The grand storytelling experiment of Seven Soldiers continues with the Shining Knight miniseries, and so far, all signs point to creative success. The first issue of Shining Knight is a glorious exercise in fantasy/science-fiction, pitting the last knights of an overrun Camelot against an invading force wielding magic and high-tech weaponry... think the movie Krull, only imagine it how cool your 12-year-old self thought it was rather than how lame your adult self knows it is. It's completely standalone, in that the story of Sir Justin and his ill-fated last stand and resulting journey through time doesn't tie into Seven Soldiers #0 in a way that will confuse new readers, but those who did read Seven Soldiers #0 will spot some familiar names amongst the adversaries.
The Shining Knight is a Golden Age DC character who I've always thought had kind of a lame visual. I don't know if there are diehard fans of that character still around, but they might be dismayed to see that the original version of the character seems to have disappeared in the wind of DC's loose continuity. He is replaced by a knight dressed in a strange, spandex-y looking suit of armor whose defining factor so far seems to be not just nobility and bravery but a youth that we don't often see in knights in comics. To be honest, we don't know a whole lot about Sir Justin in this first issue, except for the very basics that he's a noble knight, that he had a (for lack of a better word) girlfriend and that he's just landed himself in the 21st century, which he seems ill-equipped for.
While Sir Justin could use some fleshing out in future issues, though, Morrison certainly sells the concept well enough. The dialogue reads like J.R.R. Tolkien filtered through Morrison's idea-speak, and so we get wonderful lines like "Give me the cauldron and recall your hordes to unwhen before I swipe the head from your shoulders." It's fantasy, but it's not the fantasy cliche that has informed so many fantasy books. The Sheeda (a familiar name to those who read Seven Soldiers #0), with warriors like Neh-Buh-Loh (a familiar name to those who read JLA: Classified #1-3), are a fantastic group of bad guys, wielding alien technology and an alien sensibility against the noble yet violent tactics of Arthur's falling knights. Morrison does a great job here capturing the hopelessness of a last stand while providing an optimistic hope in the form of Justin's unfaltering heart and last desperate gambit for victory.
To be completely honest, though, all these ideas are good, but it's the visuals that bring them to life that really elevate the book in my mind. Simone Bianchi is a find, someone whose work has the same visceral appeal and painted style of European creators from Humanoids. The spiny, alien look of the Sheeda or the ornate weapons and armor that Arthur's knights bring to bear are all beautiful designs, and Nathan Eyring deserves a lot of credit for heightening this detail with his colors, especially in bringing the eerie glow of the river of time to life. Bianchi's work gives us realistic characters and backgrounds, but it brings this touch of reality to completely unreal characters and settings. The result is something the reader can entirely buy into even while they retain the sense of wonder and amazement at what's going on.
From a look at the first issue, Shining Knight is the first issue of a promising action-filled fantasy/science-fiction miniseries. There are hints that it plays a larger role in the Seven Soldiers story, particularly in learning more about the foes who plagued one of the soldiers in Seven Soldiers #0, but it also looks like the book will live up to the promise of being a self-contained read as well as part of a larger story. 9/10
