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Solomon Kane #1
Posted 08 Oct 2008
Writer: Scott Allie
Artist: Mario Guevara (interior); John Cassaday (cover)
Letters: Richard Starkings & Comicraft
Colors: Dave Stewart (interior); Laura Martin (cover)
Publisher: Dark Horse
5.00 out of 5 Stars
Reviewed by Adam McGovern
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If Werner Herzog made a comic, it would be Scott Allie’s
Solomon Kane. The deep shadows of uncharted lands and
disregarded inner darknesses dominate this elegantly executed,
viscerally felt series. It stars Conan creator Robert E.
Howard’s offbeat missionary adventurer, a Christian crusader
several centuries too late for the actual age of chivalry carrying on
a one-man holy war armed with his zealous Puritan beliefs and his
arsenal of 17th century weaponry and combat skills.
In this opening arc, Kane wanders from his native England
to the Black Forest of Germany for an encounter with the suspicious
baron of an ominous, perhaps literally hellish old castle. The
nuances of Kane’s rigid yet cagey personality are played well
by Allie; too often man-with-no-name types like this are stiff
shells with no real motivation or dimension underneath, but through
subtle scraps of dialogue and behavior Allie is skilled at making
us intuit volumes of conflict and complication behind Kane’s
upright exterior. Characters like the Baron and Baroness speak in
parables and philosophical riddles, in ways that serve the
book’s subtext of surreal poetry well and are true to
pre-Enlightenment Europeans’ understanding of existence. The
carefully rendered, murkily atmospheric art is perfect, making
every figure and setting seem coalesced from smoke and
mist.
This five-issue arc is taken from a mere fragment left behind by
Howard, so Allie, well-known as the editor of moody blockbusters like
the Hellboy franchise and The Goon, has picked a good starting
point for showing how faithfully he can build on Howard’s
vision. Solomon Kane leaves his wanderings to fate and providence, but
having read this strong first issue I can assure you we’re in
good hands.
—CCdC—
Cover image used without explicit permission in accordance with the "Fair Use" provision of US copyright law.
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