The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger — The Journey Begins

When I talked about it on the podcast a while back, I made no bones about how I was disappointed with “The Battle of Jericho Hill.”  Ostensibly a conclusion to Marvel’s series of “Dark Tower” mini-series, it failed to make the title conflict feel like the major event that it was referenced as in Stephen King’s original novels.  Instead, we received a middling tale where its abridged, “illustrated pictures with words” approach didn’t do justice to the tale or compare favorably to the other volumes in the series.  Now we have this new volume which is supposedly the start of a new arc which will supposedly bridge the events of the previous series to the first novel.  I’ll say right off that while I thought that this collection is better than the previous one, that’s only because the bar has been lowered.

The first issue in the collection picks up a few years after the above-mentioned battle as Roland, the last Gunslinger of Gilead, continues his pursuit of Marten, the man in black, across a desolate landscape.  After stopping to rest at the home of a man dwelling in the wastes, Roland tells him the story of his travels from Jericho Hill.  We hear of how he delivered fellow Gunslinger Aileen’s body back to Gilead for a proper burial, then a tale of his childhood and how he found the castle cook to be a traitor, and then of his encounter with the Not-Men in Kingstown and the woman who resembles Susan Delgado, the lost love of his life.

There’s nothing particularly wrong with the telling of these stories — they’re competent tales of survival, tragedy, horror and triumph as delivered by the series’ resident writing team of plotter Robin Furth and scripter Peter David.  They’ve been remarkably consistent in their style and delivery throughout the majority of these comics and they deserve to be commended for that if nothing else.  It’s even got to the point where I’ve found the parts where the characters’ dialogue breaks from its usual Mid-World speech to allow David to slip in some of his trademark witticisms more endearing then distracting.  (If you’ve read his work for any length of time, then you’ll know the parts I’m talking about.)

The problem is that very, very little of this volume feels relevant to Roland’s quest for The Dark Tower.  Outside of a brief encounter with Marten that sets him after the wizard, I found myself wondering what was the point of everything that happened here.  Yes, it’s nice to see Roland foiling the bad guys’ plans after losing his friends and comrades but this series needed more than that.  It needed a sense of purpose and direction that would give us readers a reason to keep reading these comics for another thirty issues.  “The Gunslinger — The Journey Begins” does not have such a reason.

In fact, my main reason for picking up this volume was to see how artist Sean Phillips illustrates the world of The Dark Tower now that original artist Jae Lee has moved on.  I’ve liked his work for quite some time as he has shown himself to have a natural aptitude for depicting creepy, supernatural and/or just plain dark worlds.  (See his work on “Hellblazer,” “Marvel Zombies,” or any of his collaborations with Ed Brubaker for further proof of this.)  His rendering of Mid-World will certainly please those looking for stylistic consistency after Lee’s departure and he gets several opportunities to show off his skill at showcasing action scenes when Roland has to throw down with the Not-Men or the Slow Mutants.  Phillips also does a great job of capturing the feelings of the Gunslinger himself in his art.  The world-weary wanderer we meet in the introduction, and the impulsive yet regretful youth who inhabits the majority of this volume both come off as utterly believable in the hands of the artist.

My only complaint about the art lies with longtime colorist Richard Isanove’s digital painting.  It looks great in the opening scenes and is the reason for a lot of that stylistic consistency between Lee and Phillips’ work.  Unfortunately, the texture and detail to his work seeps out over the subsequent issues and the coloring becomes flatter and more ordinary as a result.  By the end of the volume, it almost looks like a different comic.

So unless you’re a fan of Mr. Phillips like I am, then you don’t need to bother with this volume.  While “The Battle of Jericho Hill” was a weak climax for the series, it was still a climax and a good jumping-off point for anyone looking to stop reading the series.  The next volume will be adapting a King-written novella called “The Little Sisters of Elluria” with art by Luke Ross.  I remember reading that story years ago, and while it was okay, I can’t see the comic adaptation providing me with a reason to keep reading this series (short of finding a copy of the next volume for half-off in a bin at Comic-Con).