** spoiler alert ** Terry Brook’s Shannara series took up a big chunk of my youth. That said, I’ve drifted away from them and it’s probably been twenty years since I’ve read one, if not more. I found this graphic novel for the Shannara world at the library and picked it up. The introductory material says it would be a good introduction for people completely unfamiliar with the universe. Yes and no. It’s pretty accessible but I still felt like I was missing something.

It opens with Jair, a young valesman trying to steal and destroy a magical scroll the evil reptilian Rets are using to bring misery into the world. He has a magic called the wishsong where he can create illusions. When he gets caught, he tries something out of desperation, calling on Garet Jax a famous swordsman and one time friend but instead of mere illusion Jair becomes Jax and almost loses himself in the process.

Afterward his sister, Brin, makes Jair promise not to use the magic again but shortly there after he is visited by the shade of his friend, Allanon, and learns that his friend, and would be girlfriend, Kimber and her grandfather, Cogline, last of the Druids are going to be targeted by the Rets and a witch they’ve hired to summon back a Druid stronghold so they can plunder its power.

Jair enlists the help of his friend, a gnome named Slanter, they arrive too late to save their friends and embark on a rescue mission. They have to save their friends and stop the Rets. Jair knows he may have to use the wishsong again but will he survive as himself if he does?

Overall, it’s not a bad story. The ‘missing’ thing I mentioned above is that it’s obvious these characters have been used elsewhere and I felt like I should know more about them than I did. And that's because Jair is from the original trilogy and there have been too many decades between it and my memory. It’s well drawn and the story is good but a few things bothered me. It slips in and out of close Jair pov and a distant storyteller omniscient pov. And the thing that really bothered me: Spoiler alert.

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Stop looking now if you don’t want spoiled.

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They watch as the witch brings the druid stronghold back and THEN pop up with the crossbow. Um, why? Why not just try to shoot her? It would make more sense story-wise that they get there a little too late instead of sitting on their butts and wait until after the fact to make their attack.