The Darkness #2 // Review
Jackie and Jenny are hanging out. He’s in a kind of a weird space. Things have started looking particularly horrifying for him. He wants to be able to focus on his time with her, but he’s a bit too distracted by the voices in his head and the visions that he’s seeing. Jenny knows he’s distracted, but she doesn’t know how to get him to open up...until the angels arrive in The Darkness #2. Writer Marc Silvestri and artist Raymond Gay continue the series into its second issue with colorist Arif Prianto. There’s a narrative density to the second issue that ultimately pays-off by issue’s end.
The angels aren’t nice. There’s a hell of a lot of blood when they show-up. The voice’s in Jackie’s head keep telling him to get the hell out of the sunlight. It's going to take him a while to understand what they mean. The subway is fine. But there's still light down there. So he's going to have to shoot out the overhead before they're going to be able to help him: the demons. The ones that answer to him. They have enough power that they could help fund off the heavenly forces which don't seem to have any regard for human life.
Silvestri is laying in a tremendous amount story around the edges of everything. There's a lot of dialogue that isn't entirely necessary given the overall thrust of the story. Granted, he is actually setting up some things that will be playing out in the future of the series. It is nice to have a little bit more to understand with respect to the characters in their emotional states. However, it does kind of cause the overall action of the series to lag. Particularly as the dialogue feels like a lot of exposition that doesn't necessarily engage with the presence of the present and what’s going on on the page.
What IS going on on the page is actually a lot of fun, though. Jackie's dark visions are contrasted quite well against the bright and the shining nature of the midday sun. The contrast could be a little bit more jarring and have a little bit more of an impact, but that's a minor concern. Overall, the visual impact of the angels arrival is quite impressive. Prianto does quite an impressive job with the luminosity and the power of the magic that's cascading over the page. However, he's not really allowed to explore more dramatic contrast between light and shadow and an issue that really should be allowed to feature more of a visual contrast between angels and demons.
Overall, the series seems to be suffering from too much story in too short, a span of time. The modulation between action and drama isn't quite as powerful as it could be. Things seem to take a while to switch gears from one dynamic to the other. Overall, it's a fun issue. However, I lacked the kind of deft articulation that could make it truly shine.
