The Last Barbarians #1 // Review
Sylv seems like a nice person. She’s dealing with a lot. A few pages in, she gets picked up by a hostile giant. It’s okay, though: it’s way too early in the story for her to drop dead. (She says as much in the narration.) Sylv lives in the dark fantasy world of The Last Barbarians. Writer Hannah Wall and writer/artist Brian Haberlin delve into a whole new realm with the aid of colorist Geirrod Van Dyke. The dingy fantasy realm holds quite a bit of potential and appeal as Haberlin and company begin to establish things in the first issue.
The story opens with a decree by Guild Maestro Janna the Stalwart. Evidently, anyone attempting to focus on more than one skill is to be considered offensive to the fabric of the realm. In other words: a barbarian. Sylv is such an individual. As the story opens, she’s looking to hand over a stolen statue to a very shadowy type of guild. Things don’t go her way, so she needs to clear her head. To this end, she finds herself imperiled in an area populated by giants. It’s okay: she knows how to talk to a giant. She is, after all, a barbarian.
Wall and Haberlin set up quite a challenge for themselves relatively early on in the series. Sylv seems like a really cool person and all, but rather than jumping right into the fantasy, they place her in the company of a dull giant...right before sending her off to look for work in multiple different guilds. A job hunt in a world of fantasy is...a bit like a job hunt anywhere else. Sylv isn’t given some big quest to go on. She’s just looking for work. Wall and Haberlin do an excellent job of making even THAT seem interesting, though. It makes the adventure that much more appealing when it finally DOES begin to reveal itself towards the end of the issue.
In the past, Haberlin has put his art in the service of some pretty weird and idiosyncratic fantasy worlds. It’s a pleasant contrast to see Haberlin’s distinct style of digital comics art applied to a much more generic sort of sword-and-sorcery fantasy world. The bleakness of what he’s presenting for the opening issue is suggestive enough of greater magic. Haberlin could easily open up the visuals to something far more breathtaking than a sluggish, dim-witted giant and a flock of flying whales. The first issue DOES, however, firmly establish Sylv as a charmingly powerful personality with a fascinating face, which serves as a solidly appealing grounding for the series to come.
In limiting the story to the more traditional trappings of standard sword-and-sorcery fantasy, Haberlin and Wall are developing something much slicker and more approachable than Haberlin’s less traditional fantasy work, like The Marked and Sonata. The idiosyncratic worlds of Marked and Sonata required a far more layered approach to storytelling than Haberlin had managed. By grounding The Last Barbarians in a more traditional fantasy world, Haberlin dives right into the type of story that he’s been trying to tell for quite some time.
