Described by Top Cow as “the darkest tale of the Darkness yet”, the recently debuted miniseries The Darkness: Four Horsemen takes supernatural mob boss Jackie Estacado on a dark path where he meets up with four bikers who have an even bleaker outlook than he does. These four bikers come out of the Pacific coast desert after years MIA, and have returned with dark powers making them a modern-day reincarnation of the biblical Horsemen of Revelations. Forget the TV show Sons of Anarchy, these guys live up to that title literally.
The Darkness: Four Horsemen comes from the mind of storyteller David Hine. Hine is well-known for his penchant for horror with works on Spawn and Batman: Arkham Asylum, and his take on the Darkness and his new quartet of adversaries is quite eye-opening; each of the horsemen have a particular attribute, such as War or Pestilence, one that they bring out as soon as they put their kickstands down in a small western town. And out of nowhere just like the Demon Riders comes the series’ artist, Jeff Wamester. Wamester is a relatively new face on the comics scene, having just completed the Oni series Frenemy of the State... but his work on The Darkness: Four Horsemen, complimented by colorist Felix Serrano, shows a new face that’ll be one to reckon with in years to come.
We spoke with the team about the mini-series and the appeal of these biblically-based villains.
Newsarama: This miniseries boils down to a showdown between Jackie and four bikers – I've seen the Darkness take down whole groups of men, so what makes these bikers so fearsome, David?
David Hine: These are not ordinary bikers. The Demon Riders were last seen back in the sixties when they ripped off Lucio Franchetti in a drug deal gone bad. They disappeared into the desert and weren’t seen again until they turn up almost forty years later on the road to Ginsberg, California. They’re riding the same bikes, wearing the same clothes and they haven’t aged a day. Once they start mixing with the citizens, serious weirdness starts to happen. Anyone who has the slightest physical contact with one of the Riders, is doomed to a rapid and horrifying death. A normally placid teenager goes apeshit crazy and stabs a storeowner to death. A guy eating out in his local Tex Mex takes the invitation ‘All you can eat!’ a little too seriously. Hookers instantly develop terminal symptoms of every venereal disease known to man. You get the idea.
I don’t think it’s giving too much away to tell you that it turns out these four bikers have somehow become the human hosts for Famine, Pestilence, War and Death, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
See the full interview here.
Source: Newsarama
