Reviews

The Darkness Anniversary Collection by Garth Ennis, Jeph Loeb, Ron Marz

sfletcher26's review

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3.0

A little light holiday reading.
I've known of the Darkness series ever since reading Top Cow's Rising Stars series in the 90's but never got round to reading any of them. For some reason it like its sister impressiin Witchblade never appealed to me.
I spotted this 25 year anniversary collection in a local bookshop and thought I'd give it a go. I have to say that it's a diverting read, not great by any means but enjoyable. That said I can't say I enjoyed the crossover Batman and Superman stories though. Neither worked well and Superman is the blandest character ever in this.

crookedtreehouse's review

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2.0

I never delved too heavily into the Top Cow Universe. I've always been curious to see if there was anything to The Darkness or Witchblade but never came across any of the early stuff.

I got a good deal on this anniversary collection, and was excited to see what it had to offer.

Editorially, they made a smart decision to place the Batman story and the Superman stories up front, and then go back and tell the character's origin and first storyarc.

Unfortunately, the whole concept is pretty dull, and Ennis, Marz, Loeb, and Lobdell have a script just rife with trifling dialogue that they heard in 80s action films. It's a little surprising to see that this was a 2000s era book, given just how late 80s/early 90s both the concept and the storytelling are.

The Batman story is ... fine, it's a mediocre but not terrible Batman story with an additional orphan, who happens to also be a hit man for the mafia because he was raised by his uncle who's a don .... ehh. The ending is Awful. Poorly conceived and written with a fist that I wouldn't say was made of ham because ham has to be cured and seasoned. The fists that pounded the computer keyboard for this ending were just rotting pig. It really soured how I felt about the story up until that point.

The Superman story seems entirely out of character for everyone involved, but it would be a perfectly fine story if you subbed out Superman, Lois, Jimmy Olson and Metallo for a bunch of new characters. It's just a mediocre Elseworld story, which is totally acceptable.

There is then a preview issue which is basically the elevator pitch for the series written in prose with illustrations by Marc Silvestri. It's hella boring.

The next six issues are not some of Garth Ennis's best work. Again, the premise is bad to begin with, and he just can't get away from the 80s action film quips no matter how dull and unfunny they are. I'm now very worried about what Witchblade has in store, as every woman in this story is either an evil demon or a helpless maiden hopelessly in love with this fairly reprehensible protagonist. It hasn't aged well At All.

If you're curious to see what a Darkness story is like, I'm guessing this is the one that will satisfy your curiosity. If you love the late 80s/early 90s action films but wish they had a bland and predictable sci-fi element with religious overtones, this might be your perfect book. I don't think I'm likely to come back to this series.
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