It is 901 AD. The Dark Ages. The darkest of times. Centuries after the Romans retreated and faded, yet many centuries before reason and order would take hold. The Dark Ages were times marked by sweat and blood and lives cut short by famine and disease. Desperate days. These were the times the lands known today as Great Britain were fought over like raw meat in a dog’s teeth. The world was up for grabs. New religions were sweeping the continent like a plague of hope in a hopeless time. These are the days that a Hellspawn named Covenant walked the earth in search of the truth, understanding and solution to the curse that bound him. These are his Dark Ages. These are his adventures…
Written by Steve Niles
Penciled by Nat Jones
Inked by Kevin Conrad
Colored by Todd Broecker
Lettered by Richard Starkings
When we last left off things were not going well for Covenant. The idea of “going well” for this Hellspawn is certainly relative, but being driven out of the township you were ruling, crucified, stripped of your necroplasm, and having said township overrun and pillaged by Vikings put a damper on things. All of this is before he tried to barge into the so called City of Theives and try to do the “good” (read: self justified wanton violence) he’s been trying to do this entire series only to be thrown in the Pit of Despair. For this entry we will be covering issues #20-24 which sees the creative team fully in place for the final eight issues with Todd Broecker and Kevin Conrad the sole credited colorer and inkers respectively. Writer Steve Niles and penciler Nat Jones do not meaningfully change their visual approach in these issues but the consistent ink and color makes everything more cohesive. That cohesion is necessary as the book heads into its final stretch and more surprisingly begins to try and create a bit of character growth for Lord Covenant the Hellspawn.
There is a certain amount of sarcasm in that statement “try and create a bit of character growth” that is one of the basic units of Western storytelling. It’s supposed to be the reason why readers invest in these properties and want to read more of them, in theory. It isn’t that Brian Hogluin and Liam Sharpe’s time with Lord Covenant did not result in a character, their storytelling practice didn’t emphasize or require a dynamic character. Covenant’s stagnation, ignorance, and lack of self awareness, are at the core of their time on the book as it wandered through the countryside on adventure. First as he tried to reclaim his lands and titles, followed by wandering as The Black Knight in a dark tale of chivalry. The world and people around Covenant changed, he did not, consistently failing to meet Cogliostro’s call to remove himself from the great game. That lack of change led to piles of bodies around him in an insane cycle as he tried to do “good” in very bad ways. The current creative team have taken that cycle to its breaking point.
It was the perfect setup for the creative change up which we discussed last week. Niles and Jones further stripped Covenant down so that his inner character matched his outwardly zombie appearance. Leaving him all alone in the dark only to wonder “who am I and how did I get here” in the opening pages of issues #20. This trip down memory lane does entail going over Covenat’s origins, again, which is repetitive.
To their credit, Nat Jones makes it somewhat visually interesting with a series of dark filigree lined panels that slowly devolve into surreal depictions of pain and torment. Jones visual depiction and Niles narration do seem to change some of the specifics of how Covenant met his end, but the overall picture is the same: he died and was spat up by Malebolgia. These changes however lineup and emphasizes the state of shock and inebriation Covenant finds himself in the Pit. As the issue pulls out for gruesome double page spread of Covenant’s fetid corpse (body?) being consumed by rats. Nat Jones fully leans body horror in this batch of issues as page after page becomes a parade of bodily destruction of inhuman proportions. The instance on this sort of horror plays a bigger role but begins to lose its shocking power after a while. The page where Covenant sees the depths of the Pit, that people are being harvested and fed to one another and those above is a wonderfully gruesome page. All the tight close ups of bodily destruction in the pages that follow lack that same punch as it becomes ordinary. I wouldn’t say “Spawn: The Dark Ages” falls needlessly into increasingly desperate attempts at shock and awe, everything they do is with purpose, it just gets a bit boring after a while. You seen one obliterated body in that scratchy obsessively noodled McFarlane style, you seen them all.
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Nat Jones body horror in these first couple of issues does serve to ironically highlight the liminal and contradictory nature of Lord Covenant. He at first, like his inner character, appears unable to offer anything more. Just skin and bones unnaturally failing to waste a way and expire beyond this mortal plane. But his continual presence shows that he does have more to offer, he can grow and change. To create the tendons, connective tissue, and put muscle onto his inner character. The use of omniscient narration can be seen as something of crutch or a property requirement, in the case of Covenant it is the only way to really express to the reader an inner life. His design isn’t exactly the most expressive beyond gruesome terror. The use of narration by Niles also helps to force the reader to take pause and really stare at Jones is pencils and see the struggle inside the character as he wrestles with killing Marcellus because that is what he always does. Comics are about the interplay between words and pictures and for the most part in this series the subtler turns of phrase and narration by the writers have made for compelling and nuanced contrasts with the artistic excess that dominates this book.
Free from the Pitt and City of Thieves, Covenant once again begins to wander the countryside as he always has. It is in this well worn path that the creative team make another meaningful change and begin to really push Covenant towards growth. They give him a friend. “Dark Ages” has had supporting casts throughout, they were the dynamic forces that changed around Covenant often through his actions. The creative team instead reverse the dynamic as he meets Dumas, a person with giantism that is slowly killing him. Covenant has interacted with many social outcasts before but this time around instead of him helping or killing for them it is Dumas who carries that weight. For a set of issues that are littered with moments of brutality to a hilarious degree Jones and Niles really pull off the quite bond between the two. They are able to sell the importance of their brief time together before Niles makes the importance evident with their scripting.
This new growth in Covenant is also spurred by a meeting with himself, or at least the new him, the next of Malebolgia’s Hellspawn. This Hellspawn, Yagher Den, was the kind of man that would make Covenant’s ignorance look good. Yagher is caught up in the bylaws that govern Heaven and Hell’s dominion on Earth. Hellspawn operate by Highlander rules, there can only be one – a “rule” that I am pretty sure is ignored in the main “Spawn” book or at least retconned eventually but it makes for good drama in the present issue. Yagher is forced into a liminal space of unlife and death, stuck in a necroplam womb like a caterpillar waiting to become a devilish butterfly, because of Covenant’s continued presence. By interacting with his fellow Hellspawn, Covenant gets a better view of Cogliostro’s much talked about game and also the undesirability of his comrades in hells army. Little kindnesses helped him out of the Pit but seeing Malebolgia’s army for what is, is a powerful moment that pushes the character to truly try and be something more.
For as static a character Lord Covenant is, it is surprising how much page space he takes up. While there have been tertiary plot threads in previous stories they all acted in support of and orbit around the central ‘A’ plot of Covenant. Jones and Niles instead pull away from Covenant for a few pages at the time and focus on characters that have come into his orbit, effected by him, but are not directly tied to the present moment. Characters like the Druid who carried Chekhov’s Necroplasm, until the Church intervened. Or Alek who is taken in by the Vikings who massacred his people. This round of issues also add in an entirely new character, Raven Gregar who dreams of something more than what society would have for her on the basis of gender. Jumping to these characters take the load off Covenant’s slow changing sameness and help to show the effect he is having on the world around him in a more meaningful way. Most issues treated The Black Knight like a wanderer and those he interacted with are left dust to the wind by the next issue. By developing ‘B’ and ‘C’ plots the world of “Dark Ages” grows and also gives the idea of some fateful clash that is bound to happen in the last four issues between the forces of heaven and hell and this wayward Hellspawn.
After initially wondering what the creative team had to offer it is clear they are building towards something and expanding the property in new and mostly interesting ways. For a series I have continually emphasized a generic understanding for, seeing the bits of newness they mine is interesting and rewarding.
