Publication date: January, 2005
Plot: Steve Murphy and Eric Talbot
Script: Steve Murphy
Pencils: Jim Lawson
Inks and balloons: Eric Talbot
Cover: Jim Lawson and Eric Talbot
Frontispiece: Michael Dooney
Letters page art: Dan Berger
“Darkness Weaves”
Summary:
Frontispiece: In
her bedroom, Shadow finds a diary she kept when she was a rebellious, rude
teenager. She’s embarrassed by her bad
attitude and frightened by how much she’s forgotten about herself in such a
short a span of time. What frightens her
more, however, are her memories of Sloane and Lilith, which resurface whenever
the moon is full…
Down in the sewer lair, Shadow is watching a music video
from her favorite artist, Lilith, who sings about female empowerment and
supernatural gimmicks. As 11:30pm rolls
around, Shadow sneaks out of the lair and meet up with her friend, Sloane, for
a Lilith concert. She’s caught in the
sewer tunnels by Raphael, however, and forced back to the lair. At about Midnight, while Raph is in the
shower, Shadow successfully sneaks out.
Raph finds the dummy under the sheets in her bed and goes out after her,
only briefly stopping to tell Splinter what he’s doing.
On a street corner, Shadow meets up with Sloane and they
head into the backdoor of a dingy club.
There are hundreds of teenage girls gathered in the club, as it’s a
female-only event; even the security crew is made up of women. Raph tracks Shadow down and hides in the
rafters as Lilith takes center stage.
Lilith begins one of her songs as security locks the doors. Lilith then produces a pair of knives,
slitting her wrists and filling a goblet with blood. The goblet is passed around the girls, who
seem to be in a trance from Lilith’s singing.
As the goblet nears Shadow, a skylight opens up, revealing a full
moon. The girls summarily transform into
werewolves.
Having seen enough, Raph drops down from the rafters and
the commotion he causes snaps Shadow out of her trance (moments before sipping
from the goblet). The other girls woken
from their trance all flee the club, dialing 911 on their cell phones as they
escape. Lilith (now a werewolf, too),
enraged at Raph and Shadow for ruining her ceremony, orders all her new minions
to kill them. Raph passes Shadow a sai
and the pair start (non-fatally) stabbing their way through the monsters. A werewolf crashes into Shadow in the chaos,
pushing her forward with her sai. She
accidentally stabs a werewolf in the gut, who transforms back to her human
form: Sloane.
With one of their number dead, the werewolves rally and
swarm Raph and Shadow. Luckily, the
other three Turtles show up just in the nick of time. Leo says Splinter woke them up, fearing
trouble, and they followed. As the fight
continues, the police finally show up.
Raph nails Lilith in the back as she attempts to escape with Sloane’s
body. Lilith tells both Raph and Shadow
that one day she will return for revenge.
Both the Turtles and the werewolves then vanish before the cops can
enter the building.
Epilogue: Shadow remembers how that little adventure
marked the end of her tenure in New York City.
April and Casey returned early from their vacation and forced her to
move to the farmhouse and Northampton where it would be safer. She resented them for it and resented
Splinter, who was left there as her guardian.
She hated the Podunk town and everything about her situation. Eventually, she outgrew her childish rebel
phase and came to love the place.
However, she never stopped being afraid when the moon was full.
Turtle Tips:
*The story continues in Raphael: Bad Moon Rising #1.
*As Shadow says she’s undergone martial arts training, that places this story shortly after (the
epilogue of) Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #69.
*Raph previously encountered a werewolf in Talbot’s
short, “The Howl”.
*A stuffed toy of Fluffy from Michael Dooney’s “Gizmo”
comic can be seen in the frontispiece.
*According to Steve Murphy in the letters page, the “Forever
War” miniseries was slated for a 2005 release date. Yeah, no, that didn’t happen.
*Also according to the letters page, Splinter’s favorite
DEVO song is “Beautiful World”. Take that
knowledge with you to your grave.
Review:
“Darkness Weaves” is an interesting study on the
character of Shadow Jones.
Chronologically, it’s our first extended look at her as a teenager and
it’s quite a change from when she was the adorable little tyke. The frontispiece strategically takes the edge
off, as a five-years-older Shadow remarks about how awful she was during her rebellious
teenage goth years. In that manner, the
character in the book agrees with the reader, rolling her eyes as Shadow lays
her bad attitude on thick, and keeps you from developing a dislike for her, as
you know she’ll eventually outgrow it.
It’s one of the better examples of setup in Steve Murphy’s case as well
as one of the few times the frontispiece is actually meant to tie-into the
following story (along with the epilogue narration, it creates a bookending
sequence).
“Darkness Weaves”, ostensibly a standalone adventure, was
retroactively sewn into a larger tapestry of stories, both to positive and ill
effect. The negative half is that it
spun off into the truly awful 4-issue miniseries, “Bad Moon Rising”. I’m not looking forward to reviewing
those. On the positive side, it actually
works as a superb follow-up to Dan Berger’s tale, “Dark Shadows”. That story also features an older Shadow
reflecting on her youthful behavior with both embarrassment and wistful nostalgia, and as a story set in the distant future, focuses on her ultimate
falling out with Raphael. It ends with a
bittersweet epilogue, as contemporary-Raph learns about this fate and chooses to train teenage-Shadow in martial arts, even though he knows it won’t change things.
If you go directly from “Dark Shadows” into “Darkness
Weaves”, you get a lot more out of this story.
Suddenly, Raph’s overbearing parental attitude isn’t just droll irony
about a former teenage rebel getting a dose of his own medicine, but a more
heartbreaking affair, as he’s seen what the future holds for Shadow and
desperately wants to keep her safe. And
likewise, working chronologically backward in a way, as a reader you’ve just
witnessed the tragic end of Raph and Shadow’s relationship, and NOW you’re
bearing witness to all their bonding and friendship. For those reasons, “Darkness Weaves” is the
perfect story to read directly after “Dark Shadows”.
But as a story on its own? Eh, it’s not so good. The story amounts to a cult leader luring
girls to join her werewolf army and it all ends pretty quickly. There is a LOT of singing in this issue and
for a printed medium that’s a problem.
Murphy lays the lyrics out as poetry, but with the lack of a beat it can
be difficult to keep the rhythm going in your head. “Music” in comics is best utilized in small
doses; an entire issue filled with the stuff is just a pain in the ass.
Also, the lyrics sucked, but I won’t hold that against
the comic. Raphael pretty much covered
it:
Anyhow, “Darkness Weaves” is the perfect follow-up to a
great story and the unfortunate prelude to a terrible miniseries. When taken all on its own, it doesn’t stand
out particularly well, either. I will
say, though, that Talbot’s inking in this was great and one of the better
examples of how well he and Lawson go together.
Grade: C (as in, “Can’t say I listened to very good music
when I was a teenager, either. It was the
era of Kid Rock and Limp Bizkit.”)
