By Matt Vroom

DARK SOULS: THE AGE OF FIRE #1 is the first issue of a brand new Dark Souls saga published by our friends over at Titan Comics. It was written by Ryan O’Sullivan with artwork by Anton Kokarev and lettering done by Simon Bowland.

In all honesty, when I picked up this issue I had no clue about the lore behind this gaming franchise. I am not much of a gamer either, but luckily I was able to do a little bit of catch up by watching the Dark Souls’ “lore in a minute” series by the YouTube channel LORE (playlist here.) Thanks a lot, dudes!

The reason why I opened with that statement is that this issue kind of expects that you already know the lore behind the franchise. It even breaks the fourth wall a bit by saying something along the lines of, “hey, we aren’t going to waste our time with backstory since you should have played the games before reading this comic.”

In typical medieval fashion, there are knights, wizards, dragons, and users of dark magic in this story. The protagonist is a phony known as Arkon. He is one of the more infamous members of the Silver Knights, who are defenders of Anor Londo, the capital of the kingdom of Lordan.

The reason why Arkon is a phony is that for centuries he had been referred to as the “Dragonkiller.” A title in which he doesn’t deserve, and you will learn why in the first few pages of this comic.

The Silver Knights are called into action by Gwyn, the Lord of Sunlight, to investigate some dark magic that has been brewing in the dark corners of a dark forest somewhere. There is a lot of “dark” stuff happening on the pages of this book.

This comic does a lot to give fans of the series some more continuity for them to chew on, but it does little to invite anyone new into the fold. As a newcomer myself, I had to look for information elsewhere to investigate who certain individuals were, and why I should care for them.

There are some character bios at the beginning of the story, but that only contains a paragraph of information that gamers have had hours of play time to get know and familiarize themselves with.

The writing was pretty good though. I thought that the old English would put me out of the story, but it doesn’t. It does put some weight on the character’s story arcs. I get the sense of who the “bad guys” are and who the “good guys” are. I feel like O’Sullivan understands the characters and the lore really well. So I trust that the more I read this series, the more I will come to understand this world and its rules.

The art is a little hit and miss for me at times. Some of the figures feel very wooden to me. There wasn’t a lot of movement except for a few dragon slaying panels that were pretty well drawn. Each panel does look like a painting and some of them appeared like they had more work done on them than others. There were some killer money shots, and some not so good ‘tweeners.

Overall, I give this issue 7.5 capes out of 10. It was entertaining, but nothing too incredibly ground-breaking. If I were more familiar with the franchise I might have ranked it higher, but then again my ignorance of the story provides me with a fresh set of eyes. This issue is more suited for Teen audiences, and I think fans of the series would appreciate that.

Expect this issue to be released everywhere this Wednesday! Don’t forget to check your local comic book shop.

PS: Speaking of “souls,” I will be launching my first ever Kickstarter campaign in June for my comic SUPER ELDERS #2. I will be posting an official announcement and launch video in the upcoming weeks!

If you have a comic that you would like me to review, then please feel free to email me at matt@superherospeak.com, or Dave at dave@superherospeak.com.

Matt Vroom – Comic Reviewer for SuperHeroSpeak.com.

Follow Matt on Twitter: @vroomatt

See Matt’s Comic Book Work: Kickstarter for Super Elders #2 coming soon!

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