Shadowman #0 Review

Full disclosure, villain centric stories are not my favorite superhero stories. In an attempt to make these evil characters more compelling, they often end up muddled and boring. Sometimes, evil can just be evil and bad is just bad. That said, Shadowman #0 gets it right. This is the story of the birth of Master Darque and it's so well-written and structured that it's impossible not to enjoy it. This is haunting, dark stuff that results in the best issue of Shadowman since its debut.

Justin Jordan builds this story to near perfection. He makes the right move and pulls out of the villain's head and tells the tale from Master Darque's sister's point of view. Her story parallels his, but it quickly becomes more sinister and violent. There's an incident with a rabbit that you won't soon forget, for instance. Valiant has been putting out tons of stellar comics, but this issue might be one of the best. If you haven't been reading this series, jump on here. It'll be worth it.

The black, icky feeling that fills these pages is largely due to the art. As is becoming the norm for Valiant, there's a whole lot of artists jammed into this issue. There's four listed, although it seems like Robert De La Torre and Mico Suayan do the bulk of it. Regardless, the absolutely brilliant color work of David Baron ties this thing together in a bleak and ghastly package. Shadowman #0 looks incredible and stands on its own as a fantastic piece of comic book storytelling.

"I'm so sorry." Benjamin, on his wedding night. Follow Benjamin on Twitter @616Earth, or find him on IGN.

Source : ign[dot]com