Dark Tower #1 Review

The Marvel produced, Stephen King directed hype machine has finally arrived. Does it live up to its anticipation?

I was hesitant to pick up Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born today. Sure, it's been getting A LOT of attention all over the net and many are saying this is the comic book event of the year (It also achieved the first ever midnight comic book launch), but I wanted to see what all the fuss was about before I blindly dropped down $4.50 Canadian on the title. Well, I'm glad I picked the book up, in fact, I'm tempted to go search out the variants and snap them up as well, but I'll probably restrain myself.

The comic tells the back story of Roland of Gilead, the protagonist from Stephen King's The Gunslinger novel. Roland is the son of a dead gunslinger and must prove himself to earn his pistols and his pride. Now, at first I thought this plot seemed cliche and tired, but it's handled very well in the first issue and looks as if it's going to get better as the book progresses.



It's being written by Peter David (X-Factor), which is a plus, as the writing has a strong narrative style, but it's well done and not too over the top. Jae Lee (Namor the Sub-Mariner) has the pencil duties, with his layouts then being painted by Richard Isanove. The art is just flat out amazing. Extremely tight compositions and great use of blacks and shadows. It's just a pleasure to look at.

I can't wait for the next issue of Dark Tower to hit the shelves of my comic shop. Marvel seems to be doing a great job with this title and it looks like it has lived up to the hype, at least so far.

Let me know what you guys think of The Dark Tower. Leave a comment below.

Cheers.

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