#IReadsYou Review: DARK BLOOD #6

DARK BLOOD #6 (OF 6)
BOOM! STUDIOS

STORY: LaToya Morgan
ART:  Moisés Hidalgo
COLORS: A.H.G. with Allison Hu (pp. 18-21)
LETTERS:  Andworld Design
EDITOR: Dafna Pleban
COVER: Valentine De Landro
VARIANT COVER ARTISTS: Juni Ba; Valentine De Landro; Tiffany Turrill
24pp, Colors, 3.99 U.S. (January 2022)

Dark Blood created by LaToya Morgan

Dark Blood is a six-issue comic book miniseries created and written by screenwriter LaToya Morgan (AMC’s “The Walking Dead,” “Into The Badlands”).  Published by BOOM! Studios, the series is drawn by Moisés Hidalgo and Walt Barna; colored by A.H.G.; and lettered by Andworld Design.  The series focuses on a Black World War II veteran who discovers that he has strange powers.

Alabama, 1955.  After leaving his job at the diner, “Hardy's Eats,” Avery Aldridge, also known as “Double A,” has a fateful encounter with a racist.  Double A is a highly decorated World War II soldier, a former fighter pilot, a member of the soon-to-be-legendary “Red Tails.”  He is expected to act like a boy … when he is actually a very powerful man.  But this is “The Night of the Variance,” and everything is going to start to change – even the things some don't want changed.

Dark Blood #6 opens in 1955 – late into the Night of the Variance.  Avery confronts Dr. Carlisle and Dr. Marshall, and he learns that he is the “Variant,” the one who responded “positively” to their formula (apparently dubbed "Formula 687") and treatment.  Now, his powers are raging, and powerful as he is, it comes with a devastating cost.

Meanwhile, Sheriff Wright has finally caught up with Avery.  If Avery wants to see his wife, Emma, and daughter, Grace, again, the racist lawman insists that he must play by his rules.  But does he?  Can Avery make sure that no one ever goes through what he has?  Can he protect his wife and child?  Will it cost him everything to do this?

THE LOWDOWN:  I recently learned, via “CBS Evening News,” that the United States Air Force museum had been keeping a secret.  In 1949, a team from the famed all-Black “Tuskegee Airmen” won the first “Top Gun” contest.  This contest was a gunnery competition among pilots from across the Air Force.  However, the Air Force's record book listed the winner as “unknown.”

The winners' trophy was hidden in the bowels of the Air Force museum until a historian discovered it in 2005.  Now, the trophy is on display at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.  The Tuskegee Airmen have finally been recognized with Top Gun honor – 73 years after winning the first contest.

The “Red Tails” (the 332nd Fighter Group) were part of the Tuskegee Airmen, and in “Dark Blood,” Avery Aldridge” was a Red Tail.  I didn't take this revelation as mere coincidence that I learned of it less that a week before the release of the final issue of the Dark Blood comic book miniseries.

In Dark Blood, television writer-producer LaToya Morgan (AMC's “TURN: Washington's Spies”) offers a comic book that is steeped in the history of African-American participation in World War II.  Dark Blood is allegorical in the way that it references the “Tuskegee Experiment” (a study which observed the effects of untreated syphilis in Black men).  The series also opens at the dawn of the “American Civil Rights Movement” (1954-68).  Dark Blood has been historical.

Yet it was not until Dark Blood #5 that I realized how much this comic book is also a rip-roaring science fiction yarn.  The series' narrative blood is certainly Black history and culture, but Dark Blood's DNA is pulp science fiction literature.  Its pedigree is the world of weird science fiction and fantasy comic books that emerged after World War II.  While reading issue #5, the sci-fi reality of Dark Blood came at me like a space rocket.

Morgan, artists Moisés Hidalgo and Walt Barna, and colorist A.H.G. have presented readers with a comic book series that looks and feels like it came out of the 1950s.  In an alternate reality, I can see it as something that William Gaines would have published through EC Comics.  Yes, Dark Blood would have been one more nail in EC's coffin, but Morgan's mixture of reality and sci-fi would have been a perfect fit for EC's mixture of morality and blood and guts genre.

