By Laramie Martinez

It’s been a fun ride, but the first arc of Night’s Dominion ends with this issue. Overall I give the series a solid 4. It’s a different take on the superhero genre, with a touch of fantasy and dungeon crawling characters. This issue doesn’t have too many surprises, if you’ve been reading until now I think you had a pretty good idea who the big bad will be. Even so it was good to see everyone teaming up to dish out some fantasy ass kicking.

In short, this issue is the big battle issue. We get a decent climax with a twist and every character has their shining moment, with the exception of the priest, who really just prays the whole time. As I said earlier there is twist ending and I felt that it was almost over foreshadowed in the earlier issues. The character works moderately well for a big bad, but I wish the encounter had been spread over the course of two issues as opposed to just this one. I felt like there could have been a lot more flushing out of the character and then by extension a bit more of a dramatic ending. I wasn’t that this ending wasn’t good, in fact it was a more than little surprising, I did not expect the final boss to be taken down the way he did. I thought that I knew who and how they were going to be defeated, but Naifeh pulled another fast one and gave an unusual character the spotlight. I did like that this issue pretty much tied up all of the loose ends, and at the end there is no obvious villain for the next arc. This ending sticks with what I believe was the series greatest strength, you never quite know where it’s going to go. From the first issue I was surprised by the amount of fun I had with this series, it looks like it is going to continue to keep its audience guessing from as it moves on to Book 2.

The art is the same you’ve come to expect of Ted Naifeh, but with some great splash pages added in since this is the final issue. I’ve applauded Naifeh’s panel structure since issue 1, so this isn’t anything surprising, but it is nice to see that little extra effort thrown in. And since this is the Helm’s Deep of this arc so you know a lot of those splashes have some good stabbing and shooting. This book has been a great example of excellent panel structure without going into too many intricate or flashy set ups. For the most part the panels have all been clear and easy to read from start to finish. I really appreciate the simplicity of it.

If you’ve followed this series so far, make sure to check out this conclusion, if this is the first review you’ve read of this series, make sure to start from the beginning and read through this arc. This was one of the more surprising series to come out recently and I’ve had a great time.

Score: 4/5

Night's Dominion #6
Writer: Ted Naifeh
Artist: Ted Naifeh
Publisher: Oni Press