 Welcome back to another installment of a week in Geekdom here on YouTube and today we're talking Joe Madureta's Battle Chasers Anthology. Let's do this. Welcome back to the channel everybody and finally I'm talking Battle Chasers, one of the coolest series from the late 90s in comic book history. Joe Mad's Baby if you will, it originally started in 1998 if I remember correctly over at Wildstorm and then DC Comics and now Image Comics. They published this trade paperback anthology last year if I remember correctly, 2019, collecting all of the issues, the first nine issues as well as the Battle Chasers Prelude and the Battle Chasers portion of the Frank Fazzetta fantasy illustrated issue number two. So if you don't know what Battle Chasers is all about, it is Joe Madureta's self-published story involving a group of heroes in this arcane punk setting in this alternate world. In a nutshell, the story begins with the character of Gully, this nine year old who is living with a nanny and she happens to be the daughter of this very famous warrior, this mythical hero called Aramis and she is the target of the evildoers who turn out to be werewolves in disguise that are after a sacred magical item hidden in the house. Aramis has gone missing for many years and nobody knows what happened, people presume he's dead and the character of Gully is just wishing that her father would come back to her. So after a couple of hijinks with these werewolves and basically the destruction of that household Gully escapes and is found by one of the protagonists from the story, Calibredo, a war golem who has been outlawed because of how dangerous golems can be and Nolan, a powerful wizard who has been around for more than 500 years or something like that. The story then continues onward and we find out about new characters like Garrison who is obviously clearly inspired by the lone wolf big sword wielder trope from anime and manga or characters like Guts and Berserk. Garrison is this troubled ex-hero who is living sort of wasting his life away after losing his wife and growing more and more tired and disillusioned with the world so he's a recluse and sort of a hermit. So he comes back into action after being called by the voluptuous bounty hunter slash pirate called Rhett Monica, she enlists him to help in a prison breakout but he refuses and that's sort of where the story starts off. Joe is crafting this world that at first when I started reading it way back in the day I read like the first two issues when those came out back in the late 90s and I never read it again. So this was my first time reading all the available material because unfortunately the story is not done and I found it pretty interesting pretty cool obviously the art is the main selling point here because it is an unfinished work. But when I started reading this I immediately noticed that the world building could use a little bit more work there's a lot of concepts thrown around but you don't really feel the connectivity between everything it's just story break after story break and you're just introducing things at a rapid pace and not taking your time to connect everything back. Also the dialogue at the beginning can be super clunky and kind of cheesy but in a good cheesy kind of way that I didn't mind some of the characters the way they're expressing things especially Gully and the phrases that she uses and all that stuff just seem a little bit a little outdated let's just say that much. But overall this is a very fun and kickass looking book. I love Battle Chasers art Joe Madureta you know Joe Mad he is legendary his usage of art by mixing clear influences from anime and manga with of course traditional western comic books is a fascinating thing to look at and the book just explodes with just fantastic visuals great character designs dynamic action and just great facial expressions and the symmetry between these characters doing their thing and the action and all that stuff it's a perfect blend of the two mediums clashing in the mind of a single writer artist which is fantastic. It also helps that the colors are so lush vibrant and beautiful to look at image did a fantastic job of assembling the the book where everything just looks fantastic beautiful and rich with detail and it makes you want to continue reading the story but it will also frustrate you because the series ends kind of abruptly because only nine issues were published. We do have unpublished work or unpublished material for issue 10 and then now there is the video game that came out like two or three years ago so the series is going to be forever in a limbo unfortunately but for you Joe Mad fans out there if you've never read Battle Chasers I do recommend it just on an artistic piece alone and how beautiful everything looks and how action packed the monster designs are fantastic colors on this book are fascinating you get different settings and you're able to have colorists really do awesome things I mean look at this look at that monster right there that is awesome and Garrison's reaction right there just a fantastic overall excellent book the stories a little bit janky you know you don't really have a conclusion and just when things are starting to coalesce it ends with issue nine and then we are treated with this issue which is sort of the what was it that I called it the portion of the Frazetta fantasy illustrated which was basically to highlight different works of fantasy in comics fiction and it's a very rough transition if you don't know what you're reading you're literally going to read an issue at the end where ominous things are being set up and characters are still running around the kingdom if you will and then the next issue you see a huge team-up of most of the main characters four out of five that doesn't happen in the actual storyline so you're jumping ahead and then after you read that you're followed by a prelude which sort of explores the history a little bit of the history between Red Monica and Garrison and when that ends you're just left with a big question mark like okay what's gonna happen next