"To Save Mankind?"
Writer: Marv Wolfman
Artist: Pop Mhan
Colorist: Lovern Kindzierski
Letterer: Saida Temofonte
Cover Price: $3.99
On Sale Date: January 2, 2019
Is that... waitasec... is that... a light at the end of the tunnel? Are we really looking at the penultimate issue of Raven: Daughter of Darkness?! Could it be?
Gang we are just a few weeks shy of a calendar year since we've started this dark and twisted journey. I'm afraid I'll never be able to look at comic books the same way again.
But... the good news (for me, anyway) is that it's almost over! Keeping in mind if next issue ends with a cryptic "To be Continued...", I might need consoling. Let's hope it doesn't come to that... but I've got this sneaking suspicion that it might.
Until you look at comics for review, you never really know how much you might come to dread a books release. This has come to by the case for Raven: Daughter of Darkness... but, not for the reasons you might be thinking.
It isn't because this is a bad book (though, it is), it's because it's so mind-numbingly dull that there just isn't a whole heckuva lot to say about it! We're getting 12 entire issues... a year's worth of pages... to tell a story that would have struggled to fit a four-parter!
So, where are we with this? Raven is ticked off that Baron Winters nyoinked her away from her guardians... but decides to enact his will anyway. She leads the Night Force into Paraguay to save Skye (who we just learned was a "firstborn" Shadow Rider), they all then escape into... groan with me, folks... Azarath.
Along the way Zack Zatara throws up... and everyone calls him "Barf Boy" for the rest of the book. I can certainly relate with young Zachary... if only I could summon enough interest to vomit.
A, dare I say, almost interesting beat is revealed when we learn that most of humanity has some "Arcane" in 'em... so, for the Shadow Riders to succeed... billions of people are going to have to die. Of course, this little tid-bit might've done more to raise the stakes for this series... six months ago!
Pop Mhan's art continues to do all of the heavy-lifting here. The story is repetitive, the stakes are circular, and it just doesn't feel like any of it matters. Not sure this will read any better in trade... in fact, that might actually shine more light on the repetition!
Bits and Pieces:
We've waited a year, and finally something almost interesting happens. Actually, nothing happens... we just learn enough about the Shadow Riders' goal so that we almost care about what might eventually happen. It's still pretty to look at.
5.5/10
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