Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Omnibus

Stephen King's The Dark Tower #6-11

by Robin Furth, Peter David

It is a story of the end of the world, and it is not over yet. Roland Deschain is now a man - a man with only one goal in life: to pursue the Man in Black to the end of Mid-World and make him pay for destroying everything dear to him. But is this really a pursuit? Or is the Man in Black luring him into a maze of dead ends and false horizons? Is the collapse of Mid-World already a forgone conclusion? The answer - as always - lies frustratingly at the world's end. And with what John Farson has planned for him, Roland might not make it that far. COLLECTING: THE JOURNEY BEGINS 1-5, THE LITTLE SISTERS OF ELURIA 1-5, THE BATTLE OF TULL 1-5, THE WAY STATION 1-5, THE MAN IN BLACK 1-5, SHEEMIE'S TALE 1-2, EVIL GROUND 1-2, SO FELL LORD PERTH 1

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Fantasy, Horror, Marvel, Westerns, Dark Fantasy

1048 pages, Hardcover

First published September 16, 2014

About the author

Robin Furth is the personal research assistant to Stephen King and the author of Stephen King's The Dark Tower: A Complete Concordance, which was published by Scribner on December 5, 2006. It is a compilation of her two previous encyclopedic books dealing with King's magnum opus, The Dark Tower: A Concordance, volume I - which explores the first four books in King's series - and A Concordance II, which gives the reader definitions and explanations of pivotal terms used over the course of the final three books of The Dark Tower. She is now currently working on the graphic novel adaptation of the Dark Tower for Marvel Comics.

Reviews

[Lukas Sumper · Rating 5 out of 5]

According to the rating of the individual books I expected less, which actually was surprising and tells me these ratings are always supposed to be taken with a grain of salt. As someone who only saw the movie and only read the first book of the novels, this box set is equally as engaging as the first box set (Dark Tower: Beginnings). Its not as epic as the story now shrinks in scale opposed to getting bigger, its now down to a few characters and their comparatively small conflicts.

The writing holds up through all 6 books in this box set, and since it didn't try to become bigger to awe us but now is way more character driven I tip my hat.
A box set worth having! 4.5 out of 5 stars

[Kevin Bessey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm giving this Omnibus (The Gunslinger, green cover) five stars based on a stand alone production. If I were to compare this to the first Omnibus (Dark Tower, maroon cover), I would only give it 3-4 stars. As a constant reader and fan of the DT series, I am certainly grateful to have both collections; however this Gunslinger Omnibus was not as good as the DT Omnibus.

Some aspects I enjoyed were the illustrative effects taken to the first DT book: The Gunslinger. It provided an interesting take on Roland's (backwards) adventures of meeting Brown, the events at Tull and the Way Station, and interactions with Jake and Walter/Marten. Seeing an illustrative version of a well known story is always fun and exciting.

There were also additional stories added to this Omnibus that were appreciated, such as a few side tales of Roland's adventures while wandering through the desert (Not-men, Sisters of Eluria). There were also new stories- Sheemi's Tale, Roland's ka-tet ambush of Farson's men, and So Fell Lord Perth - that were fun and interesting as Robin Furth and team expanded on the DT universe.

For all the fun and newness of this Omnibus, I have to say one drawback was not getting Jae Lee onboard. Lee's illustrations and work on the first DT Omnibus is outstanding. His artwork captures the complete essence of Mid-World and the DT universe. Richard Isanove joins the creative efforts on this Omnibus and because he worked on the first with Lee, you can see how his style carried over into the Gunslinger Omnibus. If I'm being honest, the other illustrators and artists that joined The Gunslinger Omnibus do not meet the standards that Lee and Isanove established in the first DT Omnibus. The Gunslinger artwork is good in a vacuum, but no where near the quality that Lee/Isanove captured.

