Dark Devil #1 is a comic written by David Furr with art by John Rhodes, Laurie Foster, Evan Quiring, and Marcus Odoms. A FBI agent moonlights as a hero that goes up against otherworldly creatures! This is a supernatural superhero comic with horror elements and a bit of mystery. The main man for this story is Bart, he is an FBI agent that is also a superhero named Dark Devil that uses boomerangs and other bladed weapons. He also has conversations with the suit as it appears to be possessed. He has a partner named Carol and throughout the course of this investigation he’ll come across other people like himself. The story begins a possessed man fleeing after kidnapping a young girl. The man attempts to hide from his pursuer but he isn’t as safe as he thinks. The violence here features a decent amount of blood with gore and gruesome attacks. The pacing is overall a few ticks slower than average with a serious tone. There are more than few intense moments but not all of them are due to violence. The dialogue is all conversational and frequently combative. There are more than a few word-heavy pages and many thick text bubbles. This is a comic that introduces us to a character with a darkness about them in a story about evil hiding in plain sight.

            The art here is detailed and drawn in a somewhat 90’s style with notable smoothness and significant lighting and shading. The colors here are mostly dark in tone with rare bright spots and this perfectly matches the theme of this comic. This story begins in a grassy area with trees and an open field but afterwards it is all interiors and the inner city. There are two primary locations here: a jail with an interrogation room and a soup kitchen run by a church. We get a good view of these places as different rooms are visited and angles used. The backgrounds are almost split between showing the surroundings of the scene and being a gradient color with different styles. The expression level here is a tick below average as these characters sport hardened looks for most of this. When emotions aren’t being held back we’ll see fear and anger with some rage. The faces have an above-average amount of detail and show the expressions well. The violence here involves bladed weapons as well as being physical. There are some gruesome attacks and gore. The action scenes have a high amount of panels and generally flow smoothly but there are some rare moments that might throw you off.

“Is this worth reading?”

Yes.

“Would I like this?”

If you like supernatural superhero stories with some horror that star a man with a possessed suit in a story with violence then this is for you.

“What would this comic’s film rating be?”

R. Violence, blood.

“Could I get a quote from the comic?”

“I can see the real you.”

 

Kickstarter Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hyperversecomics/dark-devil-1-zogg-must-die-a-new-take-on-a-classic-hero/description

***IN-DEPTH COMIC STATS BELOW***

Probably Contains Spoilers

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Actual Pages(not counting covers and credits): 24

Violent Pages: 10, for 42% of the comic

Sexy Pages: 0, for 0% of the comic

 

**The levels below aren’t necessarily maintained throughout the whole comic, but they were definitely reached**

 

Violence Level – 3

“Wasn’t no tussling at all.”

“Sometimes you gotta hit somebody.”

“I’m getting charged with how many counts of assault?”

“This was a tournament arc.”

“All my life I had to fight.”

 

Gore Level – 4

“The only thing leaking out your face is tears.”

“Looks like somebody spilled some ketchup.”

“Might need to soak that up with a bath towel.”

“That isn’t supposed to be outside the body.”

“This is a slaughterhouse.”

 

Death Level – 2

“And everybody lived happily ever after.”

“We might have gone to a couple funerals.”

“It just LOOKS like a serial killer was here.”

“Yeah this was a tragedy.”

“Think Gettysburg.”

 

Porn Level – 1

“Everybody kept their clothes on.”

“I guess it was too hot for a bra.”

“Sometimes you got to let everything air out.”

“This is like late night Cinemax in the early 2000’s.”

“Oh. This is porn.”