Brand Echh: DARK DOMINION #1

The second release from Jim Shooter’s new company DEFIANT was DARK DOMINION, which seemed like it might prove to be something interesting. The series was co-created by Shooter and legendary creator Steve Ditko, and it’s clear that Jim was intending to build a title that would allow Ditko to flex the same kind of visual muscles that he had all those years ago on Doctor Strange, yet one steeped more in then-contemporary thinking about quantum mechanics rather than outright magic. As with WARRIORS OF PLASM, DARK DOMINION was introduced not as a comic book but rather a trading card set that was marketed as issue #0. In order to get in on the ground floor of this new series, one had to put together a complete run of the trading cards and assemble them into nine-up pages so the story they contained could be read. Much as with WARRIORS OF PLASM, I think few bothered to go to this effort for an entirely new character they had no attachment to. But DEFIANT was largely funded by Trading Card company money, so this was a necessary evil.

Another strike against DARK DOMINION was the fact that by the time the first actual issue of the series came out, neither of the two creators were working on it all that directly. While it was created with him in mind, Steve Ditko apparently had some problem with the ethos on which the series was built that he disagreed with, and so he exited the project following the completion of the trading Card set, much to Shooter’s disconcertion. Possibly because he was demoralized by Ditko’s departure, Shooter turned much of the writing of the title over to other hands as well, primarily those of Len Wein. Len was a talented veteran in the field, but his work on this series (and most of the DEFIANT releases) feel like he’s acting as a gun-for-hire. It doesn’t feel like there’s an awful lot of Wein’s own creative investment in the material. The regular artist for the first batch of issues was Joe James, who did a solid job underneath some aggressively inappropriate coloring. This painted look was something that DEFIANT was going for, but their small group of color artists didn’t have the skills to reliably pull it off.

DARK DOMINION opens up with the status quo already in place–it feels a bit more like a second issue than a first issue (which it was–the true set-up story was the Trading Card #0) and so I don’t think that helped readers to hook into things either. It’s honestly kind of weird seeing Shooter, who was such a staunch advocate for clarity and effortless communication through storytelling make such consistent missteps throughout the DEFIANT launches. It’s entirely possible that in trying to set up and run the company at the same time, he had overcommitted himself and wasn’t able to focus as much as might have been wise. But this all definitely didn’t put a best foot forward for the new company, for all that there was a bunch of potential in the projects they came out with.

DARK DOMINION is the story of Michael Alexander, a writer who has spent years exploring the idea that there is another world that occupies the same space as the one we know. This sub-strata is the realm of demons and monsters and creatures, all of whom grow from the fears of human beings, on which they feed. Eventually, by putting aside all fear, Michael finds that he can transition into this sub-stratum world at will, and confront the creatures who dwell within it. Because Steve Ditko wanted a different kind of hero from the typical, Michael Alexander is a 54-year-old man. He also doesn’t use a real super hero code-name, though in an attempt to have something to market the character with, certain characters occasionally call him Glimmer after the golden glow he possesses in his sub-stratum form. (The codename was also used in the card set.) Alexander is an unconventional hero who spends a lot of time hanging around in the McDonalds in Times Square (which is the actual place where Shooter and Ditko came up with the series) and befriending the less fortunate, whose demons he’s able to see.

In one of his excursions into the sub-stratum, Michael sees a strange woman who vanishes when he turns to look in her direction. Michael’s taken the task upon himself to try to rid New York City and its people of the demons that infest it, making life more intolerable for everyone who lives there. As he goes about his activities, he sees the strange woman again and again, always at the corner of his eye, and is drawn to try to figure out who and what she is. Michael goes to see Mercy, a homeless woman who was one of his guides to becoming able to banish his fear and enter the world of the sub-strata. She in turn leads Michael into the bowels of the city to the sanctuary of Salvage, who is even more knowledgeable about the unseen realm. But Sal doesn’t really have much more to offer than Mercy did. However, at that moment, the mystery woman appears again, and Michael sees her dragged away by Nightgaunts. Entering the realm, he gives chase.

Michael pursues the Nightgaunts, who turn to confront him. But Michael’s lack of fear–his courage–manifests as a powerful light in the sub-stratum realm, which repels them, driving them away. But before he can get his bearings, Michael is clocked by the woman he was trying to save. It’s at this point that the series’ main adversary, Chasm, enters the narrative. He had been introduced in the #0 card set. He was Charles Mal, who had discovered a way to detect and enter the sub-stratum realm while experimenting with psychotropic drugs in college and who pursues wealth and power through his control over the sub-stratum. The woman Michael has been chasing is Sheba, and she isn’t merely a woman at all but rather a shape-shifting Plaguer and Chasm’s accomplice. Because Michael is immune to the effects of his power, Chasm wants to feast on his fear–but first, he needs to make Michael afraid.

But it’s Michael’s fearlessness that permits him to enter the world of the sub-stratum in the first place, and so he’s able to deal with all of the assorted horrors that Chasm throws at him. Frustrated, Chasm turns to Plan B: he has several of his minions in the real world threated Mercy’s life, forcing Michael to exit the sub-stratum and return to the material plane, where he is vulnerable. A regular aging man, Michael is quickly clobbered by Chasm’s toughs, and as this first issue wraps up, his unconscious form is hurled to its presumed death in the bowels of the city. To Be Continued!

Shooter also lays out the conception for the series in a two-page editorial that I believe also runs in the other titles in the line (which at this point means only WARRIORS OF PLASM.) It’s a fairly earnest piece, and one gets the sense that shooter is genuinely attempting to put forward some universal truths in the pages of this series–though how effective that presentation is can be argued, especially given that the hands doing the actual delivery are those of others. This first issue also contains an additional second editorial, this one from associate editor Ed Polgardy, extoling the wonders of the comic book that you just got finished reading.

DARK DOMINION ran for ten issues in total, plus the #0 release. When DEFIANT ran out of money, there was apparently an eleventh issue that had been completed but which was never published. But I’ve never seen that material. It remained one of the more consistent titles in the DEFIANT line, though it had occasional fill-in jobs along the way that disrupted the world-building a bit. In the back half of its run, a young J. G. Jones came on board as the regular artist; after DEFIANT reached the end of its rope, he’d continue on with Shooter at Jim’s next publishing venture, BROADWAY COMICS. But we’ll get to all of that in the fullness of time.