Macragge's Honour: Review

A few months ago Games Workshop made its first proper graphic novel debut with a title called “Maccrages Honour”. Thus as a comic and 40k fan I was pretty ecstatic. The creative team consisted of British duo Abnett and Roberts. The story is written by Dan Abnett who some of you may recognize from his work on Marvel, DC and Wildstorm titles and was illustrated by the talented Neil Roberts who is known for his cover art on a lot of Black Library books and work on the covers of British series “2000 AD”. The story is of course based in the Warhammer 40k-verse known for its dark, horrific and outright brutal setting. It revolves around the aftermath of the Battle Of Calth. The Space Marines of the traitorous Word Bearers legion led by Kor Phaeron flee from Calth after being repelled by the defending Ultramarines chapter. Not wanting to let the Word Bearers escape without retribution chapter master Marius Gage takes command of the Ultramarine’s flagship Macragge’s Honour and gives chase to the traitors he once called brother leading to an all-out battle that stretched across the warp between the two vessels.

The Good:

This graphic novel as I said before is written by Dan Abnett who is without a doubt one of the most well known writers of 40k literature. He knows this universe and its characters inside out and it really shines through in this. These are the cold, zealous and brutal Space Marine’s that we should be seeing in every form of 40k literature. Their interactions and mind-set is exactly as the superhuman soldiers of the Imperium are portrayed in the books. Abnett really knocked it out of the park with this.

Next up is Neil Roberts who makes his first interior art debut. While known for his incredible cover art Roberts has never illustrated a full blown comic and this graphic novel begs the question “Why the hell not?”. The guy’s art is incredible and the vivid yet dark style fits perfectly with 40k. It does however make me wonder how Roberts who has been doing cover art for years has never actually made it to mainstream comics because this book was the perfect example of why he should! Take a look at these interiors for heaven’s sake:

All in all as a 40k fan there was not much to dislike about this.

The Bad:

Now onto the bad. As a 40k and comic fan I was jumping up and down with joy when the two mediums collided. However as much as I enjoyed this book Games Workshop really didn’t give a damn about making this new reader friendly.

I mean not at all. This graphic novel is completely dependent on you knowing exactly who and what you are looking at and is more of a sequel Arc for the Horus Heresy novel “Know No Fear” than a standalone novel. If you have never encountered 40k before you will be left lost by this book. This was blatantly focused on long standing fans of the franchise and while that appealed to me a great deal it is a severe deterrence to someone who isn’t familiar with the 40k-verse especially the Horus Heresy.

The Verdict:

All in all this is a very beautiful and dynamic book but unless you’re a fan of 40k you won’t know what you are looking at.

@jonny_anonymous@chaos_prime@granitesoldier@shadowswordmaster thought you guys might be interested :)

@strider92: So one for the fans then, that;s cool. Dat art doe!

@strider92: Man you are so lucky for getting this book.I wanted to get this so bad but each time I try to get it , it always sells out .Neil Roberts is a beast when it comes to the art for the Horus Heresy covers.

@shadowswordmaster: Yep. Apparently there's going to be a much cheaper second printing at some point. They haven't confirmed a date though. Luckily some friends of mine were into 40k too and as we were all horrified by the price of the book we split the price between us so it wasn't so bad. Still Black Library should have released a digital edition of this.......

@strider92: They should because I know I would buy his in a heart beat. I wonder what is your overall impression what they are doing to the Horus Heresy ?because they have the stuff with forge world which I hear is fantastic .

@shadowswordmaster: I honestly haven't kept up with the more recent Heresy books. I really should catch up lol. When I last left it I was enjoying the direction it was going in however I would like to see Black Library focus on another 40k event at some point like maybe "The War In Heaven" between the Old Ones and Necrotyr.

On the plus side apparently BL are going to branch off into more graphic novels due to the success of this limited printing mean we could see more Robert's interiors. I'm keeping my fingers cross for Kai Lim to get in on the art action too. Love that guys 40k art.

@strider92: Yeah Kai Lim does amazing stuff .

That is the exact one that I was thinking of if they decided to due another 40k event I mean there not a lot of information other then what was in the Eldar and Necron codex.

Where did you hear this at ? I heard some people on some podcast that o listen to about that but never a clear source.

I must get this. Immediately.

@granitesoldier: its selling on eBay for stupid amounts of money atm -.-

@shadowswordmaster: It was prior to the release of Mcragge's Honour. They said if it was a success they would most likely do it again and as Mcragge's Honour completely sold out in under 19days I think that would be considered a success.