If the comic had been written with that as a deliberate framing device, I’d actually get along with it much better. It’s not, though, and so it comes across as “as soon as Scanlan shows up, he TAKES OVER EVERYTHING.”
In general, I think it’s more indicative of Matt Coville defaulting to his usual thing, i.e. talking a lot (see also his YouTube channel). The result is that he’s got pages on pages of giant clumps of text delivered by talking heads,* which is not a great way to write a comic and not really fair to the artist. To be blunt about what should be obvious: comics are a visual medium. He needs to edit himself down on occasion, let the art do a lot more of the heavy lifting, and think harder about how to elevate the characters who aren’t the big talkers (I’m especially thinking about Grog here), because as it is they’re getting lost in favor of the characters who match his preferred style.
(*Related: I was actually glad to see a comment of his in a Reddit thread about the latest issue that lined up very closely with my initial impression of the Vex & Keyleth conversation: that should have been presented at least in part as annotated flashback panels. You could have done SO MUCH INTERESTING STUFF with showing a younger Vex and Vax, the dynamic with their father, all of it, and still let Vex talk enough to narrate it, but avoid it being strictly an infodump. At least the thought occurred to him. But still, it’s not what we got.)
Syngorn was a really chill place considering the entire nobility apparently consists of trained assassins. Who went to assassin school. For assassins.
I try so hard to be polite. I wonder if it’s worth it if I’m just gonna get dismissed as “radical” regardless.
I mean… you… know Liam reads all the scripts right?
And that all of this takes place before the games we didn’t see, and before they were remotely the characters we know?
And yet somehow, all the other characters are at least recognizable in their core characteristics and traits. Except for Vex, who is a bitchy taunt machine Vax has to put up with. I wonder why that is.
I try so hard to be polite. I wonder if it’s worth it if I’m just gonna get dismissed as “radical” regardless.
Sorry, but I definitely didn’t read this as “I hate my peasant mother”, but more as “I’m traumatized as fuck, desperately trying to fit in my dads upperclass lifestyle, but it’s actually a facade”.
We KNOW Vexs history, don’t ignore that history in your interpretation. Vex was the one who wanted to seem like she came from money when she visited her father. Vex is the one who had a hoarding problem after coming from poverty. She never hated her mother, but she always FEARED being poor. She FEARED peoples opinion of her.
And in the comics we don’t yet get to see the happy Vex who is supported by loads and loads of friends. We get a Vex who has a near case of Stockholms syndrom, after forceful adoption by her father.
So yeah, it’s pretty ‘radical’ to imply that your interpretation is the only possible interpretation. Having the creator (who often communicates with Matt Mercer and the players) ask you how you came to such an interpretation, so that he can clear things up in the next issue, is not rude or dismissive. It’s a bewildered creator asking for more feedback on a twitter that gives little room for lengthy detailed explanations.
The comic takes place a decade after the twins voluntarily ran away from Syngorn. They fled from there as soon as they could, apparently just after graduating from assassin school for assassins. They fled from Syngorn because it sucked and they hated it there, Vex included.
Stockholm’s is very much refuted as a real condition, and even when taken at face value, Vex meets literally none of the criteria needed to qualify for it. She doesn’t on the show, she doesn’t in the short story Laura wrote for her that takes place also almost a decade before the comics, and she doesn’t even really show any signs of that in the comic.
What the comic does show is Vex making crude and dismissive remarks about her mother, in front of Vax, who is very much offended by them. Not just in the panels shown, where she actively denies being related to her, but also before, when at the sight of a drowned baby, Vex quips that at least the baby’s mom tried to keep it. Which Vax also takes offense with.
Vex wanted to look like she came from money when visiting Syngorn because she hated being judged there due to her social and racial status, yes. A social and racial status that also made her very much aware, every day, that she was most definitely not nobility, because I guess assassin school for assassins is classist that way. Acting like she is, in front of Vax, the literal only person to know for sure she’s bullshitting, is just stupid. It’s not how the twins interacted, ever, be it on-screen or from what we got from the pre-stream adventures or Liam and Laura recounting their backstory or Laura’s short story from Vex’s POV.
Also, remember how after they went to Syngorn, Vax was really confused by how much being raised to nobility meant to her? As in, he literally didn’t even know she cared about that? Which Liam confirmed later on a talks episode? How does that add up with Vex putting up this front, ever? I’ll be the first to admit that Vax isn’t the best with context clues, but he’s not that dumb. If anything, you’d think it would stick with him due to how much he cares about his mother and was offended by Vex talking this way.
