Comic Info
Comic Name: The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Writer: Peter David/Robin Furth
Artist: Jae Lee/Richard Isanove
# of Issues: 7
Release Date: 2007
Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born #6
Reprints The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born #1-7 (February 2007-August 2007). While pursuing the Man in Black across the desert, Roland remembers his childhood in Gilead. Roland and his ka-tet of Alain and Cuthbert were sent to Hambry to secretly investigate reports of Farson’s activity, and Roland met a girl who changed his life. When Roland and his friends came in conflict with the Big Coffin Hunters, Roland found Farson’s army was mounting an attack against the Affiliation. Meanwhile, Martin Broadcloak was driven out of Gilead and back to Farson while secretly working for the Crimson King. Will Roland and his friends now faced the armies of Farson and hoped to escape with their lives.
The Dark Tower Volume 1: The Gunslinger Born is Marvel Comics’ first venture into Stephen King’s world of The Dark Tower and is a nice adaptation of Stephen King’s fourth novel in the series The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass. Roland tells this story later in the novel series, but it provides an origin for his character. Furth and David do a nice adaptation and Jae Lee and Richard Isanove’s art is fantastic.
Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born #4
Story-wise, this collection does keep moving and covers a lot of territory. Later series in the comic adaptation move at a snail’s pace, but this was trying to adapt a large novel, introduce all the characters, and fit it all in seven issues. There is a lot to take in for a first time reader and could cause them to get a bit lost (it also implies through the storytelling techniques that all the following series are also flashbacks).
The art is great, but sometimes the art causes you to get the characters confused. They are very inky and moody and sometimes, it is hard to distinguish what character is being drawn since they are all the same age and same build. They could have given them red, orange, purple, and blue bandanas, but the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles already have that covered.
The Dark Tower is a big epic and this is the first step. It is concise and adapts fourth book nicely. The story really gets going with Dark Tower: The Gunslinger and I am looking forward to the adaptation finally getting under way. Hopefully it will happen before readers get too weary of the series. The Dark Tower 1: The Gunslinger Born is followed by The Dark Tower 2: The Long Road Home.
Followed By:
The Dark Tower Volume 2: The Long Road Home
