Back on February 29th, 2012, the 100th anniversary issue of The Darkness was released. The oversize hundredth issue came out shortly after the release of the Darkness II video game, which like it's previous game, has gotten a slew of awe-inspired reviews wailing it's praises. The hundredth issue concludes Phil Hester's run on Darkness, leading to similar creative changes like those after Witchblade #150.
The ongoing writer, Phil Hester (Wonder Woman, Green Hornet), ends his run on The Darkness with a trio of artists: Romano Molenarr (The Darkness II: Confession), Leandro Oliveira (Superman) and Jose Luis (Pilot Season: Seraph). The covers for Darkness #100 are done by Todd McFarlane (Spawn) and Michawl Golden (Spawn), Jeremy Haun (Artifacts, Detective Comics) and Michael Broussard (Artifacts). Hester's exit makes way for new ongoing writer David Hine (The Darkness: Four Horsemen, Bulletproof Coffin) and Darkness #100 cover artist Jeremy Haun to take over in the next issue of The Darkness (find more details about that particular issue here).
Darkness #100 features darkness bearer Jackie Estacado in a fight against the darkness itself. After traveling through several levels of the Darkness' home dimension, this issue will culminate in the final battle between Jackie and the Darkness, with only one of them walking away victorious.
The preview has a vast amount of narration, opening with a shepherd of souls in a crystalloid mountain pass that's almost as beautiful as it sounds. The shepherd has a staggering amount of narration thrown into each panel, but does a good job catching readers up to speed with the events taking place in The Darkness.
The last panel of the preview is confusing, with inverted text, but it continues the tradition of every panel in the preview: the art is great and the colors bright and entertaining (despite being called The Darkness), which still succeed in adding to the mood of the comic positively.
As an opening, this issue looks very promising... if not "dark."
All 48-pages of the oversized issue are available digitally and on comic book shelves for $4.99. It will also feature numerous trinkets for Darkness aficionados, including a complete series cover gallery, a Darkness timeline, the winners of the Darkness II deviantart contest and a preview of The Darkness #101.
An all-around nerdette, I’m a comic book connoisseur, horror aficionado, video game addict, anime enthusiast and an aspiring novelist/comic book writer. I am the head of the comic book department and the editor-in-chief of Entertainment Fuse. I also write and edit articles for Comic Frontline. I am also an intern at Action Lab Entertainment, a comic book publisher at which I edit comic book scripts, help work on images in solicitations and help with other comic book related project. My own personal website is comicmaven.com.
