Dark Kingdom #1(2008).
© Image
Comic Series: Dark Kingdom
Issue: 1
Authors: Mark Kidwell, Tim Vigil, Jay Fotos, Jason Hanley
Publisher: Image
Price: $3.99
Dark Kingdom #1
By: Kurt AmackerDate: Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Like last year’s Death Dealer miniseries, Dark Kingdom takes a classic Frank Frazetta painting and crafts a story from the image. But unlike Death Dealer, this one-shot from writer Mark Kidwell (’68) and artists Tim Vigil and Jay Fotos, tries for straight up mythmaking. The earlier miniseries combined veiled political commentary with a more personal story about a woman trying to find her lost love inside the Death Dealer. This one-shot tries to be more like a lost Viking saga. It strives for the mythological simplicity of Beowulf or Saint George and the Dragon. But, it ultimately feels more like a decent pastiche of Robert E. Howard’s Conan. Kidwell sets the story in roughly the same world as Death Dealer. It tells that of Red Morden—a seafaring warrior from the land of Vikavia, whose wife Brynna watches over their village in his absence. Given to psychic visions, she foresees the destruction of their home by a great dragon. Communicating through Nyror, the god of the Northern Seas, she warns her husband of the coming darkness. Morden and his crew quickly sail home, only to find the village devastated and everyone in it slaughtered. Though no sign of the attackers remains, Brynna clutches a drawing of the dragon in her dead hand. Though the rest of the crew decides to flee the ruins and establish elsewhere, Morden knows that the deaths cannot pass unavenged. And for the most part, readers will certainly not escape Dark Kingdom un-entertained.
Dark Kingdom scores few points for originality, but it tries for a level of mythic resonance. It also avoids some of the hokier modern traits that plague swords-and-sorcery fantasy in favor of a simpler kind of pleasure. The reader has no doubt that Morden will succeed in his goal, but the particulars define the story. But ultimately, it takes stronger writing to retell an old story and give it the resonance to rise above its familiar tropes. While Kidwell turned in a fine effort on the Night of the Living Dead pastiche, ’68, his attempts at mythmaking come off as more pulp than epic. The readers is constantly reassured at how bloody and horrible everything is, rather than allowing Tim Vigil and Jay Foto’s art to do the hacking.
Much like Death Dealer, the art in Dark Kingdom proves stronger than the writing. That seems oddly appropriate, given the story’s origins in a Frazetta painting. This issue shows the same hazy grit that lets you know that all will not end well in this fairy tale. With Vigil providing pencils and inks and Fotos doing colors, the character prove very expressive and appropriately exaggerated. Massive physiques abound, and one should expect nothing less in this kind of story. But, the creative team as a whole renders its greatest service by answering the implicit question in the original Frazetta painting—who is the warrior entering the cave, and what is he searching for? In Dark Kingdom, readers learn the answer. It may not set the standard for modern mythmaking, but it’s a good read for anyone that enjoys swords and sorcery.