Dark Blood #6 offers both – history and drama and also the astounding yearnings of golden age science fiction.  The drama has a powerful resolution, and the super-powers are the fireworks of comic book magic.  Superheroes and mutants – Dark Blood #6 promises readers an interesting future as the series comes to an end.  Whatever may come, what we have now in Dark Blood, dear readers, it is a blast to read.  And if you haven't read it yet, Dark Blood flows at comiXology.

I READS YOU RECOMMENDS:  Fans of golden age science fiction and of super science fiction comic books will want to read Dark Blood.

A+

10 out of 10

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


Dark Blood trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzzXIYr_FrA&feature=youtu.be
Dark Blood first loook: https://www.boom-studios.com/wordpress/archives/dark-blood-1-first-look/
https://twitter.com/MorganicInk
https://twitter.com/WaltBarna
https://twitter.com/AHGColor
https://twitter.com/andworlddesign

https://twitter.com/boomstudios
https://www.boom-studios.com/wordpress/
https://www.facebook.com/BOOMStudiosComics
https://www.instagram.com/boom_studios/


The text is copyright © 2022 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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#IReadsYou Review: DARK BLOOD #5

DARK BLOOD #5 (OF 6)
BOOM! STUDIOS

STORY: LaToya Morgan
ART:  Moisés Hidalgo
COLORS: A.H.G. with Allison Hu
LETTERS:  Andworld Design
EDITOR: Dafna Pleban
COVER: Valentine De Landro
VARIANT COVER ARTISTS: Juni Ba; Valentine De Landro; Ernanda Souza
24pp, Colors, 3.99 U.S. (December 2021)

Dark Blood created by LaToya Morgan

Dark Blood is a new six-issue comic book miniseries created and written by screenwriter LaToya Morgan (AMC’s “The Walking Dead,” “Into The Badlands”).  Published by BOOM! Studios, the series is drawn by Moisés Hidalgo and Walt Barna; colored by A.H.G.; and lettered by Andworld Design.  The series focuses on a Black World War II veteran who discovers that he has strange powers.

Alabama, 1955.  After leaving his job at the diner, “Hardy's Eats,” Avery Aldridge, also known as “Double A,” has a fateful encounter with a racist.  Double A is a highly decorated World War II soldier, a former fighter pilot, a member of the soon-to-be-legendary “Red Tails.”  He is expected to act like a boy … when he is actually a very powerful man.  But this is “The Night of the Variance,” and everything is going to start to change – even the things some don't want changed.

Dark Blood #5 opens in 1955 – the Night of the Variance.  But this night feels the weight of a time a decade earlier when World War II servicemen, Avery and Henderson, two pilots of the Red Tails, face injustice masquerading as justice in Austria.  Oh, how it resembles the same process of injustice in the United States.  What happened that night may have laid the groundwork for Avery's situation now.

What Avery discovered about himself six weeks before the Night of Variance seemed like a good thing, but this night, there is horror and there must be a reckoning.  As Avery's condition continues to manifest and become more intense, is his search for answers merely going to lead him to something far worse?

THE LOWDOWN:  In Dark Blood, television writer-producer LaToya Morgan (AMC's “TURN: Washington's Spies”) offers a comic book that flows through multiple genres, including science fiction and fantasy, horror, and history.  It has layers and subtexts.  There is metaphor and symbolism and history made reality.  Morgan presents her readers with a beautiful and complex work.

On the other hand, I see the art of Moisés Hidalgo, who has been the regular artist on this series since the third issue.  I read his signs and graphics and symbolism, and I realize that Dark Blood #5 is just so much fun to read.  I feel like a kid again discovering something every time I read a new comic book or new issue of a favorite series.  Even if I were too ignorant to figure out the layers behind this story, Hidalgo turns this tale into a wild adventure of mad scientists, Nazis, and rotten cops.  It is pure escapism, and ain't nothing wrong with that.  Hell, Dark Blood #5 is the magic and the mystery of the Golden Age of Comics before busybodies ruined this outsider art form with the “Comics Code Authority (CCA) in 1954.

