Reading – Solomon Kane: Death’s Black Riders

Solomon Kane: Death’s Black Riders* is the second volume in Dark Horse Comics’ (website, Twitter) Solomon Kane series. A few days ago I posted a rather lengthy article covering my thoughts on the first volume in the series, Castle of the Devil*, and I felt it best to jump right on this volume since my mind was already on Robert E. Howard’s puritan character and Dark Horse’s adaptations and expansions of Howard’s work. For those of you who prefer the toy posts I am sorry, but it was best that I get this written now before I forget what I wanted to say about the book.

Scott Allie and Mario Guevara Return

Author Scott Allie and artist Mario Guevara are back and have put together another very fun interpretation of Solomon Kane, but artistically I have to say that this volume feels slightly less “together” than Castle of the Devil. I attribute this to the loss of Dave Stewart as colorist; Juan Ferreyra handles the coloring on Solomon Kane: Death’s Black Riders* and it is a perfectly acceptable job but I think I prefer Stewart’s sense of color. And it appears I’m not alone in missing Stewart, as reviewer Jesse Schedeen says in his review at IGN:

Ferreyra’s colors lack the richness of Stewart’s palette. He tends to over-exaggerate the difference between light and shadow in many panels, leading to an even more chaotic mess of imagery. This issue can be downright headache-inducing at times with the muddy lines and mismatched colors.

“Headache-inducing” feels a tad excessive, but I cannot argue that I preferred Stewart’s work on Castle of the Devil* to Ferreyra’s coloring in this book. But the coloring by no means destroys the book and I think we’ve spent enough time on the book’s colors; you can judge the coloring for yourself by looking at the sample artwork on this page.

Another Fragment

As with the first volume in the Solomon Kane series Scott Allie again returned to Robert E. Howard’s stories and chose a story fragment to expand into a full-length tale. The fragment titled “Death’s Black Riders” is less than two-pages long in my copy of The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane* and I have to say that Allie’s beautifully twisted imagination took a story fragment and turned it into something that I never would have thought of. And this, as should go without saying, is a wonderful thing.

The “Death’s Black Riders” story fragment gives us a couple of short paragraphs of description of the unidentified horse and rider:

A great black horse, incredibly gigantic in the grey light, and on his back a giant of a rider, crouched close over the bow, a shapeless hat drawn low, a great cloak flying from his shoulders.

This tells me that Howard intended the rider and horse to be two separate creatures, but it is the next short bit of descriptive text where (I think) Allie found inspiration to meld the horse and rider into a single monster:

They swept on, horse and rider a single formless black object like some fabulous monster; now they were only a few strides from the puzzled Kane, and he caught the glint of two burning eyes shadowed by the hat drawn low and the cape held high about the rider’s face.

The image above shows how the horse/rider monster was designed by artist Guy Davis (Wikipedia) who is, as Scott Allie says in Castle of the Devil, ” . . . the greatest monster designer working in comics . . . ”

After seeing Davis’ sketches in both Castle of the Devil and Death’s Black Riders I have to agree. These are scary, awesome designs and any of these monsters would make fantastic villains in a movie.

The image above shows one panel of the comic next to one of Davis’ sketches and demonstrates how the monsters were designed to give the reader the idea that Solomon Kane has appeared in the book . . . when it is really just one of the riders. This was one of Allie’s ideas as he tells us in the book:

The first time we see the Death’s Black Riders, I wanted the reader to mistake one for Solomon Kane on horseback. That dictated a certain amount of the design of the creature, but it also meant we had to be really specific about how that panel laid out. Guy and I worked it out together.

And they were, in my opinion, quite successful at bringing this idea to life in the comic.

Death’s Black Riders

Even though this is a single volume, the book feels broken into four distinct sections, two of which — one and three — are directly related. It is the inclusion of the second section, an adaptation of the Robert E. Howard short story, “Rattle of Bones,” which is my first minor complaint with Solomon Kane: Death’s Black Riders*. Scott Allie did a good job of blending “Rattle of Bones” into his “Death’s Black Riders” story, but generally I think I would have been happier if “The Rattle of Bones” had been more than just a bridge between two parts. But we’ll get to “The Rattle of Bones” soon enough.

(NOTE: According to my copy of The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane* the title of the Howard short story is “Rattle of Bones.” In this book, Allie’s adaptation of that story is “The Rattle of Bones.” It’s a minor difference, but I felt it worth pointing out for the fanatics in the audience who like to see the titles properly presented.)

