Black Knight Curse of the Ebony Blade #2

Black Knight Curse of the Ebony Blade #2

Marvel Comics 2021

Written by Si Spurrier

Pencilled by Sergio Davila

Inked by Sean Parsons

Coloured by Arif Prianto

Lettered by VC’s Cory Petit

THE BLACK KNIGHT’S DARKEST TRUTH OR DANE WHITMAN’S ULTIMATE SALVATION?

Dane Whitman wields the magical Ebony Blade as the BLACK KNIGHT! A new enemy leaves a murderous trail as they hunt down magical artifacts tied to the Black Knight’s origin and to the dark truth behind King Arthur’s court and Camelot itself. A trail leading ELSA BLOODSTONE straight to Dane’s door! If Dane is to stop the coming death and destruction, he must face the secrets of his own past as well as shocking new revelations about the Black Knight’s entire history. Dane has only just begun to realize the Ebony Blade’s true potential and power… Will its unending lust for destruction finally consume Dane forever?!

Well last issue ended with one hell of a decapitation and resurrection so how is it this all happened and what exactly does it mean? I’m not sure I have ever actually associated Dane with the legends of Camelot and Arthur’s court so is this the official new secret origin of Dane Whitman the Black Knight? Descendent of the line of Arthur, cousin thereof, wielder of the Ebony Blade one of the enchanted items crafted at Merlin’s behest. I like it actually and that along with the opening for this issue really sets the tone for the rest of the adventure.

I love the way that this is being told. How we see the story & plot development unfold through the sequence of events as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. So I was not happy that Dane has been depicted as a crazy person but it’s more than the surface actions it runs so much deeper than that and now that he’s been resurrected it would appear his sanity has as well. The character development we see is actually incredible and I have to say that with the introduction of Jacks it would appear that there are all kinds of new developments taking palace on the horizon. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing more and more of the story what I had originally thought was going to be taking place instead has turned into something so much more complex and involved.

I very much like the interiors here. The linework is fabulous and with the inking you’d be hard pressed to think that more than one person was responsible for what we see. Still what we see through the varying weights and techniques elevating the level and quality of detail work that we see is astonishingly good. I really like how we see the backgrounds being utilised here and how they work within the composition of the panels to create depth perception, sense of scale and that overall sense of size and scope of the story. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show an extremely talented eye for storytelling. The colour work is gorgeous and how we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is exceptional stuff. When Jacks sees Merlin’s familiar that bird is a total wow moment.

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I like the way that this combines Camelot with Dane’s life in the here and now, adding a seer in Jacks as she has to reassess her entire belief system. Personally I want this to lead into a new Black Knight monthly title, i’d be far more into reading this than the Avengers or X-Men, which i’m not reading either one as it is.