CRUSADER VOL. 1

A war-hardened Templar knight teleports through a mystic portal into a savage realm of demonlike monsters in Emmons’ fantasy graphic novel.

This dark tale opens during the third of the medieval bloodbaths known as the Crusades (no Christian/Islamic background is offered here, for those fearing History Channel exposition). A nameless, helmeted Templar knight, ferocious in deadly sword battles (“Never retreat in battle. Under pain of mortal sin”), finally arrives in the Holy Land, only to find a satanic ritual and human sacrifice in progress. Outraged at the blasphemy, the Templar knight hacks apart the cultists. Somehow, this propels the hero to a realm called the Beastlands, populated by humans as well as grotesque creatures. A small, goblinlike being called Grimbel, who is apparently benign, becomes the knight’s guide and odd-couple sidekick as the realm suffers the predations of a ghoulish trio of skeletal wizard-things called the Masters, the alpha villains of the Beastlands. Their prime servant, the sadistic and orclike Pilgrim, basically cannot be killed, no matter how often it’s dismembered, burned, or drowned. The fearless Crusader battles on regardless, seemingly acquiring some superpowers of his own (his sword levitates to his hand) and becoming unable to remove his helmet or even recall his own name. Slashing-and-bashing combat takes center stage here, supported by a few side themes about the zealot Templar beginning to temper his propensity for violence and murderous retribution (particularly as realization dawns that nobody in the Beastlands recognizes the messianic religion he serves or the Holy Land he has spilled so much blood over), and to recognize that not all scaly reptile-people are necessarily the bad guys. With no major female characters, the material sidesteps Frank Frazetta–style cheesecake fan service, which is fortunate, though the butchery earns an R rating on its own terms. Emmons’ illustrations, suitably, resemble something between old woodcuts or stained-glass windows and more splattery imagery that a heavy metal fan might sketch out in high school study hall.

A medieval fantasy slaughter-fest that subtly questions the morality of all the carnage.