Leroy Douresseaux on SOLOMON KANE: RED SHADOWS #4

SOLOMON KANE: RED SHADOWS #4 (OF 4)
DARK HORSE COMICS

WRITER: Bruce Jones
ART: Rahsan Ekedal
COLORS: Dan Jackson
LETTERS: Richard Starkings & Comicraft
PIN-UP: Jim and Ruth Keegan
COVER: Guy Davis with Dave Stewart (Variant cover by Gregory Manchess with Dave Stewart)
32pp, Color, $3.50

I’ve just read my first Solomon Kane comic book in quite awhile (well over decade, for sure). I’m looking forward to more.

Solomon Kane is a fictional character created by author and pulp fiction writer, Robert E. Howard, who also created Conan. Kane is a Puritan who operated in the late 16th and early 17th century as a destroyer of evil in all its forms – human, inhuman, and supernatural. Kane first appeared in the short story, “Red Shadows,” which was published in the legendary pulp magazine, Weird Tales (August 1928).

Solomon Kane also appeared in several comic books and comic magazines published by Marvel Comics, from 1973 to the mid-1980s. There was even a miniseries, The Sword of Solomon Kane, which reprinted earlier Marvel Solomon Kane comics with some new stories. Dark Horse Comics returned the character to comics a few years ago.

Solomon Kane: Red Shadows is a four-issue comic book miniseries which adapts the short story of the same name. Seeking to avenge the death of a young girl in France, Kane travels to Africa to find her killer, Le Loup, a feared swordsman. Kane discovers that Le Loup has fallen in with Songa, a powerful leader of an African village. Kane finds an ally in N’Longa, a frail, ancient magic man, whose authority Songa usurped.

As Solomon Kane: Red Shadows #4 opens, Le Loup makes his move to kill Kane, but the shaman N’Longa has a few surprises still in store. Soon, it’s just Kane and Le Loup, left to settle their dispute like gentlemen – sword to sword.

While a comic book miniseries is a good format in which to adapt a short story, some individual issues of a miniseries may seem less like a chapter from a story and more like a brief collection of a few scenes. The fourth issue of Solomon Kane: Red Shadows reads as if it were mere leftovers from the foregone conclusion that is the end of this story.

Luckily (for the readers), scripter Bruce Jones delivers a fistful of violence in this last issue that gives the story some pungency and potency. By the end of the Kane/Le Loup duel, many readers will feel a little twinge of regret that it is all over so soon. Jones captures the madness, violence, and crazy magic that infuse Robert E. Howard’s work. Artist Rahsan Ekedal and colorist Dan Jackson transform Jones’ active script into gripping visual and storytelling.

B+

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"

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