Review of the comic-book 'The Darkness' Accursed Volume 5

The Darkness is a comic-book from Top Cow Universe, created by Marc Silvestri, Garth Ennis and David Wohl. This Accursed Volume 5 collects numbers #85 to #89, in addition to covers, sketches and some of the scripts. Writers are Phil Hester and Joshua Hale Fialkov, pencilers are Sheldon Mitchell and Romano Molenaar, inkers are Joe Weems, Ryan Winn, Rick Baldasua, Sal Regla and Jason Gorder, colours are by Arif Prianto of IFS and Michael Atiyeh, letters are by Troy Peteri, and fonts by David Lanphear.

These five issues from the comic-book narrate Fantasy stories where there are fantastic abilities and eternal entities, but also violence in its rawest form and eternal torment – Dark Fantasy, if you like. These stories portrait a fictional universe where there is a conflict between the Light side (with angels like the Angelus) and the Darkness side (with demons)... As a departure from the usual way, the lead in these stories is for the Darkness side.

The titular Darkness is a gift, but also a curse. It passes from one bearer to another, and manifests itself when the bearer becomes twenty-one-year old. It allows the bearer access to an alternate dimension populated by demons, but most importantly it allows to create almost anything out of the Darkness substance – acid, armour, blades, and even creatures like spiders. But the Darkness has got a limit – it doesn't work under sunlight.

The Darkness' bearer in these stories is Jackie Estacado, a former Mafia hit-man. Being a Darkness bearer automatically makes himself an enemy for eternal entities such as the Angelus and the Sovereign, which he gets forced to fight. At the start of these stories, Estacado is already rich and has assembled a team of competent mercenaries to aid himself in his quests.

Art is quite good, and one of the two reasons that makes the comic-book worthwhile. Vignettes get the pace right, the right amount of detail, and adequate colours. As for the text, this is the kind of universe where everybody has got a dark and deep origin story going back decades or even centuries. The dialogue and text is outstanding, and the other reason that make the comic-book worthwhile. There is some occasional slip though, like having a centuries-old prisoner speak of machines and batteries. The worst part of the comic book is the coherence – Fantasy stories are well-known to be not quite good at following logic. The Darkness substance is shown to be telekinetically introduced inside enemies' bodies. If The Darkness' bearer can do that, why not to create closed helmets to render his enemies helpless, or caps to block the blood flow inside his enemies' hearts?

These are the stories :

• Alkonost, parts one & two. Estacado and his team arrive in New Jersey to visit human trafficker Martynov in order to buy a Sovereign statue from him. The seemingly easy task hides a trap in which Estacado will learn about the Order of the Holy Voice and an angel called the Alkonost. Excellent script.
• The apostate. The Angelus is shown to have its own school of religious fanatics that are being trained with a single objective in their minds: to kill The Darkness.
• Regicide: Terminus. Estacado and his team attack the last Sovereign hiding.
• High noon. A Darkness story placed in the Far West, where the bearer is called Ramon (it should be Ramón, with an accent over the o, guys. You're welcome). The script is pretty much a pretext to visit the usual Far West clichés, but the art is spectacular.

All in all, a notorious comic-book.