I also want to point out that the Companion book in the Gunslinger Omnibus is not at the same level as the first DT Omnibus Companion book. The Companion book in the DT Omnibus is nearly the size of all five volumes of the DT comic and chocked full of extra content, interviews, artwork, sketches, folklore, tales, and expanded content. The Companion book for the Gunslinger Omnibus is maybe half the size of the five volumes of the Gunslinger comics and does not have any interviews or expanded content that the first Omnibus Companion book included. It does have Robin Furth's notes and introductions to each Gunslinger comic volume and also offers extra sketches and notes to some of the illustrations. The the Companion book is satisfying; however it does not achieve the level of effort that the first one set out to do.

It may seem like I'm being hard on the Gunslinger Omnibus, but it's only because the bar was set so high on the first DT Omnibus. All things considered, I am very appreciative to have this Omnibus and look forward to Marvel doing future editions of the DT books.

Pros: Marvel adapting The Gunslinger to comic form and bringing the pages to life.
Cons: Not as good as the Dark Tower Omnibus that came out a few years before this Omnibus.
Bottom Line: For any fans of the DT series or for anyone curious about the DT series you will still enjoy this collection.

[Joe Kessler · Rating 4 out of 5]

This bound edition contains volumes 31-60 of Marvel's comic book adaptation of Stephen King's The Dark Tower series, originally published from 2010 through 2013 under the subheadings of The Journey Begins, The Little Sisters of Eluria, The Battle of Tull, The Way Station, The Man in Black, Sheemie's Tale, Evil Ground, and So Fell Lord Perth. Roughly half of these issues depict events from the novel The Gunslinger, while The Little Sisters of Eluria adapts that prequel short story and the rest provide connective tissue to both the previous releases and the wider Tower saga.

I mentioned in my review of the first omnibus that although it would likely prove appealing to fans for fleshing out more of the canonical backstory, the main plot struck me as a weaker substitute for the proper experience of reading the actual King books. I feel the opposite about this sequel, in part because The Gunslinger itself is such a strange and flawed title to begin with. It's a volume that coasts by on character and mood more than concrete answers, and so it benefits tremendously from the addition of illustrations and further lore details on these comic pages. There's a clearer sense throughout of the far-future dystopia that is Roland's parallel reality, along with the ultimate goal that's driving him. His relationship with the boy Jake from our world, already one of the better parts of the source material, is likewise strengthened by giving their conversations space to unfold as they make their way across the eerie landscape, steadily pursuing the hero's foe.

Struggling readers are often encouraged to power through the first Dark Tower book before deciding whether to quit the series or not; I could also now suggest that they try checking out this comic treatment as another option instead.

[Content warning for sexual assault, gun violence, and gore.]

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[Mohamed Ahmed · Rating 3 out of 5]

This Omnibus Is Way Below The First One
I Enjoyed the First Omnibus Very Much, There Was A Storyline That Kept Building Up to an End And the Art Was Amazing
But here it is Different
I Felt Incomplete Story and Various Tales Which is Not Connected Some Was Good Some Was not And the Art Wasnt that Good as the First Omnibus

[Jacques Coulardeau · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read all the volumes of the vast saga of the Dark Tower and the Crimson King when they came out, one after the other. In this case, here we have a complete comic book adaptation of the saga. One volume of some 500 pages for each volume of the saga which will count eight of them, I guess. I have only gotten one, the first one here, The Gunslinger. I had another annoying surprise. I could not read the comic book because of the very fine print. So, I had to get a special set of magnifying lenses, finally to decipher the text. And without the text, the comic book would not be very good, or easy to understand.

