Ekko's Comic...

Hellioning·May 21, 2015·30 votes·3,752 views

was pretty good. I enjoyed it, and hope that Riot does more like this. It wasn't perfect, didn't answer all the questions I wanted it too, but hopefully they're going to answer those later. Keep this up and I'll stop complaining.

54 Comments

turkeyBACONMay 21, 201519 votes

I can't tell if I like it or not. I want more (which should be a good thing), but I can't tell if that's because the comic was pretty anemic in any actual lore or because it was purposely designed well to leave me curious for more. The comic just repeats the same ideas that his small blurb and his animation already tell us. The blurb is suppose to be a summary so that's forgiven but I don't feel like I'm learning anything new except that Ekko blames himself for his friends death.

I can't help but compare this to other game comics like Dota 2's or Dawngate's and feel like they executed theirs much better to Riot's. We get much more world building, character interactions and personalty revealed through theirs than we got from this. Now this can be because of stylistic choices and perhaps this comic is just the first in a series that expand on Ekko and Runeterra. Hopefully so, but I'm not sure this was the best intro to that then. Hopefully Riot will prove me wrong.

ChilroyMay 21, 20153 votes

{quoted}

I can't help but compare this to other game comics like Dota 2's or Dawngate's and feel like they executed theirs much better to Riot's. We get much more world building, character interactions and personalty revealed through theirs than we got from this. Now this can be because of stylistic choices and perhaps this comic is just the first in series that expand on Ekko and Runeterra. Hopefully so but I'm not sure this was the best intro to that then. Hopefully Riot will prove me wrong.

Reminding me of Dawngate hurt, it's lore was amazing. Still, it would be nice get League to have something similar to the Chronicles...

MrBuffingtonMay 21, 20153 votes

Yea, it was a good story no doubt, and the art was great, but I agree it leaves me wanting more. If Riot decides to make a series of comics (like the TF2 comics; those are awesome), I'd be ecstatic, but it seems like the lore we've been getting have been more like one-off experimentation/teasers on how they want to tell stories (Ekko's comic & teaser video, Bard's video and teasers, Amumu's song, Shurima event, Sion's rework reveal, etc.), instead of progression of a narrative

turkeyBACONMay 21, 20156 votes

I agree. While I love variety, I think the way they are executing their storytelling feels very amateurish. It definitely feels like they don't have a plan or actual narrative plot because of the experimentation. Hopefully the "end" will justify the means. But as it stands I don't think its going to coalesce into anything more that a bunch of random snippets of vague lore and art.

MrBuffingtonMay 21, 20154 votes

Yea, the retcon seems like it was done more out of frustration ("we'd like to experiment more with the format/scope we tell stories") rather than having some organization/plan ("we're retconning the IoW in order to launch this/these new projects") for developing the lore of the game. I guess the few of us who weren't outright opposed to the retcon were hoping for like, serial content (comics, books, videos, etc) following champions/geographic locations. Kind of torn; the content they do put out I enjoy (aside from minor critiques), but there's a ton of untapped potential in the universe; so much just seems up in the air right now

EDIT: Not to rev the hype engines too much, but possibly there is more Ekko lore to come: From FauxShizzle, regarding the creation of the Z-Drive: "I don't want to spoil this as we are working on this story"

air tigerMay 21, 20153 votes

{quoted}

random snippets of vague lore and art.

This is what I'm hoping against!

KING OF MASKSMay 21, 20155 votes

It doesn't really tell us anything new (we learned the goggle kid's name, I guess, and that for some reason ~~Piltover is assassinating Zaun street orphans~~ I'M WRONG), but HEY! I'll take what I can get.

MrBuffingtonMay 21, 201510 votes

I thought it was just a piltover dude shooting a kid for trying to pickpocket him

EDIT: Clarification from FauxShizzle (from the Ekko Q&A): "The Piltie? He's not a very nice person, despite his heritage and dress. He holds human life in low regard, especially those poorer than he is. We will never know if he was telling the truth about Ajuna trying to rob him"

A Superb VillainMay 21, 20151 votes

That seems a disproportionate though.

MrBuffingtonMay 21, 20151 votes

lol yep, this is why Ekko hates Piltover

ShínyMay 21, 20151 votes

The boy was trying to steal his gun :\

Melancholy ExileMay 21, 20152 votes

Well you've got to consider that one thing they're particularly pushing with Ekko is the mutual hate and distrust between Zaunites and Piltovians. In that sort of environment it's no great surprise that a Piltovian walking the streets of Zaun alone would feel the need to arm himself and potentially think the worst of anyone trying to mess with him, even if they were just a kid.

