I think we all saw this coming - Gilead would indeed fall. Never mind the spoilerish title of this series, as the way the events were presented left no doubt that victory for the good guys would be impossible. But that doesn't mean we can't have a great comic book.

With Farson's army on the march, the people of Gilead have little time to muster their defenses. Low on soldiers, they arm pretty much anyone who can pick up a gun. They even dress up dummies to make it look like they have more soldiers than they do. Of course, such a ploy would only work if the attacking army were small and easily intimidated. The truth is that once the invading forces rise over the crest of the horizon, we see that Roland vastly underestimated their size. Even with the ancient booby trap defenses built into the perimeter of the city, the evil invaders are too much, especially since they have %$@ing tanks and bazookas. Yes, that's right. Tanks and bazookas. What use are spears and revolvers against them, you may ask? The answer is just as you think: none.

The Dark Tower: Fall of Gilead #6

With the city breached and the women and children burned to a crisp while hiding in the sanctuaries beneath, Roland and his gang narrowly escape via the sewers, leaving behind Gilead. It is indeed a dark day for a man as proud as Roland.

Not having read any of the Dark Tower novels, all these stories are new to me. I don't know who lives or dies, or what happens next in Roland's timeline, so I find the stories even more fascinating than I assume other people who are well versed in this world do. The battle presented here was spectacular, maybe because it reminded me so much of the Helm's Deep sequence in The Two Towers: the anticipation of battle, arming the inexperienced, hiding the women and children, the general terror of the unknown and what's to come. Even though I knew what the plan was with the booby-trapped spikes, it didn't make their use any less awesome, thanks in part to the consistently descriptive art. I actually cheered when the first wave of spikes took out the front line of mutants. In the same way, I verbally reacted when I saw the invading forces had tanks and bazookas. Where did they get them and why didn't they use them in previous battles, I wonder?

While the action was one of the greater strengths of this issue, I found the writing slipped just a bit. Usually, the turns of phrases in the Dark Tower comics have an odd mix of formality, wit and familiarity that make them a joy to read. But here I found there were too many clichéd lines or dialogue that just didn't ring true. While not a major problem, I didn't find it up to the level of previous entries. But that's a small gripe in an otherwise fantastic action-oriented installment of the Dark Tower comics canon.

Score