The text has at least three full levels of narration. One general third-person narrator gives the general development of the action. Then The Gunslinger himself tells us the story from his point-of-view, immediate viewpoint since he is the main actor in the action. And then a standard bubble dialogue between or among the characters. We could also add a fourth level which is the pictures, the illustrations, and the artistic presentation of the action and there is, at times, quite often actually, a very rich visual content that does not find any echo in the three textual levels I have described just before. These images, this visual dimension may bring into the story more complex levels of commentary and adventure. The final crossing of the train bridge or rather trestlework is bringing into our consciousness that things, objects, artifacts, houses, nature, mountains, rivers, and many other contraptions are acting directly and on their own into the story, at times dictating the story. And that’s frustrating for those who want words for everything, and tremendously inspiring for those who can just invest themselves in the visual dimension of the story, for those who have to invest themselves personally and visually into the story, no matter how it is told to them. Projection is the greatest way to take part in the drama. And it sure is a drama.

The comic book form has an advantage. Comic book readers generally do not read plain books, and thus, these readers cannot know the story that had been given in the novels and that is good: they can enter this comic book story with a virginal mind, and virginity will be useful to them because the story is highly perverse. But I am not going to tell the story. I’ll just make a few remarks on some issues or topics brought to mind and life by the story itself.

First fundamental remark. The universe of this long saga is not only one universe. It is a stratified cosmos of universes piled up one on top of the other, or even others. We have at least three levels and three universes. The Gunslinger Roland Deschain is the only survivor of a world that has completely disappeared and been destroyed in the past. He is actually crossing what’s left after this destruction, and that is nothing except a vast desert, ghost cities, and a lot of slow-mutating mutants. Some atomic devices must have been used to contaminate the old world and destroy everything, and it only left slow-mutating beings behind. We already have two levels in this Mid-World. Deeply buried in the past the Barony of Gilead was destroyed by the armies of John Farson who was supposed to be both the “Good Man” by name and the chief of evil destructive armies by the blood he pours and sheds. We only get a few small stories about this old world, how it was destroyed, and how Roland was the only survivor, though he also was the one who destroyed John Farson. In the present Mid-World in total desolation and ruins, there are only a very few survivors here and there in ghost cities and they are entirely manipulated by the Man in Black Roland is pursuing, chasing, in order to destroy him and get from him the way to the Dark Tower where the Crimson King lives. That second level is the Mid-World in which Roland is looking for the way to the Dark Tower that he can only find by destroying the Man in Black. The Man in Black has appeared in other books by Stephen King, very often in the shape of a black crow. He is more than evil because he has total autonomy and independence in his actions. He has no fate, no destiny, no set trajectory. He improvises all the time, and his powers are tremendously strong. When Roland gets to a ghost city or community manipulated by the Man in Black, this Man in Black uses one character in the community to lead this community against Roland. Then Roland is obliged to kill them all with an ever-self-replenishing reserve of bullets, and he makes sure they are all dead before he moves on.

Second fundamental remark. In one of these ghost structures, in this case, a farm, he finds a boy, Jake, who is not from the Mid-World, but he is from a higher level where he was captured by the/a Man in Black, THE (?) Man in Black, and he was cast into some chasm that made him arrive in this ghost farm in the middle of nowhere, in fact, in the middle of a desert. At this moment Roland is manipulated by the Man in Black who knows that Roland is to experience an attraction and a responsibility towards this kid in recollection of what he experienced as a young teenager in Gilead during his training as a Gunslinger. But Jake becomes essential in the last lap of the chase when they enter an underground railroad tunnel used in the mine it crosses to send the minerals or whatever they extracted from the mountain to the other side of the mountain ridge beyond which Roland is convinced he will find the way to the Dark Tower. Roland and Jake meet a lot of slow-mutants and Roland destroys a lot of them and saves Jake twice from these at least surreal creatures. They use a handcart to speed up their crossing of the tunnel, but they arrive on a long trestlework that is no longer in the necessary shape to carry the hand cart. So, they continue on foot, but the ties are rotten, or some are missing. Jake seems to be more agile at first and Roland goes slower behind, but at one dilapidated spot Jake loses his balance and ends down in the chasm because the Man in Black reappears and he blackmails Roland: “You save the boy and you will never reach the Dark Tower, or you sacrifice the boy and I will tell you the way. You will have one chance to get there.” Roland accepts the deal which is not a deal but is a dictatorial decision from the Man in Black. So, Roland finds himself on the other side and the Man in Black is no longer useful, so he more or less disappears from the picture. Is he dead? Who knows? Such a fateful creature does not really die. This first volume ends up more or less with this fake conclusion that is hardly a starting point for the next stage of the story.

