With “Dark Ages”, Dan Abnett and I.N.J. Culbard try to stay right in their sweet spots with a story about medieval times and ancient forces from another world colliding. But is it worth your time? Read our spoiler-free review to find out.
Written by Dan Abnett
Illustrated and lettered by I.N.J. CulbardThe medieval world is locked in war. As a godless mercenary company slogs across Europe in search of sustenance and coin, they encounter a demonic force born not of hell, but of somewhere else entirely!
• From the creators of Vertigo’s The New Deadwardians!
• Starship Troopers meets Kingdom of Heaven!
• From New York Times best-selling author Dan Abnett!
Genre mashups are a tried-and-true way to wiggle your way into a crowded market, or in this case, a crowded comic rack. If you can find a satisfying way to combine two things that might not necessarily go together into one compelling product, you have an easy pitch to make. In this case, Starship Troopers meets Kingdom of Heaven might be a totally apt pair of references to make, but “Dark Ages” is not the first book by a damn sight to mash up medieval history with left-field science fiction. But thanks to some minimal but potent thematic undercurrents and a Lovecraftian horror sensibility, it might yet be one of the very best.
The setting is early 1300’s Europe, our “heroes” a band of rough and tumble mercenaries itching for their next battle and the spoils of war that come with it. Those spoils are repeatedly mentioned as a driving factor for the events of the issue, which gives Abnett his first potential theme to play around with. We’ve seen enough war in world history to know that somebody somewhere is always profiting off of it, and Abnett makes it abundantly clear that the protagonists of “Dark Ages” rely on that war machine to keep going. The mercenaries need the coin for their livelihood, but Abnett plays a little beyond that, giving the characters a hardened edge that feels earned. They want battle because they want to prosper – there is no alternative for them.
Beyond that, there’s a literal godlessness element to the characters that Abnett and Culbard reinforce a few times over throughout the issue. By starting off with an unsubtle but nonetheless effective demonstration of nature vs. nature vs. man, Culbard and Abnett imbue the book immediately with a sense of cruel reality and nihilism that begets a godless feeling in the story itself. The characters trudge through a world driven by conquest and more than once question the existence of something divine. That said, “Dark Ages” does not close the book on that subject, keeping us guess as to what we can believe about its world and the metaphysical aspects of it. In that way, the idea of a belief in god is something that “Dark Ages” could potentially return to with fascinating results, in light of what occurs at the end of the issue.
These themes don’t have to be in a book like “Dark Ages”, which actually spends the majority of its pages trying to entertain you with the sprawling arrival of something impossible from another world and the careful buildup to that horrific event. The fact that they are in here gives the book some heft. Given the pitch for the book remains its sci-fi bent, it remains to be seen whether themes like war profiteering and belief in god will continue to play a role, but the fact that Abnett fleshes out these characters with such specific viewpoints on heavy subjects is a testament to that fact that “Dark Ages” has more meat to it than you might expect.
I noted I.N.J. Culbard first when discussing the theme of godlessness in “Dark Ages.” This is because I’d like to highlight just how instrumental an artist can be in executing the thematic material in a comic book story. I will not presume to know who came up with what in what is very much billed as a collaboration, but Culbard’s artistic buildup of a bird (a very key bird, at that) swooping in on a rodent juxtaposed with the opening narration in Abnett’s script created just the sort of atmosphere that the book called for. From the opening pages, without knowing anything about Culbard’s tremendous (and more recently, voluminous) body of work, you can get a sense that the artist has the exact right handle on the material and its reason for existing. Culbard even designs it as a visual prelude, even as it is not billed as one, because more than anything it establishes the mood of “Dark Ages” and its characters quite specifically, more than it introduces or moves along any sort of plot.
Continued belowMoving on from there, Culbard’s art – which he also colors to tremendously moody effect at times – becomes a showcase for playing with our expectations of the characters and their eventual predicament. For being protagonists, Culbard casts a grave light on them as they discuss the spoils of war. At what cost are they profiting, and what are the consequences for them or their souls (if a soul is such a thing that even exists)? These are themes that are not explicit, but exist there on the page. They’re not terribly subtle, but you would be forgiven for passing over them in search of a story about tentacled creatures facing off against guys that look like Monty Python’s Arthurian Knights.
Culbard uses a clean style of art with linework on the minimalist side. Culbard favors pacing, framing, and economy over intricate detail, which pays off in a number of ways thematically for the world and its characters, as I already mentioned. You probably wouldn’t bring up Culbard’s name when discussing sci-fi horror or Lovecraftian design, but his take on the beings from another world works out surprisingly well, especially in the buildup to the arrival. Culbard pushes the characters forward, little by little, as both the art and Abnett’s script become a little more vague and a little more anticipatory than literal. If the thematic work up front didn’t grab you, then the pacing and suspense of the latter half will.
“Dark Ages” is a genre mashup that goes well beyond its prerequisite duties to accurately and satisfactorily represent both of the genres its pulling from. In addition to checking those boxes, Abnett and Culbard pull some unexpected, eternally relevant themes into their storytelling that they use to fill out the world just enough, rather than weigh it down. In other words, “Dark Ages” contains a wonderful script that is both smarter than it has to be and fun enough to please the crowd, and a smart artist in Culbard who makes sure that the focus of the title is always in the right place.
Final Verdict: 9.0 – “Dark Ages” is a genre mashup that represents and yet sets itself apart from its influences.
