New Year's Day was the release date of the latest installment in the StarCraft printed media series and, boy, what an installment it was! StarCraft: Ghost Academy Vol 1 is the most entertaining out of everything that Blizzard has put out on paper. For those of you who have read StarCraft: Ghost: Nova, you guys will be pleased to know that this starts to fill the gap of Nova's beginning of training to her graduation assignment quite nicely. The Ghost Academy, to be quite honest, is nothing like what I thought it would be. The institution itself is not that far off from what you would expect from a regular private school environment in that everyone goes to classes, eats in a cafeteria and stays in their own dorms. Students get into social feuds, rivalries, drug problems, and all sorts of stuff that normal high schoolers do. The twist, though, is that part of their curriculum is going through simulations of various team-based ghost assignments, weapons assembly, and hand-to-hand combat. It's a military institution to the core, but the environment for the students is a lot more casual and accommodating than I thought it would be. At the same time, the academy is in no short supply of it's secrets as well as controversial methods of psionic studies. It's difficult to describewithout spoiling it, but I was engrossed from beginning to end and can't wait for August to come around so I can have more.
In terms of how fan-friendly it is and the range of devotion in the fans that it appeals to, it's pretty well-rounded. More casual StarCraft lore fans can pick it up and enjoy it, but it will also cater to the more hard-core fans, as there are a lot of references to other stories (namely StarCraft: Ghost: Nova and the Frontline series). It's also a relatively quick read (took me about an hour to an hour and a half) with a ton of great artwork, dialogue, and characters. The only thing that might drive potential readers away is the $10.99 damage. In my opinion, worth every penny, but that's coming from me.
I won't provide any spoilers for this review because it really is something that must be experienced for yourself to truly appreciate it. One thing, however, that may draw some fans in is that Gabriel Tosh, the mysterious ghost weapons dealer that joins Raynor's crew in StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty is actually one of Nova's teammates in the academy and is a Dominion supporter. The road that Tosh takes to lead him to his violent hate for Mengsk and the empire he leads will be an interesting development to see as it unfolds as the series progresses.
The last issue of the StarCraft comic series comes out January 20, so I will be sure to update you guys on how the series ends as well as if it looks like tere is room for them to pick up the story in the coming graphic novels that WildStorm claims to be transitioning to. After that, we are looking at an April 6 release date of StarCraft 2: Heaven's Devils, which will be portraying Jim Raynor during his service in the Confederate Armed Forces during the Guild Wars as well as how he met Tychus Findlay and the Heaven's Devils formed. The next day, the compilation of the comic ceries (all seven issues) comes out for anyone interested in reading the whole series in one nice package. So it's gonna be a while, but the future of StarCraft printed media is looking bright.
Thanks for reading!
