REVIEW: Dark Ark #7

Full disclosure: The title of Dark Ark“s seventh installment, “Beneath Surface”“ is the same as the subtitle for my first book ”“ The Hip Hop Underground and African-American Culture: Beneath the Surface. This means that no matter the story or artistry of this issue of the series”“ published by Aftershock comics and wonderfully crafted by Cullen Bunn and Juan Doe ”“ I might be predisposed to liking it. Or maybe I just wanted to use this opportunity to open a review in first person AND to plug my first book (published in 2014). All of this could be true and Dark Ark might also be the most poignant update on a biblical classic in the modern comics era. Wait, let me rephrase that for the TPB blurb: Dark Ark is the most poignant update on a biblical classic in the modern comics era.

Revisiting and revising biblical narratives and tropes within the comics“ genre is a common foray for comic book artists. In fact, the bible is nearly an inescapable point of reference for a genre that so often must negotiate good and evil and the divine and devilish imagery of the light and the dark (respectively or not). And yet somehow, Dark Ark is carving out a unique space for its ambitious sensibilities in a post-Sandman, post-American Gods world. It is doing so by keeping the classic narrative of Noah“s Ark largely intact while enhancing it with what is reading more and more like the biblical narrative“s (super)natural corollary – an ark constructed and designed to shepherd a collective of otherworldly species into the post-flood, post-apocalyptic world-to-be.

This dark ark ”“ much like the comic book series itself ”“ requires a parasitic relationship with Noah“s Ark. In more ways than can be captured at this early point in the series, the narrative of Dark Ark is about how humans and monsters AND stories feed off of each other. And it is also about how the organization of these feedings, that is: survival itself requires a brutal and irresistible logic. In Dark Ark #7 the stakes of this logic are beginning to disrupt what might be the key human relationship in this initial arc of the series ”“ the unlikely friendship between master and slave, between feeder and food.

There is something simple and powerful about the connection between Khalee and Janris and this issue“s “Before the Flood”“ sequence cuts right to it without sensation and with out too much sentimentality. They could just as easily be sisters as captor and captive. It will be difficult to appreciate the skill of Bunn and Doe in the early pages (and more) of this issue if you have not read the entire series. The drama vested in “Beneath the Surface”“ has been building up for months, so while I HIGHLY recommend reading anything with this crafty title, Dark Ark #7 and the series itself warrants your full attention. 4.5/5.

[yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

(W) Cullen Bunn (A/CA) Juan Doe