Dragonlance Comics (Issue 5) - Raistlin's Pawn

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Night Flight

DC/Dragonlance comic, issue 5The story starts off with a Qualinesti elf trying to tame a griffon. Afterward he follows a group of silver dragons heading for the city of Palathas. Before making it to the city, the elf is magically grabbed off the griffon and brought down in the forrest outside the city.

There he encounters a mysterious gold skinned black robed mage who seems to know a lot about Kalthanan. In addition to his name, the mage also knows that the elf is an outcast, or dark elf, from Qualanesti society. The mage also uses magic to hide his "own dark thoughts" within the anger that Kalathan feels toward the elven society that exiled him. Afterward, the mage has no memory of what happened and warns the elf to never "cross the path of Raislin Majere again". As the mage walks away, Kalthan lies in pain as he hears a voice in his head saying, "follow him".

Sometime later (probably the next day), Gnatch, a gnome, is unvieling a device for Lord Amothus (the ruler of Palanthas). The device malfunctions soaking the lord of the city as well as Flint and Tasselhoff, who are also in the city. Kalthanan arrives on the scene and quickly disables the device. Lord Amothus invites Kalthanan to a feast that evening.

At the feast, Kalthanan runs into Laurana and is surprised to see her dressed as a warrior. Just then, Kalthanas hears a voice compelling the elf to "follow him! The time has come!" Kalthanan races out of the castle, even killing a guard who gets in his way.

Once outside, Kalthanan rides away on a horse, but not before Gnatch joins the elf. As they exit the city, Kalthanan has no idea what he had just done.

Commentary

Prior to this issue, I had no idea that the Dragonlance comic was going to be an anthology. Unlike the first issues, the cover here clearly stated that this will be a four part tale. Since Riva Silvercrown doesn't appear at all in the issue, it seemed like each story would have all new characters. Also, based on the appearance of Laurana, Flint, and Tas in the city of Palanthus (and Raistlin in black robes), this issue takes place around the time of the third Chronicles novel, Dragons of Spring Dawning, unlike the first issues which occur before and during the early part of Dragons of Autumn Twilight.

I really liked the art in this issue. There is a lot of detail in all the characters, from Flint, Tas, and Laurana, to Kalathanan and even Lord Amothus. There's also great detail in panel backgrounds, from the halls of Amothus's palace, to the forests around Palanthas. There's even one scene where you can see Flint and Tas fighting with each other in the backgrounds if you look closely enough.

Plot-wise I didn't like the issue since I didn't like Kalathanan right away. At first he just seems like someone out to make a quick coin, but only after his meeting with Laurana (half way through the issue) does my opinion start to change. I also didn't like Gnatch jumping on Kalathan's hourse at the end of the issue. It seemed like a clumsy way to get the two together for the next issue.

Nitpick: In one scene Kalathan talks about taking people's gold, but he should have said steel, since that's the standard currency on Krynn at the time.

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