REVIEW: The Darkness #1/2

Credits: see below...

Review: Will Dubbeld

I was all in for the Image first wave, or at least most of it. It’s difficult to articulate how big a deal the schism, the coup, was when McFarlane and co. broke ranks with Marvel. These were the artists helming Spider-Man, the X-Men...

JIM LEE, FOR CHRISSAKES!!!

Needless to say, I eagerly swallowed my dosage of Spawn, Youngblood, Savage Dragon, and  WildC.A.T.s.

For one or two issues.

I rapidly discovered the talent behind the Image founders lay not in the writing as much as the art.

By a landslide.

With a heavy heart I largely abandoned Image due to some frankly bad plotting and scripts as many were flagship representations of what I grew to despise about ‘90s comicdom.

I’ve softened my stance a bit since then and will pick up the odd run of classic (“classic...”) Image books when the spirit moves.

Which brings us to The Darkness...

My main man and fellow HCB alum, Art Bee, is quite the Darkness aficionado and his enthusiasm prompted me to largely clean out the dollar box at my LCS of said title. Hopefully, I thought, there’s some gems to be gleaned from the stack of back issues. I’ve largely been a fan of Silvestri in the past so I optimistically dove in, starting with The Darkness 1/2.

 

Page 1 immediately darkened my hopes.

When first cracking the cover, the reader is treated to a full-page blast depicting a horned, quasi-demonic woman with enormous breasts.

Now don’t get me wrong, dear readers. As a moderately adolescent-minded man, I’m a big fan of décolletage and cheesecake art. This poor woman, however, has some of the most ludicrously-rendered cleavage I’ve seen in comic books.

And I’ve read Vampirella.

I mean, just look at those things. They’re cartoonish.

She has balloon-tits, for crying out loud.

In any case, I apprehensively continued.

The as-yet unnamed Archetypal Bad Girl spends a few pages monologuing and beating up her minions, as one does when one is a villain, before summoning her 3 sisters.

...Who, incidentally, are also scantily clad ‘90s Bad Girls.

Some pool-time exposition reveals the 4 sisters were created centuries ago so wielders of the Darkness could, “curb their desire for the flesh.”

At this point I feel throwing down some Darkness lore is in order...

Directly tied to the Witchblade, The Darkness is pretty much the weirdest STD I’ve seen in comicdom. It gives you all manner of brooding, grimdark, ‘90s powers, but it kills you when you sire a son who inherits the curse when they come of age.

That context in mind, I’m lead to believe these 4 sisters are some sort of magically-created being brought to life so the wielder of The Darkness has something to bang without fear of pregnancy and subsequent death.

At this point I’m pretty sure Silvestri conceptualized The Darkness when he was thirteen years old...

After that cringey bit, the Bad Girls posse up with their gang of goblins and trolls and what-have-you and hit the streets in search of Jackie Estacado.

THE DARKNESS.

Also, their lair is apparently in the abandoned catacombs underneath the Chrysler Building...

Okay, it’s not great so far, but let’s give it a fair shake. There could be some gold underneath the surface...

Next segment:

“New York, 2 A.M.”

God. Dammit.

There’s some cliché Pulp/Noir/Frank Miller writing right there. Of course it’s the precursor to some deep, introspective inner monologue from Jackie “DARKNESS” Estacado as he patrols the dingy back alleys of Hell’s Kitchen or Gotham City or wherever the hell we are.

Jackie and his gang of jive talkin’ goblin minions soon run afoul of the lead Bad Girl and the rest of her Random Encounter, some perfunctory fighting ensues and a whole lot of bad dialogue accompanies. 

And that’s only the first of two stories.

Honestly, the second story isn’t that bad if you can look past the pseudo-Tough Guy inner monologuing that runs absolutely rampant through the script.

It’s short, sweet (if not fairly trite) and there’s a two-page spread of Jackie tearing off some wiseguy’s arm for killing an escort. Everything you could want from your gritty 1990s antihero.

Okay, this book is absolutely gorgeous (balloon-tits aside...) but the writing is, however, garbage.

The Darkness is conceptually very cool; it’s the execution that fails. The dialogue is absolute amateur hour and I can dismiss that as Silvestri and co. finding their legs as writers.

Well, I could have bought that until the indica told me the book was published in 2001.

2001!

Image was nearly a decade old!

I can’t explain it. Top Cow gave me the gift of 5 free issues of Cyberforce scripted by Marc Silvestri and they were just fine!

Good, even!

This Darkness, though, hoo boy.

Again, beautiful pencils, inks and colors, but the writing is subpar.

My other frustration lies in the story credits.

The cover list is as such:

Story One:

Pencils: Billy Tan

Inks: Billy Tan, D-Tron

Colors: Steve Firchow

Letters: Dennis Heisler

Story Two:

Pencils: Marc Silvestri 

Inks: Batt

Colors: Steve Firchow

Letters: Dennis Heisler

Notice anything amiss?

Apparently no one wrote these stories.

Which, after reading them makes sense.

To further my frustration, the final page features a credit box stating:

Credits:

New Artist Showcase:

Pencils- Matt Marsilia

Inks- Victor Llamas, Jason Gorder, Eric Basaldua, Jay Leisten

Colors- Beth Sotelo

Letters- Dreamer Design’s Robin Spehar, Dennis Heisler 

Written by- Paul Jenkins

So...

These folks worked on just the last page? Here and there throughout the book?

Utterly confounding.

All foibles considered, I don’t feel robbed of my dollar. Had a paid retail off the newsstand I may be grisly, but I’m satisfied as it stands.

I’ve probably a stack of 20 or so issues to pick through yet, so I’m hoping some of them display a higher caliber of writing prowess. Garth Ennis is on writing duty on a stretch, so that seems promising unless it’s the gonzo version of Garth Ennis.

Whatever the outcome, my thanks to Art Bee for prompting me to broaden my horizons. 

You’re a good egg, Art.