I can’t tell if I’m a glutton for punishment or just deeply committed.
Because after a disastrous debut issue, I should steer clear from further Dark Honor issues like they had the bubonic plague. The “COVID crime caper” left me with a burning fever of disappointment and disgust as it tried and failed to make a true thriller flourish amid the early days of the pandemic.
Still, I just don’t know when to quit, and so I tackled Dark Honor #2 with a mix of earnestness and trepidation. But, as it turns out, maybe this book doesn’t make me feel as awful as I’d originally thought. Maybe.
That’s not to say that this second issue is somehow a proper redemption for Dark Honor. Rather, it just didn’t have nearly as much bad gimmicks and one-liners. That, and it had more of what truly worked (the epic action from artist Fico Ossio). Genuinely, it’s the art in this issue that soared — be it Rain busting out some sweet parkour, or Grigor dispatching a foe with a surgical saw, the visuals feel like this book’s best bet for actual success.
Sure, the very ’90s quality and energy of this book feels at odds with the modern modern scope of the narrative, but I’m mostly just happy something about this book clicks without much added work or effort. That, and the visual identity fostered here has a deep enough history, and that goes a long way to cementing this book in a way that feels exciting and familiar. Because after issue #1, Dark Honor still proved a little too uneven and over-exaggerated for its own good.
Courtesy of Image Comics.
This latest issue doesn’t over-rely on the COVID connection (there’s no bad jokes but it still colors aspects of it),and that’s admirable enough. In fact, Dark Honor #2 actually pulls back a little to make the COVID thread rest a little more subtly. There’s talk about how Rain only gets out of jail because of the pandemic. Or, that she gets a job whose benefits include possible hand sanitizer. Even Grigor seemingly launched his vengeance against the Hundred because his father has fallen ill (perhaps due to COVID?)
All of that allows Dark Honor to position COVID in a new way, and to look at the social and moral rot it facilitated in modern society. That this shared experience didn’t always give everyone vital perspective, and that some folks instead used it as an opportunity to become even worse people. I’ll give to writers Brian DeCubellis, K.S. Bruce, and Ethan Sacks: It’s certainly a bold, intriguing direction (that’s likely very true).
However, it all feels quite understated (burgeoning on the subliminal, even) to truly matter. I thought maybe they were being strategic in this re-framing, but I also considered that it may be just me trying to find something amid the more laborious aspects of this book and its “action dude” sensibilities. Whether or not that’s the case, I can’t shake the very thought, and so it colored my experience in thinking that Dark Honor just needed time-space to turn a corner.
The fact that I can’t believe their work is this nuanced just means the book has already made an indelible mark in my mind, and not in a good way, either. Rather, it feels like an understanding that the book got lucky to have some great subtext as opposed to doing anything with purpose (beyond cool fight scenes that distract me with their xtreme ’90s energy).
Courtesy of Image Comics.
But what I can say the book actively accomplished is some solid enough character work with Rain and Grigor. The former isn’t just a capable acrobat, and her continued struggle with gambling addiction and engaging with The Hundred makes her feel wonderfully imperfect. She’s the more likely representation of people grappling with the larger COVID context, and she feels more real and relatable in a book where that’s a fleeting enough prospect.
Meanwhile, Grigor is an unwavering badass in this issue, and he’s also made decidedly sympathetic without ruining his villainous arc (complete with a rather novel goodbye scene with his own daddy dearest). He’s not only a good example of the many toads that stepped up during COVID, but his anger at Rain and her dad (Josef of The Hundred) speaks to the larger emotionality and rage may of us felt in COVID’s wake.
Again, this solid character work does require a robust enough asterisk — it once again feels like I’m connecting these characters to some thematic tent-poles as opposed to the story doing the heavy lifting. They’d both flourish in other books with little to no editing, and it’s another way Dark Honor tries to do something thematically relevant but instead either flops or seemingly experiences a big enough lucky break. Again, maybe I’m being too harsh because of just how much the debut irked me.
Courtesy of Image Comics.
But also, maybe it’d be nice if Dark Honor seemed to have more of a dedicated, deliberate arc and wasn’t just doing things in a way that felt significant just because I wanted to think I was adequately using my time in reading this title. As much as the first issue’s COVID jokes fell flat, I still felt like that was something they had actually intended. Now, I just can’t tell, and that undercuts what could be some interesting developments for this larger book.
So, the question begs: Do I have it in me to read Dark Honor #3? And the answer is, ugh, sure. Generally speaking, this issue is better than the debut (even as the aforementioned issues are undeniable). But it did enough to buy my attention for another round, and it’s my hope that issue #3 will make clear if this book can actually say something of value or if it’s all just a fluke.
Because I’m a dedicated enough reader, but I can only take so much before a book drives me away. In the case of Dark Honor, it’ll be the series’ midway point to decide if this book was sick from the beginning or if rehab and time can actually make a difference.
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