by Bev Vincent
ISSUE 3: _______________________________________________
THE DARK BELLS, PART I
Part I of a story inspired by “The Little Sisters of Eluria” and the novel Desperation. It takes place in the early years, when Arthur Eld was still struggling to tame Mid-World. Back then, the Little Sisters were still human. Two brothers illegally venture deep into a copper mine in the Desatoya Mountains at night, convinced they will find gold. Vaughn hopes they can pocket enough to get them out of town. The younger brother, Jess, isn’t as eager to leave; Vaughn thinks Jess is sweet on the Little Sisters who arrived in town, healers who tended to the victims of a recent cave-in. As they labor, they hear whispers. Then the shaft collapses on them—only Jess survives, ending up in the medical tent run by the Little Sisters.
The Big Sister is a young woman named Alejandra. Others of her order, including Sister Mary, are jealous that the previous Big Sister chose Alejandra to replace her. Sister Mary covets the Dark Bells that Alejandra wears as a sign of her leadership position—the todash kamen that echo in the empty places between the worlds—instead of the silver bells on her own wimple.
One of Arthur Eld’s knights, a familiar figure named Bertrand Allgood, thinks the cavern found beneath the mine might be worth exploring because it may be one of the Old People’s bunkers, containing their terrible weapons. In the templelike cavern, the miners discover precious stones and animal sculptures known as can-tah, or Little Guardians. The faces on the walls represent the twelve Guardians of the Beam, but each one has a scorpion-shaped tongue. Sister Mary’s anger leaves her susceptible to the dark power that inhabits this cavern, first seen as a red eye staring through an opening in the wall.
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THE DARK BELLS, PART II
As the story continues, whatever is responsible for the red light behind the wall is trying to break through. Sister Mary prays to the gods, but the voice that answers says that there are no gods here, and no Tower. A snake made of red smoke emerges from the “ini,” the well of the worlds, and possesses her.
Meanwhile, Sister Alejandra tends to Jess, whose injuries are severe and may be beyond the reach of the little doctors. When he awakens, he is aggrieved to learn that his brother has gone to the clearing, but he is enchanted by the young Little Sister, who places his mother’s crucifix—rescued from Vaughn’s body—around his neck. Jess is jealous of Bertrand Allgood and his casual comfort when he talks to Sister Alejandra. The miners mistrusted Arthur Eld’s knights, believing the king would claim a portion of the mine’s yield. The gunslinger brings Sister Alejandra news of attacks on men from the company and leads her to an ancient hacienda for protection.
Sister Tamra is less fortunate. Sister Mary lures the Little Sister into a maze of tunnels to the newly discovered cavern, which has been turned into a sacrilegious temple. Mary reveals her true new guise to Tamra—her mouth is filled with fangs, her hair is red smoke and her body is a swarm of doctor bugs.
Sister Louise, who was also jealous that their youngest had become Big Sister, drugs Sister Alejandra with a bowl of soup containing a sleeping herb. Louise, who has been promised immortality in return for her service, grabs the Dark Bells from Sister Alejandra and declares that Mary is the Big Sister now, chosen by the Guardians themselves.
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THE DARK BELLS, PART III
Bertrand Allgood needs to discover how so many men from the Desatoya Mining Company have been killed over the past five days, their bodies hidden, drained of blood, fang marks on their throats or wrists or groins. The number of victims is increasing every day, which tells the gunslinger that whatever is responsible is growing or spreading. In his ten years at Arthur Eld’s side, Allgood has faced strange and evil creatures before and realizes that not all of them can be killed. Some can only be driven off for a while.
Inside the hospital tent, Allgood discovers the bodies of more missing miners, strung up like flies in a spiderweb. They are still alive, but drugged, and the doctor bugs are tending to them. He sees evidence that a woman might have been responsible for some of the violence. The only one untouched is Jess, who is hiding in the shadows. The crucifix Alejandra gave him was his salvation. He tells Allgood that the carved chamber is the source of the evil that turned the Little Sisters. Allgood sends Jess on his horse to the nearest town to raise a posse. Before he leaves, Jess gives Allgood the crucifix for protection.
