The Best Book You Didn't Read Last Week: Absolute Darkness

The Darkness #75

Written by: Phil Hester

Art by: Matt Timson, Joe Benitez, Michael Broussard, Lee Carter, Jorge Lucas, Marc Silvestri & Steve Firchow, Frazier Irving, Dale Keown, Ryan Sook, Stjepan Sejic

Man, there were a ton of great books that you foolishly forgot to read this week ... I mean a TON. In a week where I could have talked about Green Arrow/Black Canary (that so many of you left when Winick did [Fools! Fools, I say!]), DMZ, Scalped, Green Lantern Corps, Captain Britain & MI:13 ... I decided that it was probably best to reward a company that knows what kind of book is worth you $4.99 and talk a bit about the wonder that is The Darkness. 37 pages of incredible art by 10 different teams of amazing artists, all written by the impeccable talent of the one and only Phil Hester. The Darkness, for those of you who have never read the series, is the story of Jackie Estacado. Jackie is the bearer of a unique power known as The Darkness, it's basically the dark counterpart to The Witchblade. Jackie has used his abilities in the execution of his duties as a mafia hitman, as an amnesiac nyctophobe doing everything he can to run from the mafiosos he worked for, a brutal force against those who wished him dead, and recently as a sadistic druglord in South America.

In the last few issues we have seen Jackie reduced to a repo man of sorts working for The Sovereign, collecting on both contracts for immortal souls as well as condemning demons back to hell, he has also done all of this without most of his power as his body may be walking the Earth but his soul is trapped in Hell. The Sovereign has assured Jackie that if he does his bidding long enough that he will retrieve his soul for him ... who knows how long this agreement will go on, and little does The Sovereign know that Jackie has a pretty bad track-record when it comes to respecting authority figures no matter how much they might hold over his head.

This issue in particular is a look into the future (the far flung and dark future at that) and the possible death of Jackie Estacado, as told to him by a fortune teller. It is a really gripping and interesting story of the evil nature of Mr. Estacado overtaking the world and making it an infinitely dark place ... the perfect home for the weapon he is cursed to bear. Ultimately this is sort of a cross-roads issue for Jackie and I think that anyone who has even the slightest interest in reading the series would be well served by picking up this issue and getting right into the thick of it.

The Best Books You Didn't Read this Week, Issue 8

GREEN LANTERN CORPS #28
Written by: Peter J. Tomasi
Art by: Luke Ross

The Blackest Night grows ever closer and the menace of the Sinestro Corps remains ever present. A lot of people started picking this title up when the Sinestro Corps War event was going on but not everyone stuck with the title after the crossover was finished and boy howdy did they make a mistake. We have seen Mongul wielding multiple Yellow Power Rings, we have also seen the home planet of Mongul's frequent weapon "Black Mercy", We have seen a quintet of Sinestro Corps members who hunt and kill the family members of Green Lantern Corps Rookies and steal their eyes. We have seen the terrifying change in the Guardian who stood toe to toe with The Anti-Monitor and will live scarred for the rest of her life. We have seen the birth of the first ever Lantern Bar, Warriors. But most importantly we have been seeing the growing camaradarie and brotherhood growing between two of the greatest Green Lanterns to ever live, Guy Gardener, and Kyle Rayner. This has been an incredibly fun book that everyone should still be following.



DARKNESS #5
Written by: Phil Hester
Art by: Michael Broussard

I have never been the biggest Top Cow fan. Marc Silvestri wasn't my favorite of the Image Founders and thus a house style based on his own never really grabbed me. Recently however there have been some titles and concepts that have really caught my attention. Bringing Ron Marz onto Witchblade for a 5 year long run was a smart decision, the growing talent of Stepan Sejic has been something worth watching, the idea of The Top Cow Pilot Season involves fans in a way that I think is incredibly interesting, but perhaps most importantly they brought one of my favorite current writers in the industry on to one of the only characters they have that has ever interested me. Back when they relaunched the series with Paul Jenkins writing and Dale Keown on art I decided to check it out and was pretty pleased with it for about 7 or 8 issues, but I eventually lost interest and stopped reading. Then I hear from an interview that Phil Hester is going to be taking on the third relaunch of the title. I have loved pretty much everything Phil has ever worked on, whether it was in his capacity as an incredibly talented artist or in his growing portfolio of incredibly engaging writing projects. I really think that this issue was amazing and that Michael Broussard has grown out of the house style and has become more than a Silvestri clone. This book is a quiet winner. Check it out.

DYNAMO 5 #16
Written by: Jay Faerber
Art by: Mahmud A. Asrar

With the recent announcement that Noble Causes will be ending with issue 40 it has become more and more important that people start checking out the other books that Jay Faerber is currently producing. So, my suggestion is to start with Dynamo 5. With two trade paperbacks already available it's easy enough to jump onto the title and start enjoying the incredible characters and relationships that are present in this title. Imagine, if you can, if a character like Superman who has a little less commitment to his marriage ... who had some illegitmate children ... and then died ... in the bed of one of his mistresses. His widow looks at the city around her and realizes that it needs protectors, and that only the offspring of her husband, the recently deceased lothario, will do. So she exposes them to the same radiation that gave Captain Dynamo his powere in the hopes that they will become super-humans as well, and it works, they each get one of his powers. And for a while they work together as a team. But Maddie's interference causes the group to disperse and now Scrap has put together a new Dynamo 5 and protects the city as best they can. CHECK THIS BOOK OUT!