League of Legends turns to Marvel comics to explore the game’s rich lore
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By Shannon Liao / @Shannon_Liao
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Championship AsheImage: Riot Games
Riot Games, the developer behind League of Legends, is partnering with Marvel Entertainment to bring League lore to comics. It’s a rare crossover for the nine-year-old multiplayer strategy game, the storytelling for which has mainly been kept to its website. The two companies are bringing a new graphic novel called League of Legends: Ashe: Warmother that’s set to come out next May.
So far, Riot has limited its comic book ambitions to panels published on its site, which are timed to certain champion updates or cosmetic skin releases. Notably, a comic featuring Miss Fortune, a deadly pirate bounty hunter and captain of her own ship who seeks revenge on the men who betrayed her, was released last September. The comics have usually been story-intensive, drawing on well-thought-out lore that has been years in the making. They often also reimagine the League champions with more sympathetic storylines than the usual splash art and in-game catchphrases can really capture.
Riot’s head of creative development Greg Street tells The Verge that those comics were either standalone issues for specific champions in the game or tests for new formats and art styles. “Those were really helpful in figuring out the direction we are now committing to for our series with Marvel,” he explains.
Image: Riot Games
The collaboration is a rare opportunity for Riot to showcase its years of lore that has often appeared as an afterthought in the game. It’s not apparent which champions are siblings, ex-lovers, or whether one has murdered another in lore, for instance, until you really get familiar with the game.
“We think comics are a great way to tell stories because they combine narrative text with artwork,” Street says. “We can show what a village in the frozen north of Freljord or what a ship looks like in a tropical port of Bilgewater.”
Ashe: Warmother takes place in the icy region of Freljord and brings to light the origin story of Ashe, one of League’s original 40 champions. She often serves as a mascot for the game. As a warrior, Ashe sets out on a dangerous quest and needs to work as a young leader to save her people. The story is written by Riot’s senior narrative designer and writer Odin Austin Shafer, who has worked on comic scripts and champion creation before. The art is created by Nina Vakueva who’s best known for working on the 2017 series “Heavy Vinyl.”
“We see similarities between the League of Legends Universe and the Marvel Universe as both of them feature an array of characters with compelling and diverse backgrounds,” Street said in a press release.
In an interview with The Verge, he says that, ultimately, there are three kinds of stories Riot wants to tell: more detailed origin stories; stories that advance the narrative beyond characters’ origins; and alternate universes of League, like K/DA, where four deadly assassins are re-envisioned as pop stars.
As much as Marvel and Riot would like to talk about the similarities between their invented worlds, the main difference is that after over a dozen movies in the MCU, superhero lore has become a lot more mainstream, while tons of small facts about League champions might seem a lot more obscure. This push into comics, like the recent K/DA League music video that mixed K-pop with e-sports, could be the boost in popularity League needs to get its immense backstories seen.
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How’s this for a Marvel team-up? Marvel Entertainment and Riot Games said they will collaborate on bringing League of Legends stories to comics and graphic novels.
For League of Legends, that’s important as it’s a step in cementing the lore behind the characters of the PC online game, which has been out for nine years and is now a popular esport. This means League of Legends is on its way to being a “transmedia property” spread across a lot of media.
“Many fans of the Marvel Universe and comics share their interests and passion for storytelling with the gaming community,” said C.B. Cebulski, editor-in-chief of Marvel, in a statement. “League of Legends is one of the most well-known games in the industry, and their unique world and extensive roster of rich characters … are a perfect fit for comics. We’re excited to partner with Riot and help build the League of Legends Universe for fans and players around the world.”
The comics will kick off with League of Legends: Ashe: Warmother — an origin story of one of the first League of Legends champions.
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Players and comic fans alike will explore the world of Runeterra and dive into stories about their favorite characters. League of Legends: Ashe: Warmother issues will release monthly on digital platforms beginning December 19, followed by a graphic novel published by Marvel and Riot in May 2019.
“We love comics as a way to tell stories because it gives League of Legends fans an opportunity to see the world of Runeterra and not just read about it,” said Greg Street, head of creative development at Riot Games, in a statement. “We see similarities between the League of Legends Universe and the Marvel Universe, as both of them feature an array of characters with compelling and diverse backgrounds.
Marvel’s success at developing a world through comics and creating great stories is industry-defining, and we’re thrilled to be working with them to bring our own stories to life.”
League of Legends: Ashe: Warmother will feature the comics debut of Riot Games writer Odin Austin Shafer, along with artwork by artist Nina Vakueva (Heavy Vinyl).
Additional details on future titles and creative teams will come at a later date. Marvel’s support is notable because it happened after an investigative story on Kotaku about the poor treatment of women employees at Riot Games exposed a sexist culture at the Los Angeles company. Riot apologized and said it has taken actions to change the culture to embrace diversity.
