Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews
Moriarty: The Dark Chamber #1
Image Comics
Corey, Diecidue & Lanphear
Moriarty: The Dark Chamber is exactly what it sounds like – Sherlock Holmes' chief adversary in a dark world. However, Sherlock is long dead and Moriarty has been going through a bit of an identity crisis without him. Living a relatively normal life, Moriarty gets new direction as a mystery begins to unravel involving Holmes' long lost brother. Moriarty reenters the criminal underworld to less than welcoming arms. It's a good first issue that is filled cover to cover with story and a deep plot. The issue takes off in the last few pages to try to ensure the reader will return. Overall, it's a good start to this series.
The issue does a great job of establishing Moriarty as a character. It could be very difficult to pluck a character that has been around a century and breathe new life into him and move him into a new time period but this book pulls it off nicely. The story manages to give enough background on his character from the Sherlock days to keep the comic book grounded but not so much that the book reads like a narrative flashback.
The comic book also brings a ton of interesting characters into the issue. The manner of story is a crime mystery of sorts so these characters have a lot of question marks plastered all over them but they bring value to this story and will most likely provide payoffs down the road in the overall story.
The book suffers from a couple of flaws. One, the book is heavy on exposition. This isn't terrible but when read over the course of thirty pages it does present a pacing problem. Secondly, the comic book relies too much on mystery. I found myself retracing my steps to understand the character relationships and their involvement in the plot, particularly the ones that don't appear on panel. Finally, the book seems to put too much emphasis on the role reversal of Moriarty and Holmes. It's understood that Moriarty is very intelligent but using the power of observation as Holmes had done seems like too much.
The artwork is fabulous. I realize the dark toned, horror look to the book will not be everyone's cup of tea but I find it really sets a terrific mood for the book. The pencils are one of the main reasons I picked this book up and I wasn't disappointed.
I wanted to love this book being a huge fan of the Sherlock Holmes genre but I found myself on the fence after the first read. I liked the set up and the cast of characters but struggled with some of the pacing and overly buried mystery. Overall, this is a good book and definitely worth your three bucks. I will need more than the first issue to determine if this series is for me and that's generally a good thing.
3 out of 5 Geek Goggles