Allgood finds Alejandra unconscious in the hacienda. She is bound and has been stripped of her bells and her habit. Her skin is bone white and cold. She awakens long enough to tell Allgood to burn the place…with her in it. He takes her to a cave fifteen wheels away and sustains her with drops of his blood. Sister Mary and the other corrupted Little Sisters find them at dawn the next day. They have a prisoner, too: Jess. They know that Alejandra will need to feed and Jess will be her first meal. Alejandra, who stole the crucifix from Allgood, though it pained her to do so, rams the cross against Mary’s brow. When the other vampires turn on her, she slices Jess’s throat so the blood will distract them. She gives Allgood the cross and orders him to run.
Allgood’s posse blows up the subterranean cavern and burns the bodies of the dead and the Little Sisters’ silk tent. The evil had been driven away, but it had not yet been destroyed.
THE BATTLE OF TULL
Original release dates: June 2011 through October 2011 (5 issues)
Credits:
• Creative Director and Executive Director: Stephen King
• Plotting and Consultation: Robin Furth
• Script: Peter David
• Pencils: Michael Lark
• Ink: Stefano Gaudiano
• Color Art: Richard Isanove
• Lettering: Joe Sabino
In The Gunslinger, Roland told Brown the story of Tull. In the graphic novels, Brown is far behind, on the other side of Eluria, so the tale is recounted linearly instead of as reminiscence. It starts with Roland buying a mule in Pricetown, a detail that is mentioned in the novel but never shown.
The view of Tull as Roland sees it is one of the most striking images in this adaptation. Tull is little more than a cluster of buildings in the bowl of a valley with no reason for being there other than it was once a stop on the coach line. One wonders why anyone would stay in such a place. Furth places Tull southeast of Eluria.
Other than one brief scene where Kennerly gropes Allie in her bar and another where Roland identifies the Path of the Beam in the sky, the story of Tull in the graphic novels is virtually identical to the version from the revised version of The Gunslinger. Roland thinks Walter o’Dim is headed for the Dark Tower and worries what might happen if he gets there first.
The morning after Roland kills every man, woman and child in Tull, he rides on, leaving a new ghost town in his wake.
Characters (in order of mention): Roland Deschain, the man in black (Walter o’Dim), Man Jesus, Charlie, Sheb, Cort, Allie, Nort the Weedeater, Susan Delgado, Eldred Jonas, Big Coffin Hunters, Kennerly, Aunt Mill, Jeb, Sylvia Pittston, Crimson King, Jonson, Soobie Kennerly.
Places: Pricetown, Gilead, Tull, Sheb’s, Hambry, Clean Sea, Great Road.
Things: Grow bag, “Hey Jude,” cully, devil-grass, hile, fan-gon, dinh, High Speech, Reap, nineteen, Speaking Ring.
EXTRA FEATURES:
ISSUE 1: _______________________________________________
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Assistant editor Charlie Beckerman writes that, after forty-odd issues, the Marvel adaptation has “finally made it to the beginning”—to Tull, the earliest incident related in The Gunslinger (apart from flashbacks to Roland’s days in Gilead). From the opening scene in the desert, The Gunslinger unravels to flashback upon flashback. The Marvel series, on the other hand, has most incidents appearing in chronological order. Beckerman summarizes Roland’s journey to this point in a few pages.
ROLAND’S JOURNEY TO TULL
Robin Furth discusses the cinematic opening to The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger and how, after a few pages showing Roland’s progress across the desert, King chose to flashback to the gunslinger’s recent (mis)adventures in Tull. However, it wasn’t possible for them to do the same thing with the Marvel comics. She decided to tell the story linearly, which meant going back a step further, to Pricetown, where Roland purchased his mule. She would use that town as way of demonstrating how the world had “moved on,” a phrase that appears often in the novels. Not only has civilization declined and become more corrupt, Roland has changed, too. He’s harder, more impatient, crueler, much less hesitant to kill. Gunslingers are no longer respected.
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RAISING THE DEAD
Robin Furth writes that the scene where the man in black raises Nort from the dead is one of the most openly supernatural incidents in The Gunslinger. The writers of the Marvel comics used this incident as inspiration for a similar scene earlier in Roland’s life, when John Farson’s nephew James was also resurrected after Cort killed him. Furth illuminates the six-page story as it appeared in the first Dark Tower novel. The only person in town who seems to care for Nort is Allie, the owner of the honky-tonk. When the man in black offers to show the drunken clientele of the tonk “a wonder,” the scene that follows feels like the antithesis of Jesus’ raising of Lazarus, Furth says.
