Corpse Knight #1 Review
If a comic can pull off a visual pun that makes me laugh out loud in a horror sequence, it’s going to go down in my library as a good one. There is a panel in Corpse Knight #1 where someone yells “Christ” as another man falls, stabbed by a cross. That is enough reason for me to recommend reading the book, but it’s also a beautiful and intriguing start to a new series. Acclaimed writer/co-creator Michael Chaves (The Conjuring franchise), artist/co-creator Matthew Roberts (Universal Monsters: Creature from The Black Lagoon Lives!), colorist Rico Renzi (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse), and letterer Pat Brosseau (Birthright) create a fascinating horror with heavy tones of religion hanging above everything.
War ravages France, but a young girl named Foy lives in relative peace with her father… until tragedy strikes. As Foy struggles to fend for herself, she’s granted a miracle—her father returns from the dead to protect her.
When I saw the team and covers for Corpse Knight, I decided to avoid all synopses and previews so I could go in unfettered. Just as France was shocked by her, I, too, was shocked by the presence of Joan of Arc. When they tell her story, I knew I was going to be locked into this series. The art by Matthew Roberts was such a majestic display of Joan on her horse fighting through her enemies, but it was taken to the next level by the colors. Rico Renzi’s color palette swaps from darker shades of the world we see outside Joan’s story to bright reds, yellows, and gold. It’s a show of the divine holy nature that was watching over Joan in her fight across France. There was a level of this is a holy thing instead of the drabness of the world around the characters struggling through the Hundred Years’ War. There is a dark mirror to the sequence later in the issue when the young girl prays to bring her father back from the dead.
This whole scene is rendered in grotesque hues and shadowed, with an undead father hell-bent on protecting his daughter. The structure of the issue by Michael Chaves makes these two large set pieces so much stronger by having them play off one another in very different lights. The art that once depicted the beauty and divinity of Joan now shows this young girl in darker tones, alongside a blood-drenched father. It reads as if we should question where the power imbued in the dead came from, because if it was god, why wouldn’t he bless them with the colors of his own kingdom?
The entire undead sequence is a gleefully macabre scene in which a father literally crawls out of the grave to save his daughter. I found myself flipping back to really study the art and to see the truly badass armor that is donned by the Corpse Knight himself after handling those who put him in the ground in the first place. The cross through someone’s back is an instant classic panel for me because it really made me laugh. There is also a move the father makes when he goes to save his daughter, using his hand. It’s a really tight sequence that I don’t want to spoil, but I have to give Dad a hand for that save.
With such a strong debut issue, I cannot wait to devour the next issue of Corpse Knight. It’s a dark, gleeful, and mysterious romp through France that seems to be leaning in a religious direction. Religion isn’t a topic often tackled in horror comics, so it felt like something new to unpack. I am excited to see how the series colors develop as we grow closer to divinity itself.
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