3 out of 5

Like many newbie graphic novels – meaning an author’s (or artist’s) first attempt at the medium – ‘Darklight’ suffers from pacing problems.  However – and this is where we can probably credit Kultgen’s experience as a published author – it’s not an empty idea, or a pitch that bites off more than it can chew.  ‘Darklight’ has a nice sci-fi setup, decent characterizations and ideas, and believable dialogue.  And thanks to artist Piotr Kowalsi, whose got both some major Marvel work and indie work under his belt, the book looks good.  But points where the illustrated medium needs padding, Kultgen hops right over, writing this like a book, and thus selling his concept a bit short.

A text intro explains to us that we’ve sucked the universe dry of resources, and this includes stars and planets.  So we’re living in a colony of spaceships.  ‘Ugh,’ you think, ‘this is going to be some godawful environmental parable…’ because that’s what I thought, and you and me, we are SO alike.  But no – point to ‘Darklight’ – the preaching ends here.  It’s really just to set the stage for Kultgen’s tale.  That is one of the greatest strengths of the story (and again where I’ll credit his history as a writer): all of the story evolutions definitely carry a sense of logical progression, which is nice in a sci-fi world where you can get by making up a lot of shit.  This isn’t a soapbox for some kidney-punching moral lesson.  I definitely believe Kultgen wanted to tell a legit science fiction story, and for whichever reasons, that want came to fruition as a comic.

The problem-to-solve that kicks off the book is nothing major – just our universe dying via shrinking.  The humans come up with a theoretical solution of creating a star with such incredible mass (and gravity) at the center of the universe that it acts as an ‘anchor’ and halts the process.  As I’ve been watching the updated Cosmos lately, there’s a couple aspects of this I don’t quite get – that there’s not a center the known universe, I believe (but perhaps in universe-shrinking world, we can now discern a center) and that ‘incredible mass’ seems equivalent to a black hole, and I’m not clear on how that anchors things.  The traveling of comets and such is affected by getting swung about by the gravity of various space thingies, but again, not an anchor.  I realize this doesn’t match with my claims of ‘Darklight’ having a logical progression (at least in my limited grasp), but the problem/solution is presented at the start of the story.  So I suppose I’m applying that more to where things flow from that point.  Because, after teaming up with the tech-obsessed Luminid race and the class-obsessed Duron race, we have the tech to create a star, and we all travel to intended spot, deliver the payload… and it doesn’t work.  Now it’s up to the crew of the human ship Woden – with their requisite Luminid and Duron crew members – to figure out if and how we can fix things.

Kultgen skirts having to given the Duron a full-on character arc by having her already be in a relationship with a human crew member, causing her to be cast out by her people.  She still has a personality, and the relationship isn’t an annoying focus, so this was actually a smart move to save page count, and we still get to explore the curiosity of the Duron’s shifting RNA as the character must step up to face against threats against the Woden.  For the Luminid, though, Chad chose to develop that through the story’s events, and as the character is presented as strictly logical and unwavering, the sequence that brings it to fully side with the humans doesn’t just feel like a cheap ploy; it makes sense.

On the whole, you know where the rest of this is going.  And I suppose that’s where it resolves to being an average book.  Kultgen created concepts for two very interesting races (with great visuals by Kowalski), but then really only used them as particular foils for his plot machinations.  And the ‘darklight’ energy that seeps from the aborted star attempt is only mentioned… it has nothing major to do with the story, making the creepy effect on the cover of a character falling into what may be darklight rather misleading.  And finally what I started with: sequences that, in a book, it’s fine to transition between with a sentence, are hilariously jumpy in a comic.  The book opens with a character being escorted to the frontlines of the star mission, and it seems like a big to-do of leaving the Woden to do this… and then a panel later we’re back on the Woden.  Perhaps it was a forced page count limitation, but in that case, a seasoned comic writer would have reshuffled scenes to be able to pace things better overall.  Had ‘Darklight’ had the option of being a series, this could’ve expanded into an awesome Alien Legion-esque affair, with the Battlestar backing of ‘looking for a new home.’  As is, we get a fairly standard ‘action’ tale with an ending that oversimplifies whatever the term ‘darklight’ brings to mind, but peppered with some great sci-fi concepts that Kultgen pleasingly took the time to think out how they could logically fit into his tale.  For some reason, I doubt we’ll see more from the author in comic form, but hopefully I’ll eat those words and he can smooth out his pacing issues to deliver something more purposefully designed for the medium.