What do you think?
Rate this book
The Darkness Compendium #1
The Darkness Compendium, Vol. 1
On his 21st birthday, the awesome and terrible powers of the Darkness awaken within Jackie Estacado, a mafia hitman for the Franchetti crime family.
There's nothing like going back to the beginning and reading it all over again.
The Darkness Compendium Volume 1 collects the first 40 issues of one of Top Cow Productions' flagship books, plus the complete run of the Tales of The Darkness series collected into one trade paperback.
See how The Darkness first appeared and threw Jackie into the chaotic world of the supernatural. Plus, get the first appearances of The Magdalena and more...
There's nothing like going back to the beginning and reading it all over again.
The Darkness Compendium Volume 1 collects the first 40 issues of one of Top Cow Productions' flagship books, plus the complete run of the Tales of The Darkness series collected into one trade paperback.
See how The Darkness first appeared and threw Jackie into the chaotic world of the supernatural. Plus, get the first appearances of The Magdalena and more...
1280 pages, Hardcover
First published December 20, 2006
41 people are currently reading
244 people want to read
About the author
Garth Ennis
2,624 books3,170 followersEnnis began his comic-writing career in 1989 with the series Troubled Souls. Appearing in the short-lived but critically-acclaimed British anthology Crisis and illustrated by McCrea, it told the story of a young, apolitical Protestant man caught up by fate in the violence of the Irish 'Troubles'. It spawned a sequel, For a Few Troubles More, a broad Belfast-based comedy featuring two supporting characters from Troubled Souls, Dougie and Ivor, who would later get their own American comics series, Dicks, from Caliber in 1997, and several follow-ups from Avatar.
Another series for Crisis was True Faith, a religious satire inspired by his schooldays, this time drawn by Warren Pleece. Ennis shortly after began to write for Crisis' parent publication, 2000 AD. He quickly graduated on to the title's flagship character, Judge Dredd, taking over from original creator John Wagner for a period of several years.
Ennis' first work on an American comic came in 1991 when he took over DC Comics's horror title Hellblazer, which he wrote until 1994, and for which he currently holds the title for most issues written. Steve Dillon became the regular artist during the second half of Ennis's run.
Ennis' landmark work to date is the 66-issue epic Preacher, which he co-created with artist Steve Dillon. Running from 1995 to 2000, it was a tale of a preacher with supernatural powers, searching (literally) for God who has abandoned his creation.
While Preacher was running, Ennis began a series set in the DC universe called Hitman. Despite being lower profile than Preacher, Hitman ran for 60 issues (plus specials) from 1996 to 2001, veering wildly from violent action to humour to an examination of male friendship under fire.
Other comic projects Ennis wrote during this time period include Goddess, Bloody Mary, Unknown Soldier, and Pride & Joy, all for DC/Vertigo, as well as origin stories for The Darkness for Image Comics and Shadowman for Valiant Comics.
After the end of Hitman, Ennis was lured to Marvel Comics with the promise from Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada that he could write The Punisher as long as he cared to. Instead of largely comical tone of these issues, he decided to make a much more serious series, re-launched under Marvel's MAX imprint.
In 2001 he briefly returned to UK comics to write the epic Helter Skelter for Judge Dredd.
Other comics Ennis has written include War Story (with various artists) for DC; The Pro for Image Comics; The Authority for Wildstorm; Just a Pilgrim for Black Bull Press, and 303, Chronicles of Wormwood (a six issue mini-series about the Antichrist), and a western comic book, Streets of Glory for Avatar Press.
In 2008 Ennis ended his five-year run on Punisher MAX to debut a new Marvel title, War Is Hell: The First Flight of the Phantom Eagle.
In June 2008, at Wizard World, Philadelphia, Ennis announced several new projects, including a metaseries of war comics called Battlefields from Dynamite made up of mini-series including Night Witches, Dear Billy and Tankies, another Chronicles of Wormwood mini-series and Crossed both at Avatar, a six-issue miniseries about Butcher (from The Boys) and a Punisher project reuniting him with artist Steve Dillon (subsequently specified to be a weekly mini-series entitled Punisher: War Zone, to be released concurrently with the film of the same name).
Taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garth_Ennis
Another series for Crisis was True Faith, a religious satire inspired by his schooldays, this time drawn by Warren Pleece. Ennis shortly after began to write for Crisis' parent publication, 2000 AD. He quickly graduated on to the title's flagship character, Judge Dredd, taking over from original creator John Wagner for a period of several years.
Ennis' first work on an American comic came in 1991 when he took over DC Comics's horror title Hellblazer, which he wrote until 1994, and for which he currently holds the title for most issues written. Steve Dillon became the regular artist during the second half of Ennis's run.
Ennis' landmark work to date is the 66-issue epic Preacher, which he co-created with artist Steve Dillon. Running from 1995 to 2000, it was a tale of a preacher with supernatural powers, searching (literally) for God who has abandoned his creation.
While Preacher was running, Ennis began a series set in the DC universe called Hitman. Despite being lower profile than Preacher, Hitman ran for 60 issues (plus specials) from 1996 to 2001, veering wildly from violent action to humour to an examination of male friendship under fire.
Other comic projects Ennis wrote during this time period include Goddess, Bloody Mary, Unknown Soldier, and Pride & Joy, all for DC/Vertigo, as well as origin stories for The Darkness for Image Comics and Shadowman for Valiant Comics.
After the end of Hitman, Ennis was lured to Marvel Comics with the promise from Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada that he could write The Punisher as long as he cared to. Instead of largely comical tone of these issues, he decided to make a much more serious series, re-launched under Marvel's MAX imprint.
In 2001 he briefly returned to UK comics to write the epic Helter Skelter for Judge Dredd.
Other comics Ennis has written include War Story (with various artists) for DC; The Pro for Image Comics; The Authority for Wildstorm; Just a Pilgrim for Black Bull Press, and 303, Chronicles of Wormwood (a six issue mini-series about the Antichrist), and a western comic book, Streets of Glory for Avatar Press.
In 2008 Ennis ended his five-year run on Punisher MAX to debut a new Marvel title, War Is Hell: The First Flight of the Phantom Eagle.
In June 2008, at Wizard World, Philadelphia, Ennis announced several new projects, including a metaseries of war comics called Battlefields from Dynamite made up of mini-series including Night Witches, Dear Billy and Tankies, another Chronicles of Wormwood mini-series and Crossed both at Avatar, a six-issue miniseries about Butcher (from The Boys) and a Punisher project reuniting him with artist Steve Dillon (subsequently specified to be a weekly mini-series entitled Punisher: War Zone, to be released concurrently with the film of the same name).
Taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garth_Ennis
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
September 18, 2011
the best i can say for this mess is that it probably made many 14 year-old boys pretty happy in its heyday (and probably still does!). between the scantily clad women, the ridiculous posturing splash pages, the potty humor, gratuitous violence, and an awkward subplot about the main character being an angsty sex addict who can't have sex or he will die...well, what else is there to say?
sometimes silvestri produces a nice picture or two. sometimes the writer makes me laugh (unintentionally too, now and then). this is hands-down ennis's worst work (and just to put that in perspective, i absolutely hated his Ghost Rider reboot).
it's a pretty book ~ nice colors, glossy pages. the smell of it helped boost it to two stars. that's kind of weird, huh?
major problems: too many missing crossover issues (Withblade, Batman, etc.) half the time i was playing catch up or just completely baffled as to what had occurred before (and yet i feel like every other issue was reminding me that Jackie Estacado had inherited the Darkness on his 21st birthday ~ ugh). also, major continuity problems even without the missing crossovers. just hellaciously bad. this volume also ended on a cliff-hanger, so boo: if i bother to get the second volume of this behemoth, it'll be through inter-library loan like i did with this one.
sometimes silvestri produces a nice picture or two. sometimes the writer makes me laugh (unintentionally too, now and then). this is hands-down ennis's worst work (and just to put that in perspective, i absolutely hated his Ghost Rider reboot).
it's a pretty book ~ nice colors, glossy pages. the smell of it helped boost it to two stars. that's kind of weird, huh?
major problems: too many missing crossover issues (Withblade, Batman, etc.) half the time i was playing catch up or just completely baffled as to what had occurred before (and yet i feel like every other issue was reminding me that Jackie Estacado had inherited the Darkness on his 21st birthday ~ ugh). also, major continuity problems even without the missing crossovers. just hellaciously bad. this volume also ended on a cliff-hanger, so boo: if i bother to get the second volume of this behemoth, it'll be through inter-library loan like i did with this one.