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90,000 riot (Trevor Cole, Riot)
Publisher:
Marvel Comics
Debut:
Venom: Lethal Protector #4 (May 1993)
Creators:
David Michelini, Ron Lim Lim 9000 9000 Trevor Cool
Position:
Evil
race:
Symbot
Universe:
Earth -616
riot ( RIOT ) — Simbiot, which appears in the Marvel Comics Universe. The character first appeared in Venom: Lethal Protector #4 (May 1993). Character creators David Michelinie and Ron Lim.
The symbiote was carried by a man named Trevor Cole . He died in Venom: Separation Anxiety #4 (March 1995).
Biography
Once upon a time, an organ, the Foundation of Life, was born, which conducted experiments with dangerous criminals. The organ separated Eddie Brock from the symbiote and kept them in separate chambers. Experiments were performed on the symbiote, and Brock was in a glass chamber under supervision.
The symbiote mentally harassed Brock, and he was already trying to break the camera, but there were a lot of guards around with rifles and even real guns aimed at him, like air defense. At that time, 5 people entered the cell under the guise of guards. They immediately turned into symbiotes, easily destroyed all the guards, freed Eddie Brock. Riot was among them. These symbiotes also appeared with the help of the Foundation of Life, as they were originally planned as the new super cops. But the symbiotes got the better of the hosts and the hosts decided to pull out Eddie Brock in any way to ask him how to control the symbiotes. At this time, the Venom symbiote also escaped from the cap and went in search of Brock.
They freed Eddie Brock, but Shriek was out of control and killed Shriek. Eddie Brock did not want to talk to the symbiotes and ran away from them, but the escape was not without pursuit, all the symbiotes followed him. While running, Brock has an ultra-knife that heats up to a very high temperature (which is of course dangerous for symbiotes).
Brock was cornered, but managed to stab the yellow symbiote to death. The symbiotes tied up Brock, but he still did not want to say anything and also threatened with a knife. With a deft kick, Krika knocked the knife out of Brock’s hand, and Lasher kicked Brock to the ground. They tied him up and started asking questions of their own, which Brock didn’t want to answer. This brought Creek out and she, secretly from everyone, quietly took out a knife with the help of a suit. Lasher began to beg Brock, he was about to tell everything, but then Creek said: « Why bother » and began to approach Brock with a knife. Riot blocked her path and told her to calm down. Krik said « We will all die » and stabbed Bunt in the chest with a knife. Riot shouted: « Why! » and fell to the ground. Later, the Riot symbiote joins the Hybrid.
Abilities
Riot I has all of the abilities that the original Venom has, including the ability to produce his own web, changeable form (transformation), super strength, can release powerful acid from his suit and the ability to be undetected by Spider-Man’s «Spider-Sense».
Unlike his symbiont counterparts, Trevor does not like to use his antennae to create blades or spikes, but prefers to create blunt weapons from a hammer or mace.
Riot II transforms into armored form. In this form, she has great strength and sharp spikes.
Armor of Riot III generates sonic energy that can be used in a deafening manner.
In Media
Movies
Riot appears in the Venom movie.
Games
- The first Riot appeared in Spider-Man & Venom: Separation Anxiety for the Sega Genesis and SNES. He is the second boss and the first boss of the symbiote overall. He reappears on several levels merging with Scream. In general, Riot is a rather difficult boss, as his jumping attacks span long distances and are often done from behind the scenes.
Hollywood’s special effects industry rebelled against Marvel
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Working on special effects in modern Hollywood is one of the most problematic and thankless professions.
And another scandal around Studio Marvel clearly proves this.
If you have carefully looked at studio projects, you might have noticed that very often strange things happen with special effects in them. The most famous scene with the final fight in the movie « Black Panther «( Black Panther ), which scared away terrible graphics. Of the last unsuccessful examples, we can recall the film» Doctor Strange: In the Multiverse of Madness «( Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness )
How so What happens when CGI graphics manage to be worse than in current video games with huge budgets?0005
For example, on Reddit , a thread dedicated to criticism of Marvel by VFX specialists is gaining popularity. The latter complained about unrealistic development timelines, insufficient funding and pressure from the studio.
As a result, the final quality of work suffers, and people who have experienced negative experiences and stress no longer want to work with Marvel.
The problem is that now the studio has become one of the largest clients of VFX studios, which gives it the opportunity to impose its own conditions. As one of the developers said, in the case of the film « Thor: Love and Thunder » ( Thor: Love and Thunder ) Marvel demanded to provide her with a completed episode a couple of weeks before the previously agreed deadline.
If VFX companies start to defend their positions, then Marvel can simply choose another partner
«It took me over six months to recover from the WandaVision crisis. It’s not worth it,» added another developer.
In this case, Marvel only added fuel to the boiling cauldron of indignation.