LJMcLeanMay 21, 20154 votes

I enjoyed it really. Riot, indeed, has to step up their Lore and Narrative focus. Maybe comics is their avenue.

Earl EulrichMay 21, 20154 votes

It didn´t answer a single Question. Still, I like it as a comic..it´s nicly drawn. But as Lore it just sucks. Months of nothing and all it takes to amuse the masses is a 22page "story" - that´s probably why there is no real lore anymore. Maybe they are right and they will get away with it in the end. Maybe the genre doesn´t want proper narration. But hey, on the pro-side: the shadowrun series is on sale on steam this weekend.

HellioningMay 21, 20153 votes

Well, it answered 'why should we care about the memorial? Why the lingering shot of that particular person'?

I'm not satisfied, not in the least, but I'm going to take what I can get instead of getting mad that they aren't releasing novels yet.

Though they totally should.

blueberrypancakeMay 21, 20151 votes

~~they did it with wow lore~~

Celio Hogane HDMay 21, 20153 votes

the comic didn't EVEN anwser the question of who was that kid! Of course we can asume WHO is, but that is not the point.

HellioningMay 21, 20153 votes

He's one of Ekko's friends. That seems fairly obvious.

Tesla EffectMay 22, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=Celio Hogane HD,realm=EUW,application-id=6kFXY1kR,discussion-id=3ZesGsAp,comment-id=000a,timestamp=2015-05-21T23:32:03.959+0000)

the comic didn't EVEN anwser the question of who was that kid! Of course we can asume WHO is, but that is not the point.

The kid was Ekkos friend, Ajuna who was a Zaun street rat like Ekko...was kinda obvious.

MotajoMay 21, 20152 votes

I'm not sure what to think of it yet. I'm glad it established a limit of sorts to the zero-drive, and I'm glad it actually had some form of conclusion. I'm still cautious, though; I'd rather not get my hopes up, only to be disappointed later.

HellioningMay 21, 20152 votes

Reasonable; narrative's been like that for a while. Still, even if I'm wary of them actually following up, I can appreciate what they do release.

Chromatic EagleMay 21, 20151 votes

Yeah that part confused me. He can't rewind that far? What happened to his device after it was shot? They have a pretty decent place to live. Why was that Pilte there?

MrBuffingtonMay 21, 20154 votes

From my understanding: He has to set a point in time to return to; he felt something was wrong, so he set a return point (probably around the time his friend got shot), and then ran out to find his friend. He kept running trying to get to his friend faster, but the point he set to return to was too late, and so he could never go back far enough to give him time to get to his friend before he got shot. This is why he decided to go get revenge instead

I think after it got shot, the device just broke, not sure. It seemed like he had to go back and fix it, but he said something about there not being enough parts (which may have also been a metaphor for him not being able to save his friend)

I'm guessing Piltover and Zaun are pretty geographically close; there seems to be a bit of crossover (Jinx, Vi, Ekko has a lot of quotes), maybe they're in the same 'city' more or less, just Piltover is the upscale neighborhood and Zaun is more like the slums/ghettos. The Pilte looked maybe like a cop or perhaps was there for...idk....illegal/black market stuff?

CenturosMay 21, 20153 votes

http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Runeterra Piltover and Zaun are in the upper right of the main continent, quite close to each other.

MrBuffingtonMay 21, 20152 votes

Yea, but didn't they retcon the continent too? During harrowing/Kalista teasers, I thought there was some differences with where Bilgewater/Shadow Isles were in relation to each other (on that map they're on opposite sides, but during the teasers, they're right next to each other). I guess they wouldn't change Piltover/Zaun's relative geographic location, though, at least not too much, since there are a few characters that have connections to both (ex. Jinx, Vi, now Ekko).

XulsigaeMay 21, 20151 votes

I want to know how Ekko has such stamina that he can get faster after 88 sprints.

CenturosMay 21, 20151 votes

He takes shortcuts as much as he can, more and more each time. He gets stamina back after rewinding, and if he is still tired, he can always spend some time resting before rewinding again.

XulsigaeMay 21, 20152 votes

In the animation we see him keep his injuries after each rewind.

I don't think he can rest long if at all. When he rests, he changes how far back in time he can go.

turkeyBACONMay 21, 20151 votes

The pull chain seems to set the limit time of how far back he can go, basically when he starts the z drive. Dial on his glove sets how far back he wants to reset time since he pulled the chain.

But you're right about him retaining injuries. The Z drive seems to only reset time for everything but Ekko.

