trudilibrarian's review against another edition
4.0
As long as I can shoot with my mind and kill with my heart, my will is my own.4.5 stars
Oh sweet, crackling Moses, but this series is really heating up. The only thing keeping me from showering five juicy stars all over this thing, is that I'm leaving some room for further advancement into the realm of EPIC AWESOME. Because this is where we're headed, if you kennit. The best is yet to come, and I don't have to be a demonic, succubus oracle to ordain that, hear me well.
The story arc of Marvel's ambitious (and glorious) Dark Tower adaptation has finally reached the sweet spot for me -- long, tall and ugly Roland, lethal and obsessed and (let's face it, truly fucked up) Roland, hot on the trail of the man in black, in search of the Tower that haunts his dreams. The Battle of Tull is behind him -- yet another massacre to add to the rising count -- and Roland is traveling across the endless desert with his taunting quarry always just out of reach, always just a few steps ahead of him.
Then Roland stumbles into The Way Station and collapses from heat stroke and is revived by a young boy offering him water (and who thankfully resists the urge to dispatch Roland with his pitch fork). The young boy is John Chambers, but he informs Roland that his friends call him Jake. Jake!!! Oh Jake, how I've missed you! And this is where his story begins, but if you've been on this journey before, you know this isn't where or how it ends. Not even close.
I can't tell you how much joy I got from watching these initial intimate moments shared between gunslinger and boy unfold ostensibly for the first time. The devastation and betrayal that you know is waiting for each of them just makes these early interactions that much more precious and bittersweet. I especially giggled at one early morning conversation they share when Jake wakes up to find Roland has tethered him with rope in the night.
"Why'd you tie me up? I wasn't going to run away. Or is this some kind of gunslinger kinky thing that I'm probably not old enough to know about?"Jake is so innocent here, so trusting, yet to be betrayed, yet to kill. You just want to wrap him up in your arms and hug the shit out of him.
"We don't have time to palaver...Do you see this?...Take the bone and keep it close."
"Sooo first I'm tied up, and now I'm holding your magic bone. This morning could not be more disturbing."
Spoiler
The scene where Roland hypnotizes him and gets Jake to recount his gruesome death in 1977 New York is effectively done. I felt his pain and terror. Bad memories, and one I did not enjoy remembering.This is a most welcome addition to the Marvel series, and I can't wait to read more.
germancho's review against another edition
5.0
Significantly more human than its predecessors, although its lack of a solid ending seems a bit contrived.
laughinglibra84's review against another edition
5.0
This is where it all begins. If you want to start where the original Gunslinger book does, this is the graphic novel you want to start with. It will reference things that covered in the five graphic novels "Beginnings". None of it is spoilery if you read the entire Tower series.
aloyokon's review against another edition
5.0
The Gunslinger's at it again! Straight off his ordeal at Tull, Roland meets a new companion in Jake Chambers, a boy from our world.
Great story, with new stuff thrown into the plotline, such as a prophecy that leaves me guessing "What are the 3" and keeps me wanting more!
Great story, with new stuff thrown into the plotline, such as a prophecy that leaves me guessing "What are the 3" and keeps me wanting more!
jedi_indyjones's review against another edition
3.0
The illustrations are good and the book is represented in a cool way here, but not the best part of the story. I still have a few to read that line up with The Gunslinger novel and I am looking forward to them.
booknooknoggin's review
4.0
Didn't expect this to happen....nice turn of events, and still as good as previous books.
creepysnowman's review
2.0
Well, it had to happen sooner or later. The quality of the story telling in these graphic novels couldn't last forever. In "The Way Station" the Dark Tower graphic novels have started to go off the rails.
My biggest... not "fear", but what I'd been hoping against, was that once the comics started travelling the ground of the novels as they exist, that the story would still be as good. It's not.
This collection of the issues comprises the events that take place in the first "Gunslinger" novel, including Roland's first meeting with Jake, up to and ending with
My biggest problem with this book was Jake. I hated Jake. I hated Jake so much because I thought he was one of the best realized child characters in fiction - a complex foil for Roland, and a study in what happens when a kid is forced to grow up much too fast. I loved that about him in the books. So I hated that he was painted with a coat of "generic mouthy pre-teen" before publication.
In The Way Station, Jake is flippant, and snarky, rolling a cynical eye at the world around him. In short, he talks like "the popular kids" would at the Piper school (where, it has been established, he had zero friends).
Now the theme in a book is like a foot massage in Pulp Fiction - not talking about it is what makes it so cool. Plus - the whole book has Roland being confronted (OVER AND OVER) with his fatal flaw - and considering it, which actually takes until the last five pages of the entire SERIES. Moments that don't exist in the novel are slapped onto the page for the sake of comedy, and the two of them Roland and Jake - but especially Jake, wax on and on about the themes of the book.
Things get back on the rails more or less near the ending, but given the treatment of Jake in this book, I'm watching for the books that will be the Drawing of the Three with a little less enthusiasm.
My biggest... not "fear", but what I'd been hoping against, was that once the comics started travelling the ground of the novels as they exist, that the story would still be as good. It's not.
This collection of the issues comprises the events that take place in the first "Gunslinger" novel, including Roland's first meeting with Jake, up to and ending with
Spoiler
him finally catching and meeting with the man in black.My biggest problem with this book was Jake. I hated Jake. I hated Jake so much because I thought he was one of the best realized child characters in fiction - a complex foil for Roland, and a study in what happens when a kid is forced to grow up much too fast. I loved that about him in the books. So I hated that he was painted with a coat of "generic mouthy pre-teen" before publication.
In The Way Station, Jake is flippant, and snarky, rolling a cynical eye at the world around him. In short, he talks like "the popular kids" would at the Piper school (where, it has been established, he had zero friends).
Now the theme in a book is like a foot massage in Pulp Fiction - not talking about it is what makes it so cool. Plus - the whole book has Roland being confronted (OVER AND OVER) with his fatal flaw - and considering it, which actually takes until the last five pages of the entire SERIES. Moments that don't exist in the novel are slapped onto the page for the sake of comedy, and the two of them Roland and Jake - but especially Jake, wax on and on about the themes of the book.
Things get back on the rails more or less near the ending, but given the treatment of Jake in this book, I'm watching for the books that will be the Drawing of the Three with a little less enthusiasm.
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