Dane Whitman, the Black Knight, learns the horrible history of his lineage and the Ebony Blade in King in Black: Black Knight #1, written by Si Spurrier with art by Jesus Saiz and letters by Cory Petit.
Black Knight is a character that I love conceptually – I mean, what’s not to love about a guy who wields a sword cursed with a bloodlust that will bring him ever closer to madness the more he uses it? But outside of his time with the Avengers (during an era where someone like Dane Whitman could even be an Avenger), creators have really failed to find a foothold with the character. It always seems like there are other characters doing everything that Black Knight does just a little bit better and this “King in Black” tie-in only highlights his lack of a niche in the Marvel Universe despite Si Spurrier’s best attempts.
Spurrier opts for a somewhat comedic tone in this issue as a means to play against the doom and gloom of Dane Whitman’s ill-fated inheritance. Black Knight’s attempt to heed the call of all “Avengers Adjacent” heroes to fight Knull’s hordes of symbiote forces sees him team-up with Aero and Lin Lie in Shanghai. The narration plays like a parody of sword and sorcery style storytelling and that’s later called out by other characters as being something that they can hear.
But that’s where the tone really undercuts the Black Knight. He’s not the best swordsman in the Marvel Universe. He’s not even the best one in this issue. Hell, “X of Swords” has made the whole sword thing kind of passe and Excalibur already has readers covered on knights and magic. The Ebony Blade is something that Knull wants but it doesn’t seem particularly impressive given the power creep of All-Black the Necrosword in recent years.
But Spurrier does use Knull to turn the legacy of the Black Knight on its head. Is it enough? It’s honestly hard to tell. It turns out that everything Dane Whitman thought he knew was a lie and on the impure of heart can wield the Ebony Blade. Aero and Lin Lie serve as characters meant to litigate Black Knight’s place in the Marvel Universe with Lin Lie believing that Dane is actually evil while Aero believes that heroes are people who are able to overcome their flaws. So Dane must give into the darkness to defeat the avatar of Knull that appears before them. It’s a little shaky and given Spurrier’s reputation for higher concepts in his other works, it doesn’t feel like he’s really elevated the character here. But that’s a tall order for an event tie-in anyway.
Jesus Saiz doesn’t do the book any favors either. He doesn’t stage the action across the book particularly well. The opening scene is a confusing mish-mosh of limbs while later actions require the characters to explain exactly what we are supposed to be reading because the artist opts for close-ups of character expressions. Saiz doesn’t give us a great sense of setting and the rendering gives all of his figures a sort of rubbery look to them.Heavier inks, greater contrast, better shot selection and more intentional linework would have gone a long way to making this book work better. I don’t think that Saiz is a bad draftsman but this isn’t the best I’ve seen of his work.
Ultimately, King in Black: Black Knight is only going to appeal to Black Knight diehards and “King in Black” completionists. It does provide a potential path for a definitive Dane Whitman story but heroes overcoming their flaws/destinies to be heroes is the kind of stuff that just about every superhero story is made of. Plus, that was kind of part of Dane Whitman’s story already. This just serves to make the darkness that he has to fight against something that is intrinsic to him, not just the sword he wields. Spurrier’s script suffers because it feels like it had to be adjusted to work around the visuals provided by Saiz. There have been some interesting “King in Black” tie-ins but this one feels like a pretty by-the-numbers entry in the overall saga.
Pierce Lightning is a longtime comics journalist and critic, singer for a band called Power Trash, and staving off the crushing heel of capitalism with every fiber of their comic book loving being.