XulsigaeMay 21, 20151 votes

Hmm. I'd have to find out more, if there is any more to find out. If he can set how far back he can go...then he's pretty much godlike.

After 88 sprints, even with short cuts, he'd be exhausted. Unless he's superhuman.

Melancholy ExileMay 21, 20153 votes

This was certainly a point that annoyed me. Obviously not every run will have been of the same length, but Ekko has rewound time 93 times by the end of the comic and merely rewinds #78-93 alone could have taken something like 45 minutes to an hour if he's clocking in between 4:28 and 3:41. It's an inconsistency with how 'Seconds' showed us the Zero-Drive works that's kinda difficult to overlook.

CaelerMay 21, 20151 votes

Well he could probably rest between rewinds, meaning that rewind #87 could be a "rest rewind" with rewind #88 being the one he actually tries to save his friend on.

Celio Hogane HDMay 21, 20152 votes

No, whe did see him keep THE PAIN of the injuries, not the actual injuries. (because then why did go back some of the times?)

XulsigaeMay 22, 20151 votes

https://youtu.be/FtEpp9lkfxA

At 1:34. He grabs his arm and is obviously in pain.

Celio Hogane HDMay 22, 20151 votes

exactly what i said? he still has the pain, but his arm is not damaged.

XulsigaeMay 22, 20151 votes

Your question was unclear. 'Whe'?

I know Gypsylord said he kept the pain but not the injury, but that just seems very odd to me. Without injury, where is the pain coming from?

Celio Hogane HDMay 23, 20151 votes

From no place, is not real pain, is mental pain.

Do you know the term Phantom pain, where people feel pain of parts of the body that are not there anymore? is pretty much something similar.

i will put you in another way, the injury dissapeared, but your brain still thinks it hurts

XulsigaeMay 23, 20151 votes

But why? The injury never happened in this time. To me it seems inconsistent. Some aspects of a rewound timeline get kept, but not others.

Celio Hogane HDJun 24, 20151 votes

Exactly, the injury never happened, BUT THE MEMORY OF IT STILL EXIST.

XulsigaeJun 25, 20151 votes

Memory doesn't necessitate carrying over pain or exhaustion though. I remember breaking my foot sure, but I don't feel pain from it when I do. I remember being exhausted from running a mile, but I don't feel exhausted when I do.

Puri Puri TaricMay 21, 20151 votes

ill complain : why didnt they do a taric comic ? would have been 1000 times more fabulous

HellioningMay 21, 20151 votes

Taric is not Fabulous. He is outrageous. Get it right.

Tesla EffectMay 22, 20151 votes

{quoted}

ill complain : why didnt they do a taric comic ? would have been 1000 times more fabulous

No.

Puri Puri TaricMay 22, 20151 votes

wanna fight again ? u cant win anyways. Taric Taric Taric

Dr PoroMay 21, 20151 votes

So that's why he can't go back in time over and over anymore? Because his Z-Drive broke and even though he's fixing it, "it'll never be like before"?

I wondered why his ult could only be used once, while he used it to go to the same time multiple times in the video and comic, but this would probably explain it, right? I'm not sure if I'm making the right conclusions, but it makes sense to me this way.

Valaran NaraMay 21, 20152 votes

I wondered why his ult could only be used once, while he used it to go to the same time multiple times in the video and comic, but this would probably explain it, right? I'm not sure if I'm making the right conclusions, but it makes sense to me this way.

Game /= Lore.

He can only ult once because it would be broken and unhealthy if he could do so multiple times.

NorthernDruidMay 21, 20152 votes

Game = Lore (Riot's new stuff isn't lore, because it's not story elements building on a video game anymore).

I figure the microcosm of the Field of Justice interacts differently with his [fancily-named-time-machine], and/or the Summoning ritual prevents him from utilizing the time bending properties fully, so he just pops backwards in his own time-state a bit, but doesn't actually reverse time (because that could end badly for the Summoner).

It makes sense to me at least, that the device is utilized differently because it's incompatible with the premise of fighting in the League.

The EllimiistMay 22, 20151 votes

Man I feel like LoL players want some sort of book series or narrative. You know when I played Dota I didn't know 1 single damn thing about any of the heroes and I never once heard anyone even mention caring about it/lore.

On topic though cool little comic. Very groundhog day, all I need is kill (edge of tomorrow), madoka, 67 other titles listed on wikipedia. Much cool, Such original.

HellioningMay 22, 20152 votes

You know what the sad thing is? DotA2 has comics like these too, and I'm of the opinion they're better than Ekko's, because at least they seem like a wider world.