A.H.G.'s beautiful colors on Hidalgo's art makes this vintage mode (so to speak) feel so real.  I hope the upcoming final issue of Dark Blood also has a touch of escapist entertainment in it.  I also hope that it isn't the end...

I READS YOU RECOMMENDS:  Fans of modern science fiction and dark fantasy comic books will want to drink Dark Blood.

A+

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


Dark Blood trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzzXIYr_FrA&feature=youtu.be
Dark Blood first loook: https://www.boom-studios.com/wordpress/archives/dark-blood-1-first-look/
https://twitter.com/MorganicInk
https://twitter.com/WaltBarna
https://twitter.com/AHGColor
https://twitter.com/andworlddesign

https://twitter.com/boomstudios
https://www.boom-studios.com/wordpress/
https://www.facebook.com/BOOMStudiosComics
https://www.instagram.com/boom_studios/


The text is copyright © 2021 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

------------

Amazon wants me to inform you that the affiliate link below is a PAID AD, but I technically only get paid (eventually) if you click on the affiliate link below AND buy something(s).

#IReadsYou Review: DARK BLOOD #4

DARK BLOOD #4 (OF 6)
BOOM! STUDIOS

STORY: LaToya Morgan
ART:  Moisés Hidalgo
COLORS: A.H.G.
LETTERS:  Andworld Design
EDITOR: Dafna Pleban
COVER: Valentine De Landro
VARIANT COVER ARTISTS: Juni Ba; Valentine De Landro; Jonboy Meyers
24pp, Colors, 3.99 U.S. (October 2021)

Dark Blood created by LaToya Morgan

Dark Blood is a new six-issue comic book miniseries created and written by screenwriter LaToya Morgan (AMC’s “The Walking Dead,” “Into The Badlands”).  Published by BOOM! Studios, the series is drawn by Walt Barna and Moisés Hidalgo; colored by A.H.G.; and lettered by Andworld Design.  The series focuses on a Black World War II veteran who discovers that he has strange new abilities.

Alabama, 1955.  After leaving his job at the diner, “Hardy's Eats,” Avery Aldridge, also known as “Double A,” has a fateful encounter with a racist.  Double A is a highly decorated World War II soldier, a former fighter pilot, a member of the soon-to-be-legendary “Red Tails.”  He is expected to act like a boy … when he is actually a very powerful man.  But this is “The Night of the Variance,” and everything is going to start to change – even the things some don't want changed.

Dark Blood #4 opens in 1955 – the Night of the Variance.  Avery is on the run with Sheriff Wright closing in on him.  Avery is certain that the police have blamed him for an accidental death that occurred behind the diner where he works.  His younger brother, Theodore “Theo” Aldridge, is waiting for him, and li'l bro will be shocked by what Avery has to reveal.

Those revelations include what happened ten years ago in World War II – behind enemy lines – when Avery had an encounter with ... werewolves.  Can Avery clear his name and find out what's really happening to him?

THE LOWDOWN:  I thought that the term “Nazi werewolves” was merely some B-movie or cheap sci-fi/horror trope.  Though Pocket, the reading list service, I discovered Lorraine Boissoneault's article for Smithsonian Magazine that detailed the World War II guerrilla fighters referred to by that name.

In Dark Blood, television writer-producer LaToya Morgan (AMC's “TURN: Washington's Spies”) offers a comic book that flows through multiple genres, including science fiction and fantasy, horror, and history.  It is a reality-based drama that treads the borders of the fantastic the way Rod Serling did in his legendary TV series, “The Twilight Zone.”

On the other hand, Dark Blood #4 throws readers into the thrill of the hunt, as two similar kinds of human wolves hunt Avery, ten years apart.  In this way, Morgan reminds us that there are thrills, chills, and action flowing in Dark Blood.  Like EC Comics' famous war comics titles, Frontline Combat and Two-Fisted Tales, Dark Blood drops readers behind enemy lines into the treachery and menace of war.  In 1955, as Avery eludes his pursuers, fans may be reminded that there is nothing like the thrill of watching an unsuspecting person wander into the Twilight Zone and end up being hunted.