The opening section of the book introduces the riders — monstrous beasts that are powerful, supernatural, and able to start fires by simply touching an object — and it isn’t until page eight of the story that Solomon Kane actually enters the action, riding into battle and slaying three of the beasts. Allie starts his story after the events described in Howard’s fragment and reduces the short Howard fragment to just a few panels in the comic; Kane recounts his first encounter with one of the beasts and the description will feel familiar to anyone who has read the fragment. This first section closes with Kane and the only other survivor, Gaston l’armon, burying the dead.

It’s a strong enough opening to the book, and other than the previously-mentioned coloring I have no complaints with this first section.

The Rattle of Bones

As I already said, the second section of the book is an adaptation of the Robert E. Howard short story, “Rattle of Bones.” This is one of my favorite of Howard’s Solomon Kane stories so please do not be shocked when I am perhaps far more critical of the comic adaptation than the work deserves.

Consider this one fan’s thoughts and keep in mind that the version of the story in Solomon Kane: Death’s Black Riders* is a fun story.

In “The Rattle of Bones,” Kane and Gaston find a tavern late at night and soon find themselves shown to a room. Kane has no trust for the innkeeper and the two men soon find themselves before a door that is barred from the outside; something has been trapped inside.

Rather than spoil the fun of the story I’ll simply say that what is found behind the barred door isn’t nearly as exciting as what comes through the open door behind them. The pacing of “The Rattle of Bones” feels rushed — the speed with which we move from the opening of the barred door to the end of the tale is way too fast for my tastes — but again I think it’s more that I am a fan of the original story more than it is a real problem with this comic adaptation.

This second section closes with Kane and a newcomer — a priest — alone in the tavern while outside more of the riders are approaching, the beasts obviously ready to kill both men.

The Black Riders Return

This third section of the book is completely original; unlike the previous two sections, nothing in this conclusion to the “Death’s Black Riders” story is drawn from pre-existing Solomon Kane stories.

I do not own the original issues of this story so I don’t know how each section was broken down when published as individual issues but “The Black Riders Return” feels like it was either one MASSIVE comic issue or divided into two issues; at 44-pages long this is the single longest section in Solomon Kane: Death’s Black Riders* and it’s a long, deadly battle between Kane and the monsters.

The story itself is fantastic, dripping with action and buried in some great dialogue that keeps everything moving quickly. Kane kills monsters, but throughout this entire section I found the artwork a bit more rushed than in Castle of the Devil* or even earlier in this volume. The lines feel chunky and it’s almost as if Guevara either didn’t have enough time to do the job properly or he had a ghost artist on some of the pages (a ghost artist who wasn’t capable of the quality of work that we had seen in earlier sections of the book). Basically, the level of detail in this section feels reduced.

Kane is triumphant in the end, but the battle leaves Kane as the only survivor; even the scene suffers in the climactic battle between Solomon Kane and the monsters. It’s a fitting end to the storyline and other than the art issues I am happy with how Allie wrapped up his version of “Death’s Black Riders.” And even though I have complaints about the artwork I still say that if you enjoyed the previous volume, Castle of the Devil, then you should enjoy this book.

All the Damned Souls at Sea

The fourth and final section of Solomon Kane: Death’s Black Riders* is a short comic written by Scott Allie and illustrated by Guy Davis. This is the tale of Kane’s return to England (and a three-page epilogue takes Kane back to his home in Devonshire) and, unfortunately, feels like the weakest story in the entire book. I normally enjoy Guy Davis’ artwork, but in this story it felt like they were trying to cram too much action into too few pages; it wasn’t until reading the notes and looking at the sketches at the back of the book that I figured out just what the story was even trying to do.

In the story the ship Kane is riding turns into a monster; I know this because of the text and sketches at the end of the book. When actually reading the story I interpreted the action as the witch using magic of some sort to destroy the ship and not that the ship had turned into some sort of monster. And even after knowing what was supposed to be going on I just couldn’t see where in the story the ship was anything more than a crumbling wreck. It may be unfair or me, but I have to say that this story does not give Solomon Kane fans a fun tale and it is not the best way to end the book.

Closing Thoughts

Despite a few rough spots I can say that I enjoyed Solomon Kane: Death’s Black Riders* and have no problems with recommending it to anyone who enjoyed Castle of the Devil (reading post here). Taking only a very short fragment and one completed short story Scott Allie and Mario Guevara have brought us a scary adventure story in which monsters attack Solomon Kane.

This volume isn’t as strong of a follow-up to Castle of the Devil as would have liked to have seen, but it’s a fun enough comic that I’m looking forward to trying the upcoming Red Shadows (mentioned here) . . . even if I am sorry to see that Scott Allie is not the author or Red Shadows.

This book is by no means perfect, but it is fun. And fun is all I ever really ask from a comic book so I consider this a success. And I will read this again, which is always the real test of any comic book in my opinion; comics that I read again and again over a matter of years are my favorite books and this feels like one of those books.