Dark Souls: Mother of Mourning #1 is written by George Mann and published by Titan Comics. Artwork is by Maan House, colours by Steve Canon and letters by AndWorld Design’s Jame. Main cover art (left) is by Bjorn Barends.
Dark Souls: Mother of Mourning #1 is available now, in comic book stores and on digital platforms where all good comic books are sold. Grab your physical copy from Forbidden Planet or digitally from Amazon ComixologyUK.
Synopsis
As the light of the final flame begins to fade, the Order of the Knights of Mourning fight valiantly to preserve their old ways of honour and chivalry. Their patron saint, the Mother of Lilies, lies at the heart of the Order in a death-like state, her soul stolen from her by insidious forces. Against the fading of the light, she is the Order’s last hope at linking the fire and saving the world from an age of darkness. Three brave knights, led by the stalwart Lucadeus, embark on a last-ditch effort to recover the soul of their saint, so that she might return to full strength and save the world from damnation.
Review
As a die hard Dark Souls fan I was excited to dive into Mother of Mourning and see what writer George Mann and penciler Maan House would add to the already vast lore of the video game series on which it’s based.
The first thing that stands out is House’s suitably gothic art, with its dappled shadows and deep orange sunsets hinting at a world gradually falling into long night. Characters are always at least partly cast in shade, and this commitment to gloom very much sets the tone for the journey to come.
The Knights of Mourning belong to an order on its last legs. As the final flame goes out, Lucadeus – our protagonist – is tasked with recovering the soul of the Orders “relic-corpse”, the Mother of Lilies, from the one who slew her, and restoring her to life so that she might stop the final flame from going out, and save the world.
To anyone familiar with Dark Souls, this will be an intriguing concept. It’s quite a novelty to see the story unfold from the perspective of a mortal character who exists in a time after the “true” protagonist – the Mother of Lilies – already fell in battle, and must now help her back on her feet.
Lucadeus – and his two fellow knights – are not undying warriors. The danger they face is well-established from the off-set, showing that they have far more to lose than the average Dark Souls protagonist, for whom death is only a temporary setback. This sets up some considerable stakes, and lays the groundwork for the perils to come.
The characters themselves, however, are a little bland, and lack a satisfying rapport beyond a typical ‘brothers in arms’ dynamic that I wasn’t all that compelled by. Anyone expecting some of the weirdness and dour whimsy found in many Dark Souls NPCs might be disappointed here, at least in this first issue.
The action falls short a little also, lacking an opening set-piece to wow the reader from the opening pages. Mann instead opts for a traditionally Souls-like opening monologue from an unseen narrator to set the scene, which, while fitting for the franchise, is followed only by a brief sparring session and then another few pages of exposition. For only a four-part series, this is may be gambling with people’s patience a little bit.
To try to pick up the pace, the latter half of the issue features a two-page spread of a travelling montage, giving brief snippets of many of the battles and close calls the party engage in on the way to their destination. Now, I have nothing against a good montage, but I would’ve loved to have seen just one of these events given its own page, and the exposition be more evenly spread to allow for this.
Verdict
Overall, Dark Souls: Mother of Mourning #1 is an intriguing opening to a story set in this rich and haunting world, effectively laying the groundwork for a high-stakes quest to save a dying land. Hopefully, as this 4-parter unfolds, we’ll see more of the cinematic flair and action spectacle that the franchise is known for.
⭐⭐⭐
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