Vex is stand-offish, yes, she hoards money because she’s afraid of poverty and suffering, yes. She’s never cruel. Especially not about her mother in front of Vax. In fact, what she consistently does, from the short story Laura wrote to the final episode of the show, is put up a front for Vax that she is okay, no matter what, so he doesn’t have to worry about her. Yes, they bicker and argue, but Vex is competitive, not downright mean and cruel and dismissive.
These things on their own already paint a really unflattering picture, but somehow, every other character manages to be a two-dimensional version of who they will eventually be in canon. Like, you can see the character already, but not with Vex. She seems to exist solely to be a mean sister for Vax to bounce off of, who for some reason is way nicer than during the first 25 or so episodes of the show. Even though him turning nicer and taking up Keyleth’s moral compass was a major point of development in and of itself. But no, he’s in the comics as a perfectly nice soft boy bravely putting up with his really mean sister.
That is the problem here. There’s no regard for the canon information we have about Vex, serious continuity issues, and no sign of Co/vil/e actually wanting to address these. When someone else raised these concerns on reddit after the last issue, his response was basically to dismiss the concerns. Matt Mercer at least tried to be reassuring and apologetic, and he tries to do better whenever an issue is raised, and takes on a way kinder tone that actually invites discussion, rather than dismiss his audience as radical, even when things get ridiculous.
When they said “Vox Machina Origins comic,” I pictured, like, a retelling of the events from the “story so far” recap video. You know, the actual origins of the characters. Why isn’t the story that? Who is this weird evil elf woman we don’t care about? And why isn’t he taking advantage of the seven books he’s been given to spread the focus out amongst the seven characters?
Based on what I saw of the first issue, I would’ve paced the whole thing out like this:
Issue 1: Twins-focused, leaning towards Vax. They meet Keyleth and decide to head into Stillben to look for work. This is interspersed with bits of their backstory, and also Trinket is already there because fuck you Colville Vex was a teenager when she got him you don’t even have to watch the damn show to get that backstory do your goddamn research.
Issue 2: Scanlan-focused. Show what he and Grog are getting up to, hint at that mysterious past of his. End with them also returning to a pub in Stillben to look for work.
Issue 3: Keyleth-focused. Start with an explanation of her backstory and move into telling events from her perspective as the disparate parts of VM are brought together by an NPC and hired for their first quest. Maybe end the issue with the reveal of that fetal god monster thing.
Issue 4: Twin-focused, leaning towards Vex, who reflects on how it’s always just been the two of them. Fight the fetal god monster thing. Go back and kill the person who tried to trap them. Everyone decides to stick together and the S.H.I.T. is formed. They agree to meet up after taking care of their own business, and the twins privately discuss how it might be nice to have others around.
Issue 5: Grog-centric, but mostly in the perspective of the others puzzling over his absence when he fails to meet up with them. Travel to Westrunn, introduce Pike, investigate the missing Goliath, end off with finding him.
Issue 6: Pike-centric. They beat the lich and investigate the phylactary inside Grog. A trip is made to the wizard to learn of the ingredients they need to help him. Maybe rearrange the order a bit if there’s still pages to fill, and end off with them going to find the cult with the Nightmare.
Issue 7: Percy-focused. Spend a fair chunk of the issue flashing back and forth between his backstory and the current plot. The others find him in the cell, he shows off his guns for the first time. They save Grog and decide to head to Emon, Percy opts to come along (maybe because of encouragement from Keyleth and Vex), end comic with them all riding off into the sunset.
Just try to tell me that wouldn’t be more interesting than Colville’s OoC fanfic fearuring assassin school.
And why isn’t he taking advantage of the seven books he’s been given to spread the focus out amongst the seven characters?
From what we’ve seen, Scanlan is his favorite, he doesn’t know what to do with Grog because Grog doesn’t quip, and he really doesn’t know what to do with Vex because he didn’t watch the Feywild Arc or indeed much of the show at all. (He thinks she hates her mom, is regularly mean/bitchy to her brother, and brags about being a trained killer. What the … what?)
I think if he felt this uncomfortable handling some of the ensemble, and was so unprepared having watched very little of the show, he should have turned down this offer and suggested they hire someone else. Someone who was familiar with the characters and their histories. Someone who had worked in comics before. Preferably, someone with both of those qualities.
But didn’t you get the memo, trained killers never train on actual living things and will always be tortured by a decade by that one first time they killed someone who locked them into a cage. Also, I guess she skipped lock picking class at the assassin school for assassins.
Part of me is tempted to @ everyone who insisted that “assassin school for assassins” line was Vex being sarcastic or lying, to explain away that ridiculous moment.
