“Dark Engine” #3 begins with a surprisingly coherent scene of exposition as the dragon finally discovers the fate of the pilot.  Meanwhile Sym is doing what Sym does best: carving up barbarians with a sword made of bone, and Jin meets the man who created the Dark Engine in hopes of understanding what it is.  Wanton violence, graphic horror, a solid plot beginning to unfold, and a little gay sex peppered in makes this one hell of a comic book.

WRITTEN BY: Ryan Burton
ART BY: John Bivens
PUBLISHER: Image
PRICE: $3.50
RELEASE: October 8, 2015

Reviewed By Eric Switzer

I’m finally starting to wrap my mind around concepts like Gigahul, pilots, and cofferwright after this issue.  Throughout the first two I was pretty confused and disengaged with everything but the blind rage that consumed Sym and all the nasty ways she could take apart a dinosaur.  Now, I think I’m beginning to grasp where we are and how we got there and I’m just about hooked on “Dark Engine”.

In fact, I’m not at all disappointed with the progression up to this point.  A lot of scifi/fantasy books can get bogged down by their made up languages and specific lore so much that it is difficult to ever really figured out what is going on or what people were talking about.  I was afraid that this was that type of book, but throughout the last two issues I’m starting to feel that this is a unfolding world that is complex and well crafted and that it is necessary to dissect it slowly and carefully.  Our hero and villain have been in place since issue one, now we are starting to get a sense of motivation and method and it is shaping up to be a pretty awesome story.

As the narrative becomes clearer, so too does the art in issue three.  The past couple issues have been quite impressive and wonderful to look at, but overcrowded panels, unclear perspective, and blended elements left me kind of confused about what I was looking at.  Here though, I didn’t have any issues identifying the action and it made the book flow much better.

If you have made it this far and are still on the fence about “Dark Engine” I say stick with it.  I have a feeling that each issue is going to give us a little more insight into the world and as the picture becomes clearer I think this is going to be a real stand out series.  It has a ton of potential and I can’t wait to see where things go from here.  Technically I’d call it a 3.5 out of 5, but it gets a half point for hanging dong.

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Eric Switzer  is an aspiring filmmaker and screenplay writer living in Los Angeles.  His work tends to focus on the lighter side of entropy, dystopic futures, and man’s innate struggle with his own mortality.  He can be found on twitter @epicswitzer or reached via email at ericswitzerfilm@gmail.com.