Third fundamental remark. But Jake revealed in his own fate that there is a higher level in this cosmos and that higher level is our human level with high schools and grades. Between this higher human level and this Mid-World desolate and treacherous level, itself on top of an older state before its destruction, there are some passages, some funnels, tunnels, or doors maybe to go up or come down, like the one used by the Man in Black to cast Jake on the way Roland was following.

Fourth fundamental remark. This story is a picaresque adventure that brings danger, initiation, and invitation to travel long-distance to reach some point like in the Chinese enormous novel Journey to the West by Wu Cheng’en from the 16th-century Ming dynasty. The target is the “same” in a way: to meet the Crimson King to get the key to the regeneration of the Mid-World and beyond the Mid-World, the cosmos. In the same way, the pilgrims (three imperial envoys) must go to some Buddhist Holy Shrine to recuperate an original copy of the Buddhist sacred books and then bring them back to the Emperor of China. With Stephen King, there is no open religious or even spiritual dimension. We are speaking of only one thing: survival. It requires initiation. Initiation is at several levels. First, learn how to fight to prevail in battle. Second, get from others what they may provide you for your own consumption and satisfaction in order to improve and reinforce your own fighting capabilities. Among those are women and note there is practically never in this book any gay allusion of any sort. That’s the case with Jake. Never does Roland desire Jake in any other way than company, or motivation but only for his own objective which is to go to the Dark Tower. Of course, we could understand the dark tower as being a phallic symbol as some say mixing up the phallus and the penis. The phallus is the Ideal of the Ego of a person, the type of personality and character that person wants to be in life and remain after death. As Jacques Lacan used to say: “Even women have a phallus.” The Dark Tower is a spiritual inspiration for Roland, and nothing else. If you insist on making it sexual you have to understand and assume that YOU are projecting YOUR sexual PHANTASMS onto Roland. And Stephen King knows what he is speaking of. Direct gay characters or victims, raped or not raped, can be found in some books, but always very clearly depicted, not alluded to via some vague metaphor. Check The Outsider if you have some doubts about it.

Fifth fundamental remark. That brings us to the main central pivotal idea in the comic book, and it is vastly discussed by the Man in Black. No one can achieve anything of any magnitude if he or she does not sacrifice some human being, some human attachment, some human love, or friendship (meaning the lover or the friend) to the mission they consider they have to fulfill. And the sacrificial road of Roland is entirely marked with sacrificed bodies. In Tull for instance, he killed all human inhabitants, hence 39 men, 14 women, and five children, hence 58 people. Among these 58 people, there is Allie, the bartender who he slept with several times, just as some kind of hygienic gymnastics for both of them. He killed her the same as all the others. He then comes to a way station, totally empty except for Jake who has been set there by the Man in Black to measure Roland’s determination. In the last few minutes on the trestlework with Jake dangling over the chasm, the Man in Black explains, asserts, and imposes the fake debate of sacrificing Jake to be able to get on the road to the Dark Tower. This Man in Black pretends there is no adventure, no success in anything if we do not sacrifice a person, a lover, or a friend to be able to get onto the track or trail leading to our objective. This ideology is extremely important for the emergence of humanity. We will never know how many human beings have been ritually sacrificed before getting on the road to any mission. We often think of Iphigenia sacrificed by her own father to enable the Greek fleet to leave the harbor and go to Troy in order to destroy it. There are many plays, operas, and various pieces of music on the theme, plus innumerable poems and other direct allusions to this episode. At times, the sacrificer does not even know he is committing a ritualistic sacrifice. Oedipus does not know he is killing his father when he fulfills the prophecy. He had to sacrifice his father to enable history to move on. We seem to forget how deep it is inscribed in our own culture with Abraham and his two sons, Ishmael and Isaac. Abraham has to sacrifice his first son Ishmael and his slave mother to be able to declare his second son, Isaac, the provider of the new religion for the chosen people, i.e., Judaism. In the same way, Jesus had to be sacrificed as you know to enable the new religion to emerge, Christianity, nearly three centuries after the crucifixion. This pattern, this Gestalt is a word that is fundamental in German culture, particularly Freudism, Nietzscheism, and I will even say Marxism. Freud knows a man, or a woman cannot emerge from a child if the parents, particularly the father, are not sacrificed psychologically. In the same way for Nietzsche, there is no emergence of the human-lion if a whole set of sacrifices are not performed. “The spirit here becomes a lion; it wants to capture freedom and be master in its own desert.” (Nietzsche, https://johnstoszkowski.com/blog/the-...) A man can only grow from and on top of the various anterior phases in his growth; There is no newborn if the fetal existence is not terminated. There is no infant if the breast-feeding newborn is not eliminated. There is no child if the crawling infant is not gotten rid of. There is no teenager if the child is not sacrificed on the altar of puberty in sperm and menstrual blood. And there is no adult if the virginity of the boy and the girl are not gotten rid of.

