Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews
Frank Frazetta’s Dark Kingdom
Image Comics
Kidwell, Vigil, Fotos & Hanley
The Frazetta line delivers an excellent one shot about a man with revenge in his heart and some rage on his side. This comic is a sword and sorcery comic in the tradition of Conan, Dungeons and Dragons and Lord of the Rings. It has strange creatures, peasants, gigantic monsters and a badass hero. While the highlight of the Death Dealer series was the artwork, this series has a strong mix of a story and the art to match it. For a one shot to pull this off is impressive. Especially with brand new characters.
The element that makes this issue work is that it is done as a narrative. You can get so much more about the character when someone else is talking about them. An old man is telling a young boy a story. The story is triggered when the boy begins to play with a skeleton. The old man tells the boy that the skeleton belongs to a great warrior, named Morden. Naturally the kid wants to know about Morden.
Morden set out to sea with all the men from his village. While away at sea, his wife, Brynna, sends out an SOS that she saw a vision. The vision is bleak and filled with demons and death. The men return to the village to find the women all dead and the children all missing. Brynna left a drawing of a demon.
After some debate and a big funeral, the men decide to leave for a safer land. The thinking is that whatever killed everyone would return and kill them too. They basically run away from the prospect of death. Not Morden.
Morden decides he would rather hang out in the village alone than flee like the others. Morden spots a gap in the mountain that looms over the village. One might ask why no one noticed this in all the years they lived there, but whatever. He scales the mountain and when he gets in the cave he finds baby monsters.
The young ones were hungry so they were fed the children from Morden’s village. Yup, they are all dead. You thought some of the kids would live through this story? Sorry.
Morden hacks up the baby monsters and leaves a pool of blood. When the mother monster returns she isn’t happy. Morden confronts the creature and battles it with a unique conclusion.
This comic is not a happy story. It’s filled with death and it’s got some gruesome visuals. However, the story is really good. The story flows quickly and is loaded with action. When you consider that Morden is an unknown character he sure becomes likeable quickly.
The artwork is excellent. The shear level of creativity with the drawings of the various monsters in this issue is mind numbing. The art may not be as great as it was in the Death Dealer, but it is very close.
If you like sword and sorcery comics or stories that are one and done then this issue is a great purchase. Sure the cover price is a buck more than normal, but you get more than the requisite 22 pages of story and the story is really very good. Hopefully we will see more tales about Morden and his ilk. My man knows how to kill things and the things he kills look really cool.
5 out of 5 geek goggles.
 Frank Frazettas Dark Kingdom One-shot |
