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The Darkness #110 Published by Top Cow Productions Written by David Hine Illustrated by Jeremy Haun $2.99, 32 Pages
There's a large scale Mexican standoff going on at Jackie Estacado's house. You've got rival mobster Balakov, who has a giant gory starfish exploding out of his chest. There's Witch King Aram, who helped Jackie purge himself of the Darkness. Jackie's wife Jenny is losing her mind while their daughter Hope is showing Darkness-like powers and Jackie's Doppelganger, aka the Darkness without a human host, is pulling all the strings. At the center of it all is Jackie, who is just trying to pull together whatever last pieces of his life he can salvage.
We've known that Jackie remade the world for some time, but this issue lets more people in on the secret. More importantly, we get a better understanding of just how large this mess can be. Author David Hine explains that Jenny is the catalyst for the problems that this universe faces. While Jackie performed a noble act by bringing the one good person he knew back to life, it created a paradox of sorts. He made it so Jenny was Hope's mother and not Sara Pezzini. Genetics doesn't really work that way, so Mother Nature had to make some adjustments. As a result, Jackie is really Hope's only parent and since he was infected entirely with the Darkness, Hope is carrying the same thing. She's "pure darkness."
As if that one-two punch wasn't enough, Jenny is going insane. Because Jackie made her, she's imperfect. She's broken. The cracks that formed over time have gotten larger and deeper and now she appears to have the mind of a confused child.
The Darkness has been building up to this train wreck for some time. The Doppelganger has been patiently setting up his dominoes since the Rebirth began and with this issue, all of them are knocked down. Jackie has been systematically destroyed. Now what?
As with Witchblade and Artifacts, The Darkness is heading into the land of crossover, so some plot points needed to be wrapped up quickly. There's a lot to take in with this issue, but it's very satisfying. It doesn't feel rushed, but I want to continue here. I don't want Progeny to start up because I want to see what the Doppelganger's next steps are.
Jeremy Haun can draw some pretty gruesome characters. Balakov is the one that stands out. You know that the moment the being that's inhabiting this body departs, that man is just going to crumble like a pile of wet rags. His chest has exploded into four large tendrils made of flesh and sinew. They're constantly swirling around him, making Balakov a terrifying creature even if he's just standing in a room talking.
I'm not a fan of Hope's Darkness change. She looks like the Green Goblin in a Nintendo 64 game, covered in weird polygon angles. Her image on the cover, drawn by Haun and John Rauch, more than makes up for it. She smiles creepily at the reader while shadows of tentacles loom behind her.
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