Warren Ellis’ Karnak series hit a major roadblock with a four-month delay between the first and second issues due to personal issues faced by artist Gerardo Zaffino, but the book has gotten back on track since gaining a new artist in Roland Boschi. His style is cleaner than Zaffino’s but still maintains a level of grit that helps ground Karnak’s fantastic adventure, and he’s an excellent fit for the tone of Ellis’ story, capturing the swagger of the title character while heightening the ominous atmosphere of the environment Karnak finds himself in.
This preview of next week’s Karnak #4 has the Inhuman entering The Chapel Of The Single Shadow, walking through a field of dead bodies that sacrificed themselves last issue in hopes of stopping him from gaining access. These visuals set an eerie tone that makes Ellis’ flashes of humor all the more effective, like Karnak’s comment on the chapel’s unconventional building materials. This preview emphasizes setting and mood, but the final page sets up a shift to more action-centric storytelling with a dynamic splash page of Karnak being attacked by the chapel’s ivory guardians. The sharp angle of the image brings intense energy to this narrative transition, and if Boschi’s past work is any indication, that energy will only grow when Karnak starts kicking ass.