DC Comics has opened the doors and let horror writing legend Steve Niles in to play in Gotham City in this new series, SIMON DARK. As of this writing there are two trades out collecting 1 through 6 in Simon Dark VOL 01: What Simon Does and Simon Dark: Volume 2 -Ashes

I was drawn to this for two reasons, I’m a fan of Steve Niles and I liked the thought of a Gotham book without Batman.

The opening is Simon lives underground in a part of Gotham called The Village. he serves as it’s protector and he goes after bad guys and messes them up and stops them. However we soon learn that there is an awful lot more to Simon than meets the eye. He is a construction of body parts and there is magic involved. By the end of volume one we have met a number of supporting characters who will aid and assist Simon when needed. One of these is a cop who is also more than meets the eye.
In volume two,ASHES, Simon is teamed up with our cop friend, Detective Kirk, and they are tracking down a demonic plague and it’s source. By the end of the book we know alot more about Simon and his pal Kirk, but questions remain.

This is fun reading. Simon Dark has a nice blend of horror and supernatural working in a heroic template. It feels like something that would coexist with early Swamp Thing tales. It’s part of the regular DC Universe, but feels just a bit of violence or nudity away from Vertigo.

The artwork by Scott Hampton is right on the money for this title, a feeling of water color wash over the drawings give it a perfect spooky suspenseful feeling.

I plan to follow this title and hope to see a lot more of this and Steve Niles at DC.