In Dark Blood #4, Moisés Hidalgo, who also drew issue #3, delivers the kind of comic book storytelling that will have readers burning through the pages, and rereading much of the it.  The naturalism of his illustrative style keeps the story from being constrained by time.  What happens is more important than when it happened, making the story feel timeless.  In a sense, what occurs in Dark Blood #4 is always an occurrence – to one person and another, at one time and another.

A.H.G.'s beautiful colors on Hidalgo's art brings forth the power of this story, and for me, it's like riding lightning through Avery's (mis)adventures.  As usual, Andworld Design's lettering throws gasoline on the fire.

So, dear readers, at least you who need a change from what you read every month, here it is.  Like Rodney Barnes and Jason Shawn Alexander's Killadelphia (Image Comics), Dark Blood is the … new blood your imaginations need.

I READS YOU RECOMMENDS:  Fans of modern science fiction and dark fantasy comic books will want to drink Dark Blood.

A+

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


Dark Blood trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzzXIYr_FrA&feature=youtu.be
Dark Blood first loook: https://www.boom-studios.com/wordpress/archives/dark-blood-1-first-look/
https://twitter.com/MorganicInk
https://twitter.com/WaltBarna
https://twitter.com/AHGColor
https://twitter.com/andworlddesign

https://twitter.com/boomstudios
https://www.boom-studios.com/wordpress/
https://www.facebook.com/BOOMStudiosComics
https://www.instagram.com/boom_studios/


The text is copyright © 2021 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

------------------

Amazon wants me to inform you that the affiliate link below is a PAID AD, but I technically only get paid (eventually) if you click on the affiliate link below AND buy something(s).

#IReadsYou Review: DARK BLOOD #3

DARK BLOOD #3 (OF 6)
BOOM! STUDIOS

STORY: LaToya Morgan
ART:  Moisés Hidalgo
COLORS: A.H.G.
LETTERS:  Andworld Design
EDITOR: Dafna Pleban
COVER: Valentine De Landro
VARIANT COVER ARTISTS: Juni Ba; Valentine De Landro; Christian Ward
24pp, Colors, 3.99 U.S. (September 2021)

Dark Blood created by LaToya Morgan

Dark Blood is a new six-issue comic book miniseries created and written by screenwriter LaToya Morgan (AMC’s “The Walking Dead,” “Into The Badlands”).  Published by BOOM! Studios, the series is drawn by Walt Barna and Moisés Hidalgo; colored by A.H.G.; and lettered by Andworld Design.  The series focuses on a Black World War II veteran who discovers that he has strange new abilities.

Alabama, 1955.  After leaving his job at the diner, “Hardy's Eats,” Avery Aldridge, also known as “Double A,” has a fateful encounter with a racist.  Double A is a highly decorated World War II soldier, a former fighter pilot, a member of the soon-to-be-legendary “Red Tails.”  He is expected to act like a boy … when he is actually a very powerful man.  But this is “The Night of the Variance,” and everything is going to start to change – even the things some don't want changed.

Dark Blood #3 opens in 1945, ten years before the Variance.  In Alabama, Emma Aldridge, Avery's wife, feels the penetrating eyes of a member of the local wolf pack, also known as a police officer, specifically Officer Wright.  Meanwhile, near the Austrian border, Avery and a fellow pilot race for safety with another kind of wolf pack, in the form of a Nazi commandant and his soldiers, nipping at their heels.

Ten years later, back in the present, it is the “Night of the Variance.”  Once again, Emma evades a wolf, while Avery runs away from one.  As he did a decade before, Avery will once again have to decide when he should stop running and turn around and start fighting.

