A month has come and gone, and it is time now for the second issue of Dynamite Entertainment's crossover comic Pathfinder: Worldscape. In this issue we see Seoni, iconic Pathfinder sorcerer, being brought to the Battleworld…um…Worldscape.
This issue doesn't see as much action as in the first issue and, unfortunately, the Red Sonja fight with Valeros is as yet unresolved. This issue has a lot of exposition, filling in the readers, and Seoni, on the story of Worldscape. It is revealed that "legendary warriors" of three worlds: Earth, Barsoom and Golarion have been brought to the Worldscape for a number of years. Thun'da, one of the members of the council of Jungle Lords, mentions that he has been on the world for seventy years, even encountering other versions of himself.
Seoni also encounters Fantomah, one of the creations of Golden Age comics iconoclast Fletcher Hanks, who has been upgraded from a jungle queen to a jungle goddess in this comic. Fantomah obligingly fills Seoni in on the power structure of the Worldscape. She tells Seoni that the ultimate prizes of this world are The Scepter and The Crown.
Thun'da tells Seoni that Camilla, the queen from the last issue is working with Kulan Gath, and that he and Tars Tarkas are on a scouting mission to find out about a new ally of Camilla's. After some more exposition and an unsettling fight with a school bus filled with undead school kids, Seoni puts together that the creator, or discoverer, of the Worldscape is the Archmage Nex, from Golarion's past. Will we see more of this character?
For me, this issue dragged a little bit. There was a lot of talk, and not as much action as we had in the first issue of the miniseries. There is a lot to explain about the world, and why people are here, but I think that the exposition was handled a lot better in the first issue.
We are getting a better idea of the world of the Worldscape. We know that this has all been going on for a very long time. Thun'da has been on the world for seventy years, and has knowledge of Golarion, which likely means that he has encountered other adventurers from that world during his time on the Worldscape. There is obviously something that is preserving people on the Worldscape, because Thun'da is still healthy and fit, and looks to be in his thirties. There is also something to the Worldscape that allows the people from all of these different worlds and time periods to be able to communicate with each other. Either that or everyone in comics speaks Common.
There are also apparently no magic using people who have come over from Earth, because Thun'da identifies Seoni as being from Golarion because of the fact that she uses magic.
Whatever power that Nex tapped into to bring these people to the Worldscape is powerful if it has trapped a self-proclaimed goddess like Fantomah. Regardless of her status as a goddess, her powers are very formidable, probably even more so than the aforementioned Kulan Gath. It would take powerful magic to draw these two to the Worldscape and keep them prisoners. Does this make the Worldscape the "Refuge" into which Nex is known to have disappeared?
The issue ends with the reveal of Camilla's other ally, a King from Golarion who is assembling an army with the intent of conquering the three worlds linked to the Worldscape. However, he isn't assembling this army for Camilla, but for another villain of the story.
Is it worth continuing the story and picking up this issue of Pathfinder: Worldscape? I am going to give a qualified "yes" to answer that. There is some good stuff in the issue, but it is buried in pages worth of dialog that, at times, felt like a DM reading from the boxed text in a module. It was a pain, but then infodumps usually are.
The art in this book has, so far, been some of the best that I have seen in a Dynamite Entertainment comic, a company that is notorious for sub-par art. The Pathfinder characters are reminiscent of Wayne Reynolds' Pathfinder art, and I thought that the Thun'da art was a callback to the Jae Lee cover art for the character's comics of a few years ago.
For me, even with the flaws of the story, the greatest strength is in getting to see all of these characters interacting with each other. Getting to see characters like Red Sonja and Fantomah in the same world as the iconics from Pathfinder is one of those things that comics fans live for. My only real complaint about the cross over is that we are two issues in and we still have yet to see Tarzan or John Carter appear. Come on! Don't leave us hanging like this. But regardless of that, this is a fun comic to read, and one that I think will appeal to comics fans and gamers alike.
Will we see the rest of the fight with Red Sonja and Valeros? Maybe we will find out in next month's third issue of Pathfinder: Worldscape.
And, again, the review materials did not contain the Pathfinder bonus material, so I will update this article once I get a hold of a physical copy of the book.
Update: So, the Pathfinder content in this issue are two-fold. First is the encounter map (which can be linked to the encounter map from the previous issue), with an encounter based around the schoolbus scene in this issue. The second is a racial write-up for Green Martians. Ironically, the first write-up for the Green Martians in an RPG comes before the licensed John Carter RPG.
This is a pretty potent character race for your Pathfinder games, and the write-up suggests an APL adjustment of +2 to low level groups with a Green Martian character in it. There is also a set of Martian firearms that are stated out for the Pathfinder rules. The write-up also mentions an upcoming warlord fighter archetype (Warlords of Mars!) in another issue. I'm guessing that might be when we see the stats for John Carter.
