By Cat Wyatt

Sword of Ages is from the artist and co-creator of Lock & Key, a series I’m sure many of you are familiar with. There’s quite a bit of setup for this series, and I’ll admit a lot of it felt particularly rushed in the beginning. Avalon’s (the main character) is quickly spanned from being an infant to a teenager (or older, hard to say) in the span of a few pages. It’s clear that Gabriel Rodriguez (the author) was looking forward to getting too specific points in the series, and we’re just not there yet.

Everything starts off with a prelude; a man and his pregnant wife, along with their young child are flying in a spaceship towards a new planet. Upon reaching their destination, they hop into the escape pod and set the ship to self-destruct (I’m assuming to ensure they truly can’t back out of this decision? Or they’re being followed or something). It’s a bit odd, no matter how you look at it.

The perspective suddenly jumps to that of a giant saber tooth tiger (or at least that is what she looks like). Her family saw the ship blow up, but being giant cats, they thought it was a star bursting instead. Shortly after they found a naked little girl and took her as one of their own (anybody else thinking of Mowgli here?).

The saber tooth cats are the children of the Mountain Forests, and they were all pleased with how quickly little Avalon bonded with them and began to learn their ways. Their one disappointment is how interested she is in the other humans; for one season each year she goes away with the humans, only to come back reeking of them and acting slightly more different than before, slightly more human.

Naturally Avalon sees her time with the humans different; she is trying to do what’s right, and in her mind that includes teaching the humans more about their ways. She doesn’t explain how she hopes to teach the others this of course, but that’s what she believes.

Just as quickly as Avalon joined the Children of the Mountain Forests (in our perspective at least), she’s off to be with the humans for an indeterminate amount of time (to teach them, presumably). This felt a little abrupt for me; we’re clearly supposed to appreciate Avalon’s different upbringing, yet we’re barely shown it or her family. It left me feeling rushed, which resulted in me enjoying the story a bit less I think. From here I found myself a bit less invested in the characters (how can I anticipate which ones will stay and which ones will go?).

Avalon does end up meeting up with a group of guys, and while I am assuming they become a longer term thing, I actually can’t say that for certain (if I’m being honest I had sincerely thought we would have seen more of her family, and the saber tooth cats, especially based on the cover). The group is pretty ranged, with Trystan (a long swordsman), Lancer Benveek (Champion of the Riverlands), Gawyn (love the name, also explorer and sword for hire), and of course there’s Avalon. Her title is a worthy rival to Daenerys Targaryen’s, and would easy take a paragraph or two had I the patience to type it out (fun fact: I don’t).

This series reminds me a lot of Arthurian legends, between the names (obviously) and the setup, it’s easy to see why I feel that way. The art style is on the rougher side, and avoids details where it can, but it really gives the series a more rugged and earthy feel to it, so it works.

Score: 3/5

Sword of Ages #1
IDW Publishing