Issues 1 - 6
Mat Groom, illustrations by Eudardo Ferigato and Marcelo Costa
Image Comics
Fiction, YA? Graphic Novel/Sci-Fi
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: After one thousand years of exile, an ancient enemy ravages the peaceful kingdom of Arcadia. Amala fought with the city guard to defend her people... but the city fell, and she alone was left alive when a brave (if arrogant) warrior Brycemere arrived to defeat the enemy once and for all.
Or so he claimed.
On the brink of victory, she realizes he is not who he claims to be. She turns her blade against him - with consequences she cannot imagine.
Because Amala was just supposed to be a minor non-player character in a virtual game. She was never supposed to ask questions... and she was never supposed to escape into the world that created her.
REVIEW: It looked like an interesting concept (if one that has been done a time or two before), blurring the lines between games and reality and questioning the nature and purpose of life itself. Amala is at first confused, then frustrated and angered when she meets her creator, Rebecca, an obsessive computer engineer who didn't bother thinking through the consequences of her project. Bryce, a quality tester for the gaming company behind Arcadia, starts and remains a fairly flat villain whose main motivation appears to be rampant misogyny - as flat as Rebecca turns out to be. Indeed, despite the promise, the story deflates by the end into an inquiry about the nature of reality, the importance of free will, and the futility of seeking a definitive meaning to life from external sources. (I get very, very tired of Meaning of the Universe messages...) It ends a little unsure of itself, as though part of it wants to finish in one volume and another wants to set up sequels. While not a terrible story, and with some nice ideas and visuals, I just didn't feel Self / Made lived up to its potential.
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