it just so happens that the video game is sort of a new starting point for new fans but it also counts as a sequel to the book and even in that game the team has formed we don't see that here so that those plot holes in battle chasers are the thing that annoys me the most I'm fine with them continuing the story in video games I don't mind that at all but leaving me like this just frustrated the heck out of me reading this the art is fantastic the characters are for the most part kind of trope heavy but still fun to read you get some really cool Joe Matt art and you definitely get to see the evolution from 1998 to the last issue which I think was 2001 2002 for example I'm gonna show you a panel here at the beginning let's see here's some facial features and characters you see the art right there there we go and then take a look at one of the final issues of the book where the colors are much more muted and the facial expressions are well defined compared to the beginning of the story yeah you just see a really nice transition of an artist from great to even greater in my opinion I love how pop-ish and fun this art is the story itself like I said you're just basically getting introduced to this fantastic world of characters and just when it's getting good it ends unfortunately so yeah should you get this if you want a cool introduction to a new world of characters and you don't mind the cliffhanger ending then I don't know if it'll ever get resolved go ahead and get it or maybe jump into the video game and if you like that you can sort of see this as the prequel half story what I would try and do in the future if I were them I would like to at least finish out what is being set up here because there are a lot of elements that are pretty interesting at the beginning of the story and like I mentioned Aramis has gone missing so there's that mystery and then there is the evil threat of this world of the character called August and how he is shaping up to destroy this world and all that stuff and take revenge so you have unlikely heroes rising up to the challenge you have dubious kings trying to do their best to protect the world and save their own hide for example we have the character of garrison suffering some PTSD type of conflicts you also have the character of Calibredo the war golem even though he's a golem he's learning about life through the character of gully you see gully's progression from a shy young girl to a fierce possible combatant as she gets the gauntlets and gives her sort of super strength and all that stuff so that's great the character of Nolan and his wizardry he's a little kooky and kind of cliched but I really enjoyed watching his thing he sort of reminded me of Netero from hunter x hunter sort of like an all-powerful character but you see the goofiness and all that stuff so I really appreciated that obviously I have to talk about it red Monica she's drawn a little bit exaggerated in some areas which was hilarious but hey it's a product of its time being a 90s creation but still she's a fun vivacious character that I know a lot of people do like so it's interesting to see her and the prelude issues actually give context and backstory of her formation as a thief and sort of this scoundrel of the skies I do believe they refer to her as a Jessica rabbit of the battle chaser's world so that's good I guess it's it's fun at least for these special features all that's right here are special features which include issue 10 art from the unfinished comic or issue you can see some detailed work right there and there we go looking pretty awesome and then we have sketches and character work and a lot of pinups and illustrations that you can see right here and cover galleries as well as variants from other artists just really awesome stuff I mean just for the art alone you guys got to grab this this is a really fun book to have so yeah even though the story is not finished I do recommend it and I do think you guys are going to enjoy battle chaser's for what it is think of it as that prequel to that video game that came out I haven't played the video game so I'm excited now to go and check it out and see if how the story matches up with what I've read here if there are more connective tissues between the two because I do know that it's sort of a loose sequel of sorts where you don't really have to read the book or know about it to enjoy that game and it sort of just jumps forward into the future so I'm interested in seeing how that plays out but yeah that is sort of my overview slash mini review on the battle chaser's anthology I wish it could have been a hardcover to be honest oversized hardcover image likes doing that I I do know there was posters and stuff that was taken out which is unfortunate I would have loved to have seen that especially if it would have been oversized but it is what it is and at the price point of what was this 2499 I think it's worth it battle chaser's anthology let me know in the comment section what you thought of the story I thought it was pretty interesting mostly trope heavy with some fantasy elements I do like the arcane punkish thing mixing magic with steampunk elements and you know sort of that dark fantasy element of course it borrows heavily from other works in comics and in anime and manga but that's not necessarily a bad thing I liked it the characters are expressive colorful and interesting enough that you care about them and you might be a little frustrated when you reach the end of the book because you don't really get a solid conclusion as to why these characters are suddenly destined to meet up and form a team as you see them in the Frazetta illustrated preview so with that said thank you everybody for tuning in thank you for liking commenting subscribing and being a part of a weekend geek them it truly does mean a whole lot follow me on social media Facebook Twitter Instagram all that fun stuff there's also a merch stored link down below if you want to check that out and help out the channel and that's about it guys thank you so much I will catch all of you on our next episode