Akin to the issue’s Dark Watchers, Kingdom of Earth #1 from Dark Horse Comics pulls readers in from the jump, snuffing the light from the familiar with jarring precision that rattles to the bone.
And it’s that precision that is the secret to Kingdom of Earth’s debut, from the creative team of writers and frequent collaborators David Dastmalchian and Leah Kilpatrick (Rocketship Entertainment and Panick Entertainment’s The Accessories), artist Soo Lee (Maleficent), and letterer Frank Cvetkovic (Cyberpunk 2077). In the not-so-distant future, the planet is ruled by the monsters of myth, who rose from the depths of the world to assert dominion. The few humans that survived the creatures’ initial slaughter have been relegated to workers or livestock. That premise alone is unnerving itself.
However, what really unsettled me with that first issue is the bureaucracy of the hordes’ actions. In those first few pages of issue #1, middle management monsters squabble over ruined human livestock and jockey for scraps of power from one of the aforementioned Dark Watchers. The worldbuilding that Kilpatrick and Dastmalchian manage in a scant 20-odd pages is impressive, but what they stick the landing on most is the mundanity and coldness with which the evil and horror. While we hold our breath while our human protagonist Frankie evades one of the beasts, what makes us shudder even more is the banality of evil and number-crunching on display.
This narrative shines in the dark thanks to the dynamic, unsettling linework of the phenomenal Soo Lee. While her portfolio is bounding with beauty, Kingdom of Earth is most reminiscent of her work on Dynamite Comics’ Maleficent, where her art captured the grander and quieter moments of malevolence in equal measure. Particularly rattling is a scene early in the book in which a Dark Watcher dispatches a disappointing underling. Frank Cvetkovic’s letters help heighten the otherworldly voices that carry across the page.
Issue #1 of Kingdom of Earth is a dynamic inaugural outing of a world that, for all its disturbing deviltry, reminds us that evil rests in the crevices of the everyday cruelty that we often overlook in our world and makes us confront that cruelty all the same.
Kingdom of Earth issues #1 and #2 are on sale now from Dark Horse Comics. Issue #3 is on sale Wednesday, October 7, 2026.
