little extra superfluous. But that’s the nature of the industry, I suppose: you don’t always know when the ride is about to abruptly end.

_{Images: DC Comics}