Comic Review 127 // Macragge's Honour by Dan Abnett

Normally Saturdays are my Audiobook adventure days, unfortunately, this week I failed to finish anything. Work has been ramping up and with that no real quality listening time. But I managed to read an additional comic this week so I am going to post about that instead.

Originally published in 2014 and was 128 pages long, this is the first Horus Heresy Graphic Novel I believe. Let us read the commercial fluff and get into the review.

In the aftermath of the Word Bearers’ attack on Calth, the wounded Kor Phaeron flees aboard his battle-barge Infidus Imperator, intent on returning to the war that now rages across the entire galaxy. But the Ultramarines First Chapter Master Marius Gage – under orders from Roboute Guilliman himself – has taken the mighty flagship Macragge’s Honour in pursuit, and the battle to come will surely be remembered for all eternity. Cut off from their Legions and with no hope of reinforcement, the crews of the two vessels stalk one another to the very edge of reality... and beyond.

Let's get the obvious out of the way first. This is a follow-up short story to Know No Fear by Dan Abnett. For those who may not have read the full story, the book has three lines that sparked the imagination.

"The Word Bearers battle-barge Infidus Imperator turns in the debris-rich belt of Calth nearspace, ships dying in flames behind it. It engages its drive and begins a long, hard burn towards the outsystem reaches.

As it accelerates away, raising yield to maximum, the Macragge's Honour turns in pursuit, its main drives lighting with an equally furious vigour.

It is the beginning of one of the most infamous naval duels in Imperial history."

Well, from this Black Library decided to create it in a graphic novel format which was a strange choice, to be honest. The book handles the initial chase between the ships, the boarding action, daemons, cultists and the classic heroic moments. Which is a lot of action to cover in such a short comic.

Unsurprisingly Abnett creates a solid script for Neil Roberts to bring to life. I feel the story would have been more epic if it was written rather than drawn but that is the only real fault I have with the piece. Roberts' artwork is packed full of detail and every page is a stunning piece of artwork. I later found out that each panel is hand-painted! I can only imagine how much work this took to complete. The ships looked stunning, the marines looked like the cover art of the novels and large battles looked chaotic and awesome.

Overall I feel this was a solid 4 out of 5. A hard story to portray in comic format but this was a good attempt. I can assume that the lack of more graphic novels must mean this fell on its face in popularity, as they haven't made any other tales into graphic novels.

As always thanks for coming over and reading my ramble.

Cheers for checking and feel free to sign up to get notifications and use any of these links to support me.

Get the Book: Amazon Link - A pricey title these days.

Instagram: Adventures with Peps

Youtube: Adventures with Peps

Ko-fi: Adventures with Peps