By Zack Quaintance — There is an entire sub-genre of comic books that basically boil down to what if your favorite superheroes but totally @*#&-ed up, and Dark Ages #1 is the newest member of this family. Out today from Marvel Comics, this book is written by Tom Taylor (who has done this very thing a couple of times with DC, via Injustice and more recently DCeased), illustrated by Iban Coello, colored by Brian Reber, and lettered by Joe Sabino.

I haven’t exactly been sure what the deal with this book is since it was announced and subsequently teased in last year’s Marvel Comics’ Free Comic Book Day offering, which I think featured Iron Man getting his arm cut-off by a jet engine (if I remember correctly), something that’s not referenced here in this first issue (at least not yet). After reading Dark Ages #1, I do now have a better idea of what this series deal is, which I guess is part of the point of actually reading a comic and not just making snap judgements. As the name suggests, this is a book about the world going dark, losing all of its technology, and our favorite superheroes continuing to fight within it.

We don’t get a lot of this premise in this comic, however, with the bulk of these pages being dedicated to exposition and setup, which is fine. We get a story narrated by Peter Parker about how the world went dark. As is standard for these sort of affairs, several of the mainstays of the Marvel Universe straight up die, while others get forward-facing status quo altering developments (Peter and MJ, we learn on page one, have a baby that shares Peter’s powers). So, that’s what this book is all about.

The question of whether it’s any good is a little harder to answer. My natural inclination — right or wrong — is to measure it against similar projects that writer Tom Taylor has done for DC. Even though those stories took place in another superhero universe, they feel closer in spirit to Dark Ages #1 than other Marvel experiments, from the world of Old Man Logan to the Age of Apocolypse, most of which are played out through the publisher’s mutants.

By comparison, this book does a lot of the same things as Taylor’s work on Injustice and DCeased, stringing together giant sensational moment after giant sensational moment. So, if you’re into that sort of thing, you’ll likely enjoy this book. The other quality of Taylor’s writing that has made those comics a commercial success is an ability to drill down on core relationships between superhero characters. In Injustice, for example, Taylor plays with the relationship between Green Arrow and Black Canary, and he does it well.

In that regard, Dark Ages #1 makes it seem like the creative team is still finding its footing. Basing the story around the Peter Parker - Mary Jane Watson family is a smart emotional choice, but past that, it feels a little bit lost. The biggest moments in this book were between characters who are somewhat disparate, like Susan Richards and Doctor Strange, or the Parkers and Luke Cage/Jessica Jones. But I don’t think Injustice came right out the gate knowing what characters were going to connect either. In other words, all of the setup in this issue is a bit cumbersome but necessary, and it’s the future chapters of the book that will determine how readable this series ultimately ends up being.

Which brings me to my overall reaction to this comic…I’m not entirely sure it works, at least not yet anyway. There’s a lot of narration and connecting dots in this comic. The character design for the big bad that leads to the breaking of the world is also. a little off, looking like a new video game skin has been put on Onslaught. I could definitely tell the book is interested in plunging the Marvel heroes into a medieval sort of darkness, but the journey to that point felt a little obligatory.

Overall: Dark Ages #1 is pretty faithful to other entries in the recent boom of stories that ask what if your favorite superheroes but messed up? It’s a little short on the charm needed to make it work exceedingly well, but this first issue had A LOT of setup to do, so I get it. 7.0/10

REVIEW: Dark Ages #1

Dark Ages #1
Writer: Tom Taylor
Artist: Iban Coello
Colorist: Brian Reber
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Publisher: Marvel Comics
This is what the Watcher has been watching for! A danger older than the Earth threatens everything. For once, the heroes who have saved the planet so many times are almost powerless in the face of it. X-Men and Avengers assemble. Spider-People and Fantastic Four come together. Heroes for Hire fight alongside Champions. None of it will be enough. The lights are about to go out. The world outside our window...is about to end. An all-new saga of the Marvel Universe as you’ve never seen it before from Tom Taylor and Iban Coello!
Price: $5.99
More Info: Dark Ages #1

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Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.