Shades of Magic #3: The Steel Prince (Shades of Magic - The Steel Prince)

Ah, even though the comics didn't quite convince me, I'm still sad that it's over >-< In this volume, too, I found the story's basic idea exciting and great, but again the pacing was much too fast for me ... Everything seems so superficial to me and that somehow takes the fun out of the story.

With the last installment of my favorite author's comic series, I finally completed the collection! This last arc about Maxim's legend as the Steel Prince is about the army of pirates that mercilessly attacks the port cities at the aptly named blood coast. They want to become independent from the monarchy, so of course Maxim has to stop them. An old enemy of his is on their side, though, and their fight is as inevitable as impossible to win. I have to admit that by the time I read this comic, I was already not really that interested in the story anymore. It's been too long since I read the previous installments, let alone the main books. I couldn't really say anything about any character development and I'm not sure if I understood the ending properly. Furthermore, the art style isn't my favorite and it's made it hard for me to recognize the main characters. It wasn't too big of a problem, though, because the dialogue and context helped me out a lot when I was puzzling over who is who and what are they doing. In the end, the four chapters present a gripping story. I also understand that my expectations of a big strategy for the finale were a bit too high considering the page count. The depiction of magic and generally seeing Red London in all its colors is still wonderful! I do recommend this comic series for fans of the Darker Shade of Magic-trilogy, but maybe not for people who are new to this world.