3 out of 5

I was obsessed with Darkman when I was a kid.  Probably because it was the first R-rated movie I saw, and so once the chains were off I was allowed to watch it again… and again… and again…  Due to this obsession, when I discovered I liked reading (or that I felt like it was ‘cool’ to read – good job, parents), I somehow stumbled across this book series which was meant to be a continuation of Darkman’s adventures.  At the time, I just gobbled them up, clinging to them ’cause they seemed like similar R-rated material, full of blood and guts and swearing, and I guess since I felt that reading was ‘cool’ since it was adult, having an ‘adult’ book just added to that charm.

Years later, I would realize that Darkman was directed by Sam Raimi, and then instead of a dark horror flick, I realized it was more of a darkly comedic superhero-origin story.  So years and years later, I can more get the concept of these books – Darkman is a superhero, so let’s serialize his adventures.  Thankfully, Randall Boyll, who did quite a few of these film-influenced books, recognized the horror angle of the original character and story and so keeps things grounded in blood and muck.  It’s not on the same page as Stephen King or anything, but Darkman is still a mummy, still overcome by rage, still lives in a warehouse…  He’s not going to get the girl, and he’s probably going to kill the bad guys in a pretty grisly fashion.

First, there are a couple of general issues with this book: first and foremost being the reintroduction.  We have to review Darkman’s film history through a clumsy dream sequence, and we have to have bits and pieces of the “why does he look like this and feel nothing?” inserted via “Darkman remembers…” asides.  It sucks, and it worked on me when I was a kid ’cause it just fueled that “yeah I totally saw that movie and it was rated R” fire, but now, like, I get it.  It’s a wasted twenty pages, but, alas, required.  Second, and this was an issue in the film also, is playing fast and loose with how he adapts to people’s personalities.  In case you’re not familiar, Darkie used to be a scientist working on synthetic skin.  So due to the original story’s machinations that burned him to a crisp, he uses that technology to “become” other people (i.e. donning a face mask that looks like so and so) when needed.  But besides the face…  Now, unless you’re a movie stylist, I’ve never seen someone buy wigs from a shop that truly look like hair, much less someone else’s unique hairstyle.  But fine, I’ll let that go as movie / book magic.  The voice… in the film, they make some to-do about recording and mimicking the voices, and Boyll tries to extend that concept with a voice replicator and copping that Darkman is often called out on his voice being huskier than usual, so kudos to trying to justify it, at least, but it’s still a stretch.  However, the part that always gets me… body shape.  Darkman becomes a teenager and a lawyer in this book at various points.  Do they all share the same build?  Is he wearing padding?  Lifts?  It’s not really mentioned, and I find that frustrating, especially considering the honest-to-goodness exploration of environment and character Boyll puts in to things here, but all of these flaws (which are inherited from the source material, for better or worse) keep things from ever being too moving.

Also holding this down is that it’s a first book in a series, and so sort of feels restrained.  Our story is actually a pretty good crime story – a gang of kid thieves, 10 years and older, run by a teenager, managed, in secret, by the D.A., who’s taking a skimming off the earnings, reasoning that the business can keep going ’cause you can guide and train little kids to just follow you around, unlike adults.  Boyll bumps it into horror territory with the lead teenager – Ice – who has a no-tolerance policy for traitors.  He hangs traitors.  Our book includes the described death of children.  Impressively grisly, yes?  But it requires a good hundred pages or so to convince Darkman to get involved (you can skip this in later books) and to figure out how to tie him to Ice and his gang, which is done through runaway (and eventual orphan) Danny Frakes, who runs into Darkman at some point and then gets involved with the gang.  Once the pieces are in place, the story moves at a good pace, Darkman changes identities to detective his way around events, making this a sort of an original horror-crime noir thing.  And Boyll’s skills as a writer get to shine, as he writes these kids and characters pretty openly and honestly, realistic connections in logic, pretty true feeling descriptions of how crummy life on the streets can be.  He doesn’t go for overwrought because we’re dealing with kids, nor does he shy away from telling what seems like truth.  He also successfully transitions from scene to scene and knows where to end and start his chapters, which even many best-sellers do pretty poorly.

So I’m looking forward to reading the next one.  It’s not a book you place in someone’s hands, but I’m hoping that it will be a series you would, as it promises a nifty genre blend and more skill behind the words than a movie tie-in probably usually gets.