Wasting no time to connect with its increasingly ravenous fanbase, the first issue of Titan’s Dark Souls comic finds common ground in the series most recogniseable tenet; death. From the get go the protagonist, a knight who goes by the name Fira, is revived at one of the series’ iconic bonfires, neatly setting the scene while luring in those who have spent many an hour doing the same in FROM Software’s notoriously challenging series of games.
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After this revival, Kira finds herself on a quest to retrieve the Tooth of Andolus, a powerful artefact originating from an ancient dragon felled by a megalomaniac baron in ages past. Aiding her on this quest is a Scryer called Aldrich, who essentially fills the role of sidekick and has all the wisecracks and roughly about as much substance as you might expect to boot.
Far more interesting is Kira herself however. A really rather formidable warrior who channels a mixture of Red Sonja and Brienne of Tarth, she has depths to her history and character that this first issue touches upon but doesn’t fully explore, such as the loss of her family and expulsion from the Knights Order. In actuality this works in the favour of consolidating interest in the character, with such revelations no doubt being left until later issues where the eventual payoff will be better served.
Elsewhere the artwork is exquisitely grim; the early frames wonderfully capturing the hopeless nihilism of Dark Souls, yet it’s difficult to shake the notion that Alan Quar’s talent feels a little wasted in the crystalline cavern setting that we see in the first issue. Indeed, the shiny blues and extravagantly ornate surfaces seen in this first issue are as far away from Dark Souls iconic brand of dark fantasy aesthetic as any setting can be, so here’s hoping future settings are more in line with the ornate hopelessness of the Souls games that we know and love.
While Quar’s work isn’t given the appropriate room to breathe in the backgrounds and locale, it is ostensibly in the character designs that his craft is given proper opportunity to shine. With strong facial detail prevalent on all characters (Fira in particular is especially well realised) and some tremendous colour work, the cast of this Dark Souls comic are a vibrantly realised bunch that just pop right off of every page.
On the other hand, the fights, though impressively realised, simply don’t seem long enough (lengthy scraps being another hallmark of the Souls series), with the final confrontation against the issue’s big villain over in disappointingly quick fashion. Still, while they last Quar handles them with them grace, somewhat echoing the brutal choreography of the Souls games in the process.
While this chapter effectively closes out the chronicle of Andolus’ tooth, in doing so it also raises a troubling question about if future issues will continue in this way, thrusting the scenario of the month and one and done villains at us en route to anti-climactic showdown with a big bad that could end up being resolved in a single issue.
Hopefully this doesn’t happen to be the case because, while this first issue of Dark Souls arguably has its share of problems, there is a definite groundswell of potential here that if properly tapped in future issues will allow this series to stand shoulder to shoulder with the videogame series from which it derives its source. As it is though? It’s not quite time to praise the sun.