4 out of 5

I’m going to tell you what’s awesome about The Kingdom: EVERYTHING.

Okay, okay, Richard Elson’s art feels a little empty at times, and maybe a little stiff, and Abnett seems to get a better handle on his story by the time the second arc kicks into gear, but his opening editorial talks about feeling divinely inspired to tell this tale, and that’s sort of how it reads: as something that just arrives on the page, ready, flowing to our readerly eyes without any barrier to entry.  Abnett’s no novice at world building, or the sci-fi wastelandish setting of the story, but Kingdom still is one of those miracle blends of high-concept / easy-to-grasp.  Maybe it’s the way lead Gene the Hackman gets endearing points while being badass by sort of playing the Man’s Best Friend card; maybe its Dan’s honed balance of action and story.  It is these things, but I think a main ingredient here, and one that would’ve been simple to leave out but it ends up sealing the deal: is the voice of our narrator, who “speaks” Gene’s language and narrates as though… well, telling a story.  It’s instant mythos, and it never has us sitting in judgment of Gene’s simplicity.  The story respects him, so do we.  That doesn’t mean Dan can’t work some humorous interactions in there, but it doesn’t feel like it’s at Gene’s expense, which is key to us following his adventures.

In the Kingdom, the “Aux” are a mutated race of dogs – bred to be soldiers (yup), protecting ‘Antarcticy’ from ‘Them’ – big ass Starship Troopers bugs; keeping “Them” offa their lawn!  Leader of the pack we’re following is Gene, Alpha Dog, taking his pack on walkabout as dictated by the ‘urgings’ of their masters…  We get some of this directly; we get some through introspection; we get some through the reveals at the end of the first story arc collected here.  Along the way, Gene proves his place as Alpha Dog; Richard Elson proves he can draw wonderfully bug-gut splattered action sequences, and designed some mighty awesome looking characters and weapons to go about splattering them bug guts.  And with our setting exposited, we move into The Promised Land, where Dan can branches out into exploring some other settlements in The Kingdom, and how they’ve dealt with the Them infestation.  Despite not having the same info dump as the first story, Promised Land really starts to sell the world, and further highlights Dan’s skills with narration / story-telling, as he avoids easy potshots at religion (within the community Gene discovers) and manages to put a fun spin on the soilent green cliche.  Elson also has much opportunity to expand upon the look of things (having backgrounds / setting besides rocks helps, of course) and further nails down Gene’s body language, as well as employing a slightly broader color palette than the first arc.

But first and foremost, Kingdom is fun.  I don’t think I’ve ever so easily sunk into a world as Kingdom’s, wanting to shout catchphrases at passerby in celebration of my enjoyment over reading the story… though “Get whet!” probably isn’t the most stranger-friendly thing to bleat at people.

The 2011 Rebellion edition of the trade has some sketches /character notes in the back.