Dark Knights of Steel #2

Dark Knights of Steel #2

DC Comics 2021

Written by Tom Taylor

Illustrated by Yasmine Putri

Coloured by Arif Prianto

Lettered by Wes Abbott

An entire medieval world will be forever changed when a spaceship crash-lands from a doomed planet. Monarchs will die, kingdoms will rise, and what seemed the end of the world for many…was only the beginning! An epic high-fantasy story set in a DC Universe where nothing is what it seems…

While this initially wasn’t really on my radar the buzz surrounding it caught my attention and I picked a copy up flipped through it and here we are. While the first issue kind of catches us up on how this world came to be the way it is, with the House of El and King Pierce being at odds with one another and it slowly showed us the beginnings of who was aligned with whom. This issue takes things a tad further as we pick up where we left off with the Green Man’s actions and the ramifications of this event. To say I am incredibly intrigued would be an understatement and the more we see in this issue the more engaged, interested and intrigued we become. After all, the dungeon is where some of those who oppose King Jor-El have found themselves and that lineup alone is worthy of further exploration.

I have to say that the way this is being told is rather fabulous. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information are presented exceptionally well. The character development that we see through the narration, the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter does a magnificent job with how we see their personalities. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages revealing more of the story and more characters the more we have that desire to see and learn more.

I am very much enjoying the way that we see this being structured as well as how the layers within the story continue to emerge, grow, evolve and strengthen. I am also liking the way that we see the layers open up new avenues to be explored. Seeing Lois Lane and what happens from that, Constantine and the Green Man’s encounter these moments and more add some great depth, dimension and complexity to the story. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward are impeccably handled.

The interiors here are just bloody gorgeous. The linework is utterly phenomenal and how we see the varying weights and techniques are being utilised to create this level & quality of detail within the work is positively stunning. How we see backgrounds being used to enhance and expand the moments as well as how they work within the composition of the panels to bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story is mind blowing. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a remarkably talented eye for storytelling. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows such an absolutely spectacular eye for how colour works.

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The more characters that we see whether they are in the background or featured makes me want to see more familiar faces and where they stand in all this. I love the court jester and her sage advice giving by the way. That dungeon is full of folks I’d love to see more of as well and how they got there. Now Kal’s sister and her lover I found extremely interesting as well. There are just so many different moments that bring the reader such joy and are things that expand this world exponentially while engaging the readers’ minds so that we come up with reasons on our own. With such intense and delightful writing and familiar yet foreign characterisation and these absolutely bloody gorgeous interiors we’re getting a world like none we’ve ever seen from DC before.