Night’s Dominion returns with a reasonably sturdy start. Writer and artist Ted Naifeh juggles multiple plot lines, cutting between them abruptly. However, he opens the issue with a storyteller recapping the previous season; it gets him some goodwill for the later impatience. Naifeh’s art is a little hurried and he does introduce a whole bunch of characters right off, but he’s got a good pace to the issue and it ends with a lot of promise. Of course, so did the last time he did a first issue of Night’s Dominion.
Night’s Dominion returns with a reasonably sturdy start. Writer and artist Ted Naifeh juggles multiple plot lines, cutting between them abruptly. However, he opens the issue with a storyteller recapping the previous season; it gets him some goodwill for the later impatience. Naifeh’s art is a little hurried and he does introduce a whole bunch of characters right off, but he’s got a good pace to the issue and it ends with a lot of promise. Of course, so did the last time he did a first issue of Night’s Dominion.
I can’t believe I’m saying it, but I’ll be back for more of this comic. Even though the first arc is a mess–and this accelerated wrap-up issue, which plays more like a movie trailer than a comic book, isn’t really successful, Naifeh does do some serious damage control and potentially plugs a lot of leaks.
And then the dragons show up. I suppose the “regular” cast returns too, but the dragons are a bigger deal. Naifeh doesn’t do the battle scenes well, not the big ones. The lone guy going out to fight death knights, sure, but he doesn’t do the scale. And there’s lots of underdeveloped filler. Night’s Dominion finds ways to misfire during misfires.
I’m not sure Naifeh is aware people read other comics besides Night’s Dominion. This issue is a bunch of battle scenes, a bunch of characters, a bunch going on; I have no idea what any of them have to do with the other. There’s some excellent art, but it’s a messy, messy jumble. Naifeh’s either rushing or expecting way too much of his readers.
There’s a lot of intrigue and a lot of characters, but Naifeh gives the Night a good plot. It’s independent of all the riffraff she’s been hanging out with, it ties into the opening cliffhanger resolution, it moves through the issue. It’s overfull, busy, but fairly strong.