Welcome to Michael Moorcock’s Multiverse coming to Boom! Studios in Elric: The Balance Lost; another iteration of Elric in comic form. Most people don’t know a lot about Elric so this would be a great start to check out this illustrious character. Being a big fan of Chris Roberson, this series is in excellent hands and worth a look. The first images of the comic are of Elric traveling in the shadows, explaining his history to the reader. The story of how he is Elric of Melnibone, Last Emperor of a Dead Empire and as emperor he travels the Multiverse crossing moonbeam roads that connect the different worlds together with his sword Stormbringer to preserve the cosmic balance between Chaos and Law. You get dropped into a new world surrounded by chaos. The chaos comes to life with the artistry of Francesco Biagini with multitudes of monsters and demons coming Elric’s way.
We now see game developer Eric Beck, whose dreams of his character, Elric, seem to blur the fine line between dream and reality. At first glace this story does seem uninteresting but I found myself liking Beck and curious as to his link with this character. Roberson makes the character likable and easy to relate to. It’s also nice to see Biagini create this amazing out-of-this-world sequence and then next make any other scene look just as fantastic!
When you see Eric’s seething anger at seeing Garrison Law on the screen it shows you further glimpses into Beck. The glimpses into other worlds pop up through the story organically as you are introduced to Dorian Hawkmoon Elric’s Multiverse version of Garrison Law. Hawkmoon is the Duke of Koln,who has retired to being a quiet family man after liberating Londra, defeating the Beast Lord of Granbretan and getting rid of the black jewel that had been put into his forehead by his enemies, as you see from his appearance in the comic his retirement is going to be at an end. It’s fascinating to see Eric walk through his world trying to figure out what’s real and what’s just fantasy making for an interesting point of view which explores different aspects of the Multiverse to the reader. The Dark Ship’s appearance in Eric’s world introduces Corum and further illustrates the link that the Multiverse characters have with Eric Beck and the world he lives in.
Roberson had a lot of great ideas in this story and he manages to make this an accessible first issue and giving you glimpses into each of the characters is pretty impressive. The thing about this issue is at every iteration of the characters of Elric’s Multiverse you see they all hit one dramatic end point. Making you wonder as the reader how in the world each of these characters is going to get out of their situation they’re left in. When you see how this issue ends you’re going to be wondering just what next month is going to hold for this series.
This title will surprise many due to the fact that, although it introduces an overwhelming amount of information to the reader for a first issue it still remains easy for anyone either new to the Elric character and stories or an old fan of the series. Whatever the case may be Chris Roberson and Francesco Biagini have done a wonderful job combining all the different aspects of the story. As a treat, Neil Gaiman shares his thoughts on the character and how Michael Moorcock’s Elric stories influenced his writing in a special afterword which further proves how great this book is. This comic is definitely a fine read and I’d highly recommend picking it up for yourself.