Turns out, nope, she was telling the truth. That is canon in the comics. That is genuinely what Col/ville thinks her backstory is. No bear, no love for her mom or brother, but plenty of snark, and also she was a trained assassin for some reason.
because i’m a monster and can’t ever let anything go, ever:
col/ville pretty much already said, months ago, that it was intended to be taken at face value, and that his motivation in adding it to the canon was because it was a thing he likes writing. it was a Ma/tt Col/ville Thing.
vex’s canon backstory was dropped because it wasn’t something that he, personally, enjoyed writing. col/ville felt entitled to re-write a character because he saw her canon personality as something that needed to be fixed.
also, from a comment just below this one, since i’ve seen his quip-heavy writing style compared to whe/don before:
yeah.
You can’t make up how far this man is up his own ass. You really can’t.
I try so hard to be polite. I wonder if it’s worth it if I’m just gonna get dismissed as “radical” regardless.
Yeah, which is why she makes fun of their peasant mother not caring about them in front of a really offended Softboy!Vax. That adds up. Who wouldn’t be extremely crass about their shared mother in front of the one person they’re trying to take on the world with when that one person is clearly very attached to the mom. I do it all the time.
vex, to her nobleman father: if i could pull the blood of you out from my veins, and give it back to you, i would. i want no part of you.
comic!vex: father wasn’t worth a shit, but he was noble-born and as far as i’m concerned, once i graduated from The School (that is, Assassin School, for Assassins), so was I.
Man, elven nobility must be fun if you can get a foot in the door from training to be a fucking assassin. A training that you finish at age 13.
Part of me is tempted to @ everyone who insisted that “assassin school for assassins” line was Vex being sarcastic or lying, to explain away that ridiculous moment.
Turns out, nope, she was telling the truth. That is canon in the comics. That is genuinely what Col/ville thinks her backstory is. No bear, no love for her mom or brother, but plenty of snark, and also she was a trained assassin for some reason.
But Trinket has been a thing! That she left behind! In the woods! To go into town! Like she did so many numerous times in those 30 minutes of every episode you need to watch to get every character down. Did you forget that extremely smart and well written line about needing to pick up a trinket from the woods? I guess his genius was just too subtle for you.
When they said “Vox Machina Origins comic,” I pictured, like, a retelling of the events from the “story so far” recap video. You know, the actual origins of the characters. Why isn’t the story that? Who is this weird evil elf woman we don’t care about? And why isn’t he taking advantage of the seven books he’s been given to spread the focus out amongst the seven characters?
Based on what I saw of the first issue, I would’ve paced the whole thing out like this:
Issue 1: Twins-focused, leaning towards Vax. They meet Keyleth and decide to head into Stillben to look for work. This is interspersed with bits of their backstory, and also Trinket is already there because fuck you Colville Vex was a teenager when she got him you don’t even have to watch the damn show to get that backstory do your goddamn research.
Issue 2: Scanlan-focused. Show what he and Grog are getting up to, hint at that mysterious past of his. End with them also returning to a pub in Stillben to look for work.
Issue 3: Keyleth-focused. Start with an explanation of her backstory and move into telling events from her perspective as the disparate parts of VM are brought together by an NPC and hired for their first quest. Maybe end the issue with the reveal of that fetal god monster thing.
Issue 4: Twin-focused, leaning towards Vex, who reflects on how it’s always just been the two of them. Fight the fetal god monster thing. Go back and kill the person who tried to trap them. Everyone decides to stick together and the S.H.I.T. is formed. They agree to meet up after taking care of their own business, and the twins privately discuss how it might be nice to have others around.
Issue 5: Grog-centric, but mostly in the perspective of the others puzzling over his absence when he fails to meet up with them. Travel to Westrunn, introduce Pike, investigate the missing Goliath, end off with finding him.
Issue 6: Pike-centric. They beat the lich and investigate the phylactary inside Grog. A trip is made to the wizard to learn of the ingredients they need to help him. Maybe rearrange the order a bit if there’s still pages to fill, and end off with them going to find the cult with the Nightmare.
Issue 7: Percy-focused. Spend a fair chunk of the issue flashing back and forth between his backstory and the current plot. The others find him in the cell, he shows off his guns for the first time. They save Grog and decide to head to Emon, Percy opts to come along (maybe because of encouragement from Keyleth and Vex), end comic with them all riding off into the sunset.
Just try to tell me that wouldn’t be more interesting than Colville’s OoC fanfic fearuring assassin school.
Overdressed & Underappreciated 