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The Guild - Fawkes Review

By Garth the Geek
May 24, 2012 - 10:58

For those unfamiliar with “The Guild”, it's a free web series that follows the real life (and often dysfunctional) adventures of the Knights of Good, a guild in the fictional MMO, 'The Game.' It's fun, it's entertaining... and did I mention it's free?! Yes, I did. So check it out if you haven't done so already.

The latest Guild one-shot focuses on the villainous leader of the Axis of Anarchy, Fawkes (played by Wil Wheaton), who appeared in seasons three and four, and made either a brief – or fairly consistent – appearance in season five, depending on how you look at it.

“The Guild: Fawkes” is written by Felicia Day and Wil Wheaton, two people I greatly admire, so I'll be the first to admit I went into this comic pretty biased. I WANTED to like it. I NEEDED to like it. And had I not, I'd probably be sitting in the corner crying right now.

(Though to be honest, I go into every comic I purchase wanting to like it.)

(And thankfully I DID like this one. So no corner-of-the-room crying from this fan.)

However – and there's always a 'however' – this comic wasn't what I was expecting. At all. It's hard to pin down what exactly I WAS expecting, only that previous Guild one-shots have been fun and humorous, and I suppose I was looking for something similar out of “The Guild: Fawkes”. An over-the-top exploration of the Guild's first real villain, perhaps. Something that would foster my love-hate relationship with his character. Instead, I was given something that actually made me feel for him.

I mean, here's a guy who's based his whole persona around the concept of being an epicurean (“I sample once, and then I move on”), only he's gone and fallen in love. He can't get the girl out of his mind. He tries to deny it – both to himself and to his guild mates – but it's unmistakeable: he's in love. And perhaps, in order to punish himself, he begins to sabotage his own life.

I went into this comic believing Fawkes was a dick. I came out of this comic wanting to put my hand on his shoulder and say, “It's okay,” because he's scared. And pathetic. He's just some poor guy who's spent years cultivating an image for himself, only to discover he's outgrown it. He's fighting hard to deny it, but in the end he realizes the only way to figure things out is to strip away everything he was and to start all over again.

That's not to say I don't still think Fawkes is a dick – he still is – but he's a dick I can empathize with.

All-in-all, I was pleasantly surprised by the direction this one-shot took. It would have been easy for Day and Wheaton to feed into the “Fawkes is a villain” theme and present a bad guy who does bad things. Someone we all love to hate. Instead, they remembered that Fawkes is a “real” person, and the end result was a great comic that reminded us that all is not as it seems.

9/10

Rating: 9 /10

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12