Sixth fundamental remark. So, Jake has to be gotten rid of, and sacrificed by Roland, for Roland to move on. That does not mean Jake will not reappear later on, but at this crossing ford in the story he has to be gotten digitalized into nothingness. In a way, Stephen King is a Christian deep and mental thinker. He is American in this fact that the deepest Christian myths are turned into some fate, destiny, and prophetic declaration in his way of dealing with such picaresque stories. It is not picaresque and absurd like Don Quixote. It is not picaresque and Holy Buddhist like in the Journey to the West. It is deeply spiritual and mental in the minds and flesh of the readers, the audience, and the public. They keep their “In God We Trust” or their “God Bless You” or “God Bless the Child” all the time in the front lobes of their brains. We must keep in mind the worst crimes against humanity have been performed with or following this ideology. Get rid of Ishmael, the impure, the soiled ones to enable Isaac, the pure, the clean, and chosen people to emerge on top of the world. And there is NO INNOCENT SIDE OF ANY SORT. All sides are practicing the same cleansing. The only difference is in the way it is done, but one way or another, those who are ”bad,” who represent ideas and actions that do not fit in the dominant mold, have to be gotten rid of, marginalized, homogenized, integrated, negating thus their differences. It might be the elimination of the language of these people, of their religion, of their cultures, but after this purification, this autodafe, the situation is purified, unified, and simple. All the victims of this cleansing will develop PTSS, but who cares? Think of New Orleans this very January 2, 2025. PTSS is not an ailment coming from a bad gene or a bad virus. It is the result of being stampeded upon by a PTSS-creating situation like the war in Afghanistan.

Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU

[Ints · Rating 4 out of 5]

Komiksi ir tīri labi, lai gan salīdzinot ar grāmatu stāstījums ir tāds "pasauss", izlasās jau ātri un vienā piegājienā. Taču komiksu autori ir pieļāvuši pāris atkāpes no grāmatas. Izcēluši pāris jaunus tēlus un reizēm rodas iespaids, ka lasi nevis par Strēlnieku, bet par kādu no daudzajām Torņa pasaulēm, kuras tikai mazliet mazliet atšķiras no Kinga grāmatu pasaules. The Battle of Tull man patika vislabāk. Companion grāmata, sevī ietver vāku ilustrācijas, smukas un ilgi pētāmas, tad seko plaša sadaļa ar Torņa pasaules noslēpumu atklāšanu, manuprāt tā gan bija diezgan brīva komiksu autora interpretācija par Torņa pasaules tēmu. Daži argumenti pievilkti aiz matiem, tad ir pāris fan fiction gabali, lai sasietu komiksa pasauli ar Kinga grāmatām. Beigās par to kā zīmēts pats komikss.

