Greg Pak first played Dungeons & Dragons in middle school when his mom signed him up for a game being run at a local community college. He stopped after high school, but the comics writer behind Planet Hulk and Batman/Superman picked up the hobby again in 2019 as part of a multigenerational game with his college friends and their kids. Now he’s bringing the unpredictable antics of the game’s fantasy adventures to Dungeons & Dragons: The Fallbacks, a new Dark Horse comic book series that launches on Oct. 15.
Pak tells Polygon the new comic was inspired by the chaotic spirit of his own D&D adventures.
“In one of my own games, there was this whole scenario where these low-level characters got into some situation and it was obvious that we were totally outmatched. There were these people who were lording over these people they’d enslaved. My character was this chaotic good half-orc fighter, and I started the fight against these ridiculously overpowered characters just because I was mad, my character was mad, and I didn’t feel like playing it smart,” Pak says. “I hope that the comics have that sense of anything can happen that an actual D&D game has.”
The Fallbacks comic, which features art from Wilton Santos and Edvan Alves, is an original story featuring the titular adventuring party from Jaleigh Johnson’s 2024 D&D novel The Fallbacks: Bound for Ruin. Readers of the book will already know the unlikely heroes, but you don’t have to be familiar with them or even have played D&D to jump into the story. The first five pages, which Dark Horse exclusively shared with Polygon, introduces the Fallbacks as they arrive in the city of Loudwater and quickly get into trouble with the guard because they won’t help stop a group of kobolds who are stealing food.
“I’m not a fan of narratives that paint entire peoples as one thing or another, and that kind of thing is rife in fantasy worlds where all dwarves are greedy and all orcs are evil,” Pak says. “I remember when I was a kid, you’d go prowling through a dungeon, you open a door and there’d be a bunch of goblins, and you just immediately attack, because goblins are evil. But that’s not the way this world works.”
Pak was asked to write The Fallbacks based on his work on Dark Horse’s Stranger Things comics, which heavily feature Dungeons & Dragons. While he doesn’t have character sheets for the party, he based their powers on Johnson’s novel, where they are fairly low-level.
“We’re trying to keep all of their feats and spells and abilities within the range of what characters of this level actually should be able to do, so they’re not suddenly busting out resurrection spells,” Pak says.
The Fallbacks are led by the rogue Tessalynde Haldendria, an unlikely choice Pak compares to Wolverine reluctantly leading a team in Marvel Comics. The group of outsiders and underdogs also includes the very pragmatic cleric Baldric Goodhand, who negotiates with divinities in exchange for spells rather than worshiping a god; and a semi-domesticated otyugh named Uggie. After running afoul of the guards, the Fallbacks wind up opposed by a rival adventuring party that more closely resembles the archetypal mold: They have a devout cleric, a wise old wizard, and a strong belief that kobolds are agents of evil dragons.
One of the things Pak loves about the Fallbacks is the way they challenge authority.
“This book is looking at what people in authority and power would call a hero, versus what the people who are being pushed around would call a hero, and also looking at what individuals who are caught in the middle of this who suddenly find themselves in a position of responsibility would call a hero.”
See below for an exclusive five-page preview of issue #1 of Dungeons & Dragons: The Fallbacks.
