With the release of the long-awaited Warhammer 40,000: Dawn Of War III, Titan Comics have returned to the grim darkness of the far future with a tie-in comic exploring the Space Marine Chapter of the Blood Ravens. Fear not, though, because this first issue by Ryan O’Sullivan, Daniel Indro, Kevin Enhart and Rob Steen serves as the perfect introduction for new readers to Warhammer 40,000.
Written by Ryan O’SullivanCover by Orjan Svendsen
Illustrated by Daniel Indro
Coloured by Kevin Enhart
Lettered by Rob Steen
New four-part mini-series from the universe of the real-time strategy video game based on Warhammer 40,000, Dawn of War! Comic series written by Ryan O’Sullivan (Turncoat, Eisenhorn, Xenos), and illustrated by Daniel Indro (Vikings: Uprising, Doctor Who).
It is said that in the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war. Well, in the grim darkness of the present, there are hardly any good visual stories of the Warhammer 40,000 universe. Sure, there have been comics in the past that have been somewhat kept in print by Games Workshop’s own publishing house, the Black Library. Sure, there was that Ultramarines movie that, despite a great script by Dan Abnett and great performances, was let down by a budget too small for it’s scope. Thankfully, however, Titan Comics have proved once again that Warhammer 40,000 is ripe for comic book storytelling.
Despite it’s title, “Dawn Of War III” #1 isn’t actually a sequel series to anything. Instead, it is a tie-in to Dawn Of War III, the third in a series adapting Warhammer 40,000 as a Real-Time Strategy video game. That may sound convoluted, but, thankfully, you don’t need any prior knowledge of the world of the grimdark future of 40K to enjoy this comic. The creative team of writer Ryan O’Sullivan, artist Daniel Indro, colourist Kevin Enhart and letterer Rob Steen have gone out of their way to great a fantastic introductory experience in “Dawn Of War III” #1. This is a comic that will delight established fans of the universe while, hopefully, being an interesting glimpse into the world of Warhammer 40,000 for new readers.
One of the most effective aspects of this in practice is the way Daniel Indro is able to tell a lot of the story of this issue visually. With tie-in comics like this, there’s a tendency for writers to have a fairly heavy hand and explain every minute detail in massive captions in every panel. As a writer, Ryan O’Sullivan actually has a fairly light hand here and it makes a world of difference. He lets Indro and Enhart tell the story through match cuts across panels and contrasting colour palettes. O’Sullivan’s writing shines through in the dialogue with balances the arch, baroque speech of the Space Marines with a levity and relatablility that’s sometimes missing from Warhammer 40,000 stories.
Daniel Indro is the real start of the show here, though, with a style that at once evokes the baroque, war-torn planetscapes of the game with a knack for clear, concise visual storytelling and an eye for epic action. It’s a revelation to see this level of fluidity of action in a comic like this. From the opening tableau of a splash page which captures the scale of the Warhammer 40,000 to that way Indro manages to accurately represent the characters and designs from the miniatures as fully realised people and objects in the world to the unparalleled visual storytelling, my word.
There’s a sequence early in the issue where Sergeant Olivarr is informing the Blood Ravens Librarian that they’re Chapter Master has gone missing and Indro intercuts this with a sequence of Olivarr returning to the planet in search of the Chapter Master. Kevin Enhart uses contrasting colour palettes here with cold, blue and purple palette bringing an austerity to the Space Marine Fortress Monastery while the sequences of the return to the planet are of harsh reds and oranges, bringing a rustic feel to the destroyed planetscape. Intercutting these scenes, Indro highlights O’Sullivan’s poetic dialogue before culminating in a nine panel page showing the intimately rendered crash of a Thunderhawk gunship.
As an established fan of Warhammer 40,000, this is the kind of comic I’ve waited years to get my hands on, but even for those not versed in the world there’s a level of craftsmanship to the storytelling that cannot be denied. There’s a four page, utterly silent sequence of a fight between a Space Marine Sergeant and an Eldar Farseer that Indro just nails in just four panels per page. The first page, Indro uses insert panels to show the launch of a gas grenade while the Sergeant charges the Farseer and the face each other down. In the second page, Indro showcases the speed and grace of the Eldar as the Farseer ducks and weaves around the Sergeants blows. The third page then showcases the quick thinking of the Sergeant as he’s able to trap the Farseer with a feint before the fourth page shows the brutal demise of the Eldar.
Continued belowIt’s a sequence that takes sixteen panels to play out over four pages with not a single word, but it effortlessly communicates so much to the reader. Unrelenting speed, grace and quick thinking play out in moments that would be determined in a few dice rolls on the tabletop. And all of it is lovingly rendered in Indro’s sketchy and detailed yet almost hyperreal art style. He’s able to take these fantastic worlds and designs and bring a grounding to them thanks to the details he imparts on the faces of the characters. With a focus on the emotions and the facial expressions of the characters, the fact that they’re 9 foot tall supersoldiers of a tyrannical and fanatically religious regime just seems to melt away.
If you’ve ever been even remotely interested in the grimdark space opera of Warhammer 40,000, but haven’t braved the plunge of buying into the tabletop game then there’s no better place to start than here. In many ways, Ryan O’Sullivan’s deft writing allows the characters to come to the fore instead of burdening the reader with unnecessary information. The reader doesn’t specifically need to know the role of a Space Marine Librarian, but can glean the figure’s important from the dialogue and the framing of the character in Daniel Indro’s artwork. Indro, meanwhile, knocks it out of the park with a more than faithful representation of the world of 40K while showcasing stellar visual storytelling in action-packed pages.
Final Verdict: 8.9 – By the Emperor, this a good comic. Don’t overlook this just because it’s a tie-in. There’s some fantastic work in here.