THE LOWDOWN:  The indignities that Avery Aldridge suffers in Dark Blood #2 are familiar to me because I have experienced some of them and others were told to me via first hand or second hand accounts.  A theme that runs throughout Dark Blood, thus far, is the notion that Black people are often being hunted.  Sometimes, even being watched is a form of being hunted; the difference is that the hunter hunts with his stare or gaze.

Television writer-producer LaToya Morgan (AMC's “TURN: Washington's Spies”) offers in Dark Blood a comic book that flows through multiple genres, including science fiction and fantasy, horror, history, and reality-based drama, to name a few.  As a television writer, she knows how to deliver action, suspense, and thrills along with the character drama.  And Dark Blood #3 offers the thrill of the hunt.

This third issue finds husband and wife, Avery and Emma Aldridge, living and surviving on the razor's edge more than once, over two time periods.  It would not be inappropriate to compare this issue's hunters, Alabama law enforcement and Nazi military personnel to one another.  After all, one was the teacher of codified racism, and the other was the student.  [I'll let you, dear readers, figure out which was which.]

Morgan delivers Dark Blood's most taut thrills and fraught drama, thus far, and this time she has a different artist as her creative partner.  Moisés Hidalgo, who drew a few pages of Dark Blood #2, returns to draw Dark Blood #3's dark nights of pursuit to life.  Hidalgo's compositions seem inspired by the surreal madness of Steve Ditko's comics and also the impressionism and and wild-eyed emotions of Japanese manga.  Here, Hidalgo makes the reader feel, as if he refuses to allow the reader to experience Morgan's story only in a rational way.  His art wants us to be fearful, desperate, and even irrational.  While reading this issue, I believed that I had to feel this story if I was really going to have a chance of understanding the characters' plights.

Once again, I must praise A.H.G.'s coloring for Dark Blood.  I read comiXology's digital editions of Dark Blood when I am reviewing the series, and A.H.G.'s colors look gorgeous in this format.  The coloring makes Dark Blood's interiors look like pages from a vintage comic book, so Dark Blood seems to be not a comic book about the past, but a comic book from the past.  It is like a memento from a time capsule, a story that has been waiting for us.

Strangely, Dark Blood #3 confirms what I have been thinking since I started reading this series.  Dark Blood is the comic book that some comic book readers need and have needed for a long time, though some may only discover this later via a Dark Blood trade paperback.  So, once gain, I highly recommend Dark Blood.

I READS YOU RECOMMENDS:  Fans of modern science fiction and dark fantasy comic books will want to drink Dark Blood.

A+

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


Dark Blood trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzzXIYr_FrA&feature=youtu.be
Dark Blood first loook: https://www.boom-studios.com/wordpress/archives/dark-blood-1-first-look/
https://twitter.com/MorganicInk
https://twitter.com/WaltBarna
https://twitter.com/AHGColor
https://twitter.com/andworlddesign

https://twitter.com/boomstudios
https://www.boom-studios.com/wordpress/
https://www.facebook.com/BOOMStudiosComics
https://www.instagram.com/boom_studios/


The text is copyright © 2021 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

----------------------

Amazon wants me to inform you that the affiliate link below is a PAID AD, but I technically only get paid (eventually) if you click on the affiliate link below AND buy something(s).

#IReadsYou: Review: DARK BLOOD #2

DARK BLOOD #2 (OF 6)
BOOM! STUDIOS

STORY: LaToya Morgan
ART: Walt Barna with Moisés Hidalgo (pp. 10-12, 19)
COLORS: A.H.G.
LETTERS: Andworld Design
EDITOR: Dafna Pleban
COVER: Valentine De Landro
VARIANT COVER ARTISTS: Juni Ba; Valentine De Landro; Taurin Clarke
24pp, Colors, 3.99 U.S.(August 2021)

Dark Blood created by LaToya Morgan

Dark Blood is a new six-issue comic book miniseries created and written by screenwriter LaToya Morgan (AMC’s “The Walking Dead,” “Into The Badlands”).  Published by BOOM! Studios, the series is drawn by Walt Barna; colored by A.H.G.; and lettered by Andworld Design.  The series focuses on a Black World War II veteran who discovers that he has strange new abilities.

