Written by: Adam McGovern
Art by: Paolo Leandri
Publisher: Image
I’m finding Nightworld very hard to review because it’s absolutely not a good comic, yet I get what it’s trying to do on some surface level. Trying something new should be applauded, but a good try doesn’t always yield a good result. I felt the same way about Issue 1 and wound up not reviewing it because I wanted to give this series the benefit of the doubt. A shaky first try shouldn’t be completely dismissed if something better is to come.
Issue 2 is now here, and I just finished it. It’s not better.
Nightworld is about a demon named Plenilunio (have fun trying to pronounce that one) who is trying to save his wife from some kind of curse. She’s forever stuck asleep, and she moves around like a zombie. Plenilunio himself was once a person, though that ship sailed some time ago when some kind of experiment went wrong.
As a character, I don’t like Plenilunio. His quest is fine—save a loved one—but he himself is too dreary and boring to really enjoy. Everything he says holds the weight of the world and reeks of bad poetry, as if a Goth kid were writing all of his dialogue. He loathes himself too, so add another point to childish Goth writing. He’s insufferable.
To make matters worse, his design is awful. He looks like a cross between Batman and Manray from Spongebob Squarepants, and his eyes are too far apart and too far up on his forehead. Now and then he turns into some kind of lizard thing, but that design just feels uninspired and is plagued by the same drawing problems: eyes are too far apart and too high up.
On the reverse is a similar demon named Hot Spot. I don’t like him either. While Plenilunio’s dialogue is filled with poorly written purple prose, Hot Spot speaks as if he’s a child from the 1990’s. I want to Duct Tape his mouth shut because everything he says is annoying. The comic addresses this at one point, but handwaving a problem doesn’t make the problem go away.
Both characters are after a Soul Key, which is the local Macguffin with magical powers. Two opposite characters after the same item? What whacky sit-com adventures await us!
But Nightworld is up to something, or at least I think it is. Both issues have been filled with almost clever wordplay, and both issues have been nothing but dichotomy after dichotomy. Night is treated like the day, Plenilunio and Hot Spot are clearly opposites, Plenilunio’s design counters his attempt at acting human, the death of monsters makes more monsters, etc. Alongside that, there’s something new going on with how this comic depicts demons, Hell, and deals with the devil. I’m curious to see where that goes.
But there’s not enough here to save this comic. All of the good ideas and Literary tools in the world won’t offset bad characters, bad dialogue, or bad art.