November 12, 2018
This first volume took me over a year to read. At first I couldn’t put it down. I had begun with Witchblade and fell in love with the characters from ‘The Darkness’ reading the first ‘ Witchblade’ compendium.
I often found myself reading back and forth trying to find a similar timeline within the two books.
It became too taxing.
At that point, I finished reading ‘Witchblade’ then took a hiatus and returned to ‘The Darkness’.
It’s a true Jen of stunning artwork and brilliant writing, the sheer amount of talent, work and dedication that went into its creation is amazing and worth the read.
The physical copy was amazing!
It may take me awhile before I’m reading fir the secondcompendium, but it won’t be a long wait.
The story and plot are simply that terrific and fast paced. The derailed art more than keeps up with the writing. It on,y enhances the effect!
I often found myself reading back and forth trying to find a similar timeline within the two books.
It became too taxing.
At that point, I finished reading ‘Witchblade’ then took a hiatus and returned to ‘The Darkness’.
It’s a true Jen of stunning artwork and brilliant writing, the sheer amount of talent, work and dedication that went into its creation is amazing and worth the read.
The physical copy was amazing!
It may take me awhile before I’m reading fir the secondcompendium, but it won’t be a long wait.
The story and plot are simply that terrific and fast paced. The derailed art more than keeps up with the writing. It on,y enhances the effect!
May 12, 2017
3.5 Stars
This wasn't a bad volume, especially considering comics in general weren't at their best when these were originally published.
The series started out really strong, with Garth Ennis writing and Silvestri art. Then it became inconsistent, ranging from good to not so good. The story arc with The Darkness vs. The Magdalena read like it had been written by a teenage boy going through puberty. The art was fairly strong throughout, and sexy women are in no short supply here.
Overall a strong showing from Image that showed some of their books back then were about more than pretty pictures.
This wasn't a bad volume, especially considering comics in general weren't at their best when these were originally published.
The series started out really strong, with Garth Ennis writing and Silvestri art. Then it became inconsistent, ranging from good to not so good. The story arc with The Darkness vs. The Magdalena read like it had been written by a teenage boy going through puberty. The art was fairly strong throughout, and sexy women are in no short supply here.
Overall a strong showing from Image that showed some of their books back then were about more than pretty pictures.
March 28, 2021
The best thing about this title were the illustrations. They were beautifully well done and many of the characters seemed to come to life on the page. The size of the book (large pages) also made the illustrations stand out more because you can see all the little details in the images. If you enjoy looking at art this book is a must see. The storyline however was another thing. The book seems to be a compilation of all the stories about the main character Jackie Estacado. Jackie wakes up one day with the "darkness" in him which is a mystical superpower that makes him a killing machine. However, the twist is Jackie kinda becomes a good guy because deep down he doesn't really like hurting people but knows he has to do it to protect himself and his uncle. However, after reading more than half of the book, I realized that was the plot line for each story. Someone was always trying to kill Jackie and honestly it became boring. The other characters including Jackie really did not develop much past what was introduced about them in the first couple of chapters. The worst character was the Angellus. It was so repetitive that I started making up my own stories about the Angellus. Great illustrations but wanted more from the writing aspect.
November 27, 2017
Další príbeh zo sveta artefaktov. Tento raz o mafiánskom vymáhačovy. Witchblade ma bavila viac.
January 15, 2017
A rare case where I didn't bother to finish a book. It has interesting premise but between missing issues, blatant sexism, annoying stereotype gay, and "Batman syndrome" where they feel compelled to reexplain his backstory over and over I lost all interest in finishing this massive tome. I can see from the other reviews that I haven't missed much by quitting halfway. A skip on the comic reader list.
November 8, 2010
This book suffers from a frequent change of writers, the best part is written by Garth Ennis, no doubt about it. Still, awesome compendium, just slightly worse than Witchblade. Or maybe I prefer looking at Sarah's boobs rather than Jackie's muscles.. ;-)
February 16, 2014
I love the darkness! Jackie estacado is one cool dude. He's the hero-villain sometimes has a heart but mostly not
November 2, 2007
not a bad value for it's price... 40++ issues.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews