A brief intro to Skullkickers if you never read the title, it’s an odd fantasy comic that will leave your head scratching. Ok I admit it’s a guilty pleasure to read this title off and on. Time to pick up a new arc and adventure. I only ask myself if this will be a great chapter or fall short. Snow and lots of it as we find our many heroes buried in it. Also with the snow is lots of blame. With the blame there are a lot of alternate heroes with the exception of our Elvish friend Kusia. As our heroes figure out what’s going on they have no real-time because they are attacked by Dwarven snow swimmers. They are small, quick and deadly in the snow. Really they look like tiny masons to me. After defending many off the band has to retreat. They fall off a cliff using the dwarves to cushion the fall. Dead Rolf on the other hand doesn’t stand a chance and is captured.

Dead Rolf is brought to the Dwarven king. Here, his fate will be decided. He is asked who he is and he exclaims he is Rolf Copperhead. The air leaves the room. This cannot be…

The heart of this story really is the set up; the beginning where everyone is named so nobody gets lost on who is who. There are a lot of doppelgängers to remember. But mainly this is a set up to the new arc; it’s not bad, but it doesn’t stand out either. It’s full of action and one-liners describing the action which is a signature of the series. This first issue of the arc is one of those gems that you can skim through and in the action you can feel the story already. The art does detail the action well and tell the story well. It’s the one thing of this title that has been a strong point.

This is a great starting point in this series because it’s a new arc. But it’s middle of the road reading. It is a niche title and like I said a guilty pleasure that I like to read here and there.

Score: 3/5

Writer: Jim Zub Artist: Edwin Huang Publisher: Image Comics Price: $3.50 Release Date: 3/26/14