Tagad pats galvenais - vai ir vērš tērēt (manā gadījumā 100 EUR) par šo omnibusu. Ja patiešām esi Kinga pasaules fans un ar Dark Tower cikla pārlasīšanu vairs nepietiek, tad jā. Visādi citādi iesaku lasīt grāmatu. Manā galvā Rolands izskatījās daudz nopietnāks vīrs nekā te uzīmētais.

[Christian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Starting off weak and varying a lot in quality between issues, both in writing and art. Stabilized after a while though, and on the good side of things.

This collection is basically a whole lot of side questing in the desert. Enjoyable throughout. Never exciting, but interesting enough nonetheless. Same grim and dark but more magical/fantastical than volume 1 for sure - for good and bad. It gets so abstract that I sometimes wonder if the story is happening for real or if it is all just a figment of our main characters imagination.

Not the continuation I hoped for, but not a bad read

[BleedersDigest · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love this series for King’s genre bending world rich in culture and David’s witty dialogue. Hence, to me, this is the weakest of the three omnibus volumes.

Without his ka-tet’s dynamic, the gunslinger makes for a boring companion for the reader. His adventures in this book are fairly grounded in the western genre with small touches of horror thrown in. The desert towns he visits have nowhere near as interesting culture as Gilead. Only once Jake joins the story do we get more character development for Roland and some bits of sci-fi thrown in.

[R · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of course I know the story, and I like it so much. I read the novel several times during the last 20 years, now my mind got images to complete all the memories I draw in all these years.

You must read the novel and the graphic novel.

[Jeff Williamson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable retelling of Roland and his past Ka-tet.

[Giekes · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was fun! Really good, atmospheric, not just action or typical fantasy.

[Bart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cool stuff, though I think some aspects to these stories would've been better served to not expose their mysteries. The art is incredible.

[Paul Jensen · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars. Following-up the first volume of Marvel's "The Dark Tower" omnibus was bound to be a difficult task. There was a consistency to the storytelling and artwork in the first volume that made it one of the best graphic novel experiences I've had. Some of that magic is missing in this second volume. The narration feels flat, and the artwork just isn't as memorable as Jae Lee's sublime renderings. These series of side-quests don't add up to an epic, suspenseful conclusion - but they do help advance the story. Also: disappointed in the paper/printing quality with this omnibus! The previous was printed on heavy, glossy paper. These pages are thin, with a rougher matte texture. For the same price point ($150) I expected the same level of quality.

[Camilo Guerra · Rating 3 out of 5]

No aporta nada nuevo...que interese, mas alla de uno que otro concepto desarrollado por Robin Futh sobre la relación de excalibur con las armas...ah, y tener a disposición todas las portadas alternativas de la serie.

Las entrevistas de Stephen King son my buenas, pero ¿cuando queda mal el amigo de Maine?.

Destacables, para mi sobre todo, las entrevistas a Jae Lee y a esa bestia parda de la escritura que es Peter David.

[Phil Zimmerman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Man this took a long time to get through. After an excellent first omnibus, this one just never pulled me in. They changed artists and I think that made a big difference to me. Pretty sure it was the same writer but it seemed like this entry had way more lettering and way worse art. Disappointed.

[Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed these ones a bit more than ones before them. The artwork started getting way more interesting. I liked the vignettes at the end.

Looking forward to the last set.

[Chris Gentile · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful way to experience and visualize King’s western LOTR. In fact I’d say it’s superior to the actual novel. A great jumping off pelting for those who want to get into the series.

[Jess Gilbert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I never get sick of reading new stories about Roland, his Ka-Tet (old and new), and Mid-World.