Alabama, 1955.  After leaving his job at the diner, “Hardy's Eats,” Avery Aldridge, also known as “Double A,” has a fateful encounter with a racist.  Double A is a highly decorated World War II soldier, a former fighter pilot, a member of the soon-to-be-legendary “Red Tails.”  He is expected to act like a boy … when he is actually a very powerful man.  But this is “The Night of the Variance,” and everything is going to start to change – even the things some don't want changed.

Dark Blood #2 opens six months before the Variance and reflects that which occupies Avery's oft-troubled mind.  He thinks of his wife, Emma, and their daughter, Grace Emmadell.  We see his life in “Vale Junction,” a small Black community where everyone knows him and loves Emma's “Vale Junction Book Mobile.”  Even his wartime experiences, especially from a particular time in Austria, circa 1945, flits in and out of Avery's memories.

However, reality intrudes after an altercation leaves Avery hurt.  Dr. Carlisle, a white university doctor, is the unlikely bystander who steps in to help, offering Avery immediate first aid.  As luck … would have it, Dr. Carlisle also operates a clinic “right outside of town on the old Rickman Farm” where he offers free medical care.  But nothing is really free...

THE LOWDOWN:  The indignities that Avery Aldridge suffers in Dark Blood #2 are familiar to me because I have experienced some of them and others were told to me via first hand or second hand accounts.  I admire a writer who can take such things and transform them into drama.  When a writer takes reality and inflicts it on make-believe people in a way that hits the audience in the soft spots (the heart, the soul, the mind), that is some mighty powerful storytelling.

Television writer-producer LaToya Morgan (AMC's “TURN: Washington's Spies”) offers in Dark Blood a comic book that is both science fiction-fantasy/horror and historical or reality-based drama.  She makes the Jim Crow world in her corner of Alabama truly an awful place, but at the same time, she presents in Vale Junction a Black community permeated with love and possibilities.  And that was the world that Black Americans lived not that long ago.

There are times when Avery suffers the insults of White people, and I can feel the hoary ghost of Nat Turner scratching at every window of my soul.  A documentary film or a work of journalism in our world would take Avery's experiences and attempt to engage our intellect.  Great drama takes those same experiences and engages our soul and ensnares our imagination.  It is through such mighty and imaginative drama that Morgan makes Dark Blood work as serialized fiction, a kind of fantastic fiction born in our reality based histories.

By page design and panel composition, artist Walt Barna brings the compelling drama of Dark Blood #2 to life.  With each panel, he is like a photographer working the right angles and capturing the perfect moments as he builds this chapter/issue.  There are also some beautifully drawn pages by guest artist Moisés Hidalgo.  Of course, A.H.G.'s gorgeous colors shift with the winds of Avery's memories, as well as with the linear jooks of Morgan's narratives.  So I credit the colors with forcing me to pay attention to the graphics throughout Dark Blood, especially this second issue.

After reading the first issue, I thought that LaToya Morgan, Walt Barna, A.H.G., and Andworld Design were off to a most excellent start, offering something that had great promise.  Dark Blood #2 aggressively delivers on that great promise.

I READS YOU RECOMMENDS:  Fans of modern science fiction and dark fantasy comic books will want to drink Dark Blood.

A+

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


Dark Blood trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzzXIYr_FrA&feature=youtu.be
Dark Blood first loook: https://www.boom-studios.com/wordpress/archives/dark-blood-1-first-look/
https://twitter.com/MorganicInk
https://twitter.com/WaltBarna
https://twitter.com/AHGColor
https://twitter.com/andworlddesign

https://twitter.com/boomstudios
https://www.boom-studios.com/wordpress/
https://www.facebook.com/BOOMStudiosComics
https://www.instagram.com/boom_studios/


The text is copyright © 2021 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

-----------------

Amazon wants me to inform you that the affiliate link below is a PAID AD, but I technically only get paid (eventually) if you click on the affiliate link below AND buy something(s).