‘Dark Ages #1’ (review)

Written by Tom Taylor
Art by Iban Coello
Published by Marvel Comics

The juice is no longer loose in the Marvel Universe.

The lights, quite literally, have gone out as the newest What If saga brings everyone to the Dark Age.

Issue #1 is way too soon to judge the merits of this tale. The story setup, however, has a lot of pop.

And, in true What If fashion, there are a deluge of heroes and unique team-ups brought in to fight the ultimate battle.

While a squad with Doctor Strange, The Scarlet Witch, The Invisible Women, Vision and The Thing seem unstoppable, not even they could prevent the fate that would become the Dark Age.

In many ways they are the cause of this new reality.

It was quite the battle. Iban Coello’s artwork crackles with intensity. It’s hard not to feel like you are part of the action. There is also a far reaching grandness to the illustration when the disaster really gets cooking.

As a writer, Tom Taylor, does his best to humanize the heroes before they are all put to work. There is a nice moment with Mary Jane and Spider-Man being parents to their daughter, May. It is quite the comical quiet before the extinction level event storm.

Once the storm of all storms arrives and the threat is identified, our heroes quickly take action, maybe too quickly. Choices have consequences.

As a genre, What If stories have a legacy of building the tale around the aftermath.

Now all who survived the threat are in a new age of humanity, an age without the technology we once had. They are in a Dark Age.

What will they do now?

At this point, the setup has me curious enough to stick with Taylor’s story. Now we will witness the price our heroes paid for humanity’s survival.