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By Jacob Cordas — As I sit down to review Black Knight - Curse of the Ebony Blade #1, I’m thinking maybe it’s expectations that kill us. Whenever I review something, I try to remove my expectations from a project. Hell, I try to do this for everything I read, but it's often nigh-impossible to remove all the biases you build up on a day to day basis. And I had a lot of biases going into this work.

I love Si Spurrier’s writing, especially his recent run on John Constantine: Hellblazer. I love Sergio Davila’s artwork, especially his recently-concluded run on The Terrifics. I love Sean Parsons’s inking, especially on one of my all-time favorite comics, Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles. Hell, I loved the recent King In Black: Black Knight one-shot. So while I took a deep breath, tried to clear my head, and take this issue on its own terms, I had so many expectations going into Black Knight: Curse of the Ebony Blade #1, and I think that’s what killed my experience.

The writing is uniformly strong but wordy in a way that reminds me of Black Knight’s late Silver/early Bronze age Avengers stories. Pages are covered in dialogue and thought balloons. The cast is massive, intentionally embracing this legacy further with the Avengers appearing in this story. The book nails most of their voices (with the notable exception of Thor) in the small interactions they have with our hero. But the dialogue mostly returns to the Black Knight’s depressive monologue at a computer that has no personality other than patience. It’s tragicomedy that works, mostly.

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The sheer amount of words on every page quickly clutters it. VC’s Cory Petit does their best with it but seems to struggle under the weight of it. But then again, I don’t know if I can even hold them accountable when it is this wordy. They’ve done excellent work before (I love what they do on Miles Morales: Spider-Man) but here it feels like the words are fighting the panel structure.

The art team takes the book and tries to mesh the modernized take on the character with a modernized art sensibilities. The pages have panels at every sort of angle crafting momentum and energy well. In theory this should carry you through the comic, pushing you at an increasingly accelerating rate. Art like what’s here is built to make you flip through unable to stop reading. It’s modern high energy art.

The problem is the script is not done in the style of modern script. It created this sense of dissonance as I read it making me feel like I was always reading both too slowly and too quickly. I could never quite tell the pace or mood any one sequence was going for.

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And you add on top of that the required lettering to get all those words out there and the momentum on some pages would stall or be awkwardly diverted.

But each part on its own is good. If I just read the script, I would love it (except its depiction of Thor). I looked up images of the pages inked and I know I loved those that I saw. Even the lettering is very good on its own. But it all came together to make something that just doesn’t jive for me.

And I think that’s where my expectations come in. I think a lot of these feelings might be my fault. I went in expecting something different from what I got, something closer to the one-shot they just released. That’s not what this is. This is something different, an outgrowth of that. I will give the next issue another shot. Hopefully I’ll appreciate it more.

Overall: While Black Knight: Curse of the Ebony Blade #1 doesn’t win me over in its first issue, I’m still willing to keep going with it - in the hopes it can. 6.5/10

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REVIEW: Black Knight - Curse of the Ebony Blade #1

Black Knight: Curse of the Ebony Blade #1
Writer: Si Spurrier
Artist: Sergio Davila
Inker: Sean Parsons
Colorist: Arif Prianto
Letterer: VC's Cory Petit
Publisher: Marvel
Price: $3.99
THE GREATEST KNIGHT OF THEM ALL RIDES AGAIN!
Dane Whitman is the BLACK KNIGHT and wielder of the magical EBONY BLADE, but the blade’s power comes at a terrible price. Dane forever bears the burden of its curse: an insatiable lust for blood and mayhem that constantly threatens to swallow its owner in darkness. Must that be Dane’s fate?
Following the battle against the KING IN BLACK, a reinvigorated Dane has a greater sense of purpose than ever before. But his sword is the key to a new enemy’s evil plan and only the Black Knight can prevent the coming death and destruction. This conflict spanning mythical Camelot to modern-day NYC will test Dane like never before and challenge everything he believes about himself, the Ebony Blade, and the entire history of the Black Knight! Guest starring the AVENGERS!
Release Date: March 17, 2021
Read It Digitally: Black Knight - Curse of the Ebony Blade #1 via comiXology