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MAGIC NINETEEN
The number nineteen first became important in the Dark Tower series in the final three books. Roland and his ka-tet see it everywhere, even in the branches of trees and the clouds. Almost every major character they encounter has nineteen characters in his or her name. The number is associated with mysteries, including Directive Nineteen, which safeguards Andy the robot’s secrets. When revising The Gunslinger in 2003, King introduced the number as a dangerous password to access the memories of death that Nort the Weedeater retains after his resurrection. The man in black gives this key to Allie, the bartender, knowing that she will be unable to resist the allure of discovering what lies in the great beyond. We also learn that the number was part of a lullaby sung to Roland as a boy—in the High Speech, it is chassit. Robin Furth claims that the number has become associated with many things related to the Dark Tower in her life. The underlying significance of the number is the day of the month on which Stephen King was struck by a van as he walked on a country road in Western Maine: June 19, 1999.
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CHARACTERIZATION, CHARACTERS AND THE VILLAINOUS SYLVIA PITTSTON
Robin Furth explores the art of characterization, discussing how authors agonize over understanding the way their characters would behave in different circumstances and how they have to balance predictability with a touch of unpredictability, because people occasionally surprise us. She says she was impressed by the potency of the character of Sylvia Pittston, who takes up relatively few pages in Roland’s adventures but stands out as a mass of contradictions. She preaches against fornication and yet she’s extremely sensual and slept with the man in black. She becomes pregnant with the child of the very evil she preaches against. Her religion is a poison that becomes a weapon of Roland’s enemies.
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AN EYE AND A HAND
Robin Furth discusses how Stephen King subtly modified Roland’s character when revising The Gunslinger in 2003 in addition to making it more thematically tied to the later novels. Though still pragmatic and brutal, he could at least hope to find redemption. One of his more brutal acts was killing his lover, Allie. In the revised version of The Gunslinger, Allie begs Roland to kill her because she had fallen for the man in black’s trap and uttered the magical word that caused Nort to tell her his secrets of the afterlife. In the original version, Allie begs Roland not to kill her, but he seems helpless to stop—he’s an eye and a hand trained to kill. This change makes Roland’s actions more palatable and, perhaps, justified. The number and the magnitude of the sins Roland commits is reduced. Under other circumstances, he might not have killed Allie at all.
THE WAY STATION
Original release dates: December 2011 through April 2012 (5 issues)
Credits:
• Creative Director and Executive Director: Stephen King
• Plotting and Consultation: Robin Furth
• Script: Peter David
• Artist: Laurence Campbell
• Color Art: Richard Isanove
• Lettering: VC’s Joe Sabino
Roland Deschain awakens in Brown’s cabin. He is disoriented, thinking that he left this place long ago. Brown says he fell asleep after telling his story. Roland suspects sorcery at play, but at Brown’s behest, he picks up his tale after the slaughter of Tull.
Seven days later, he is pursuing the man in black again, across the desert. His mule is dead and his water supply is nearly gone. He is drawn to a Joshua tree, where he finds a body that has been ravaged by the crows. At first he fears it may be the man he is pursuing. When he finds out that it isn’t, he is both disappointed and relieved. He takes the corpse’s water supply and continues onward.
He encounters a checkpoint, which he at first mistakes for a Dogan. The place has been abandoned so long even the smell of death has fled, and the skeletons crumble to dust under his touch. (The sign declaring it closed forever is the same as the one Roland and Susannah encounter outside Castle Discordia in The Dark Tower.) The shelves are empty and the sink doesn’t work. However, the hand pump in the shed out back comes to life after he risks his little remaining water to prime it. Nearby he discovers another of the man in black’s campfires with an array of skeletons around it. A mongrel attacks him, then seven more. He dispatches them with relative ease except for the last, which buries its fangs in Roland’s arm before dying. Fearing rabies, Roland decides not to eat the animals.
As he eats a rabbit that night, he sees a light near the horizon, most likely from the man in black’s campfire. He stocks up on as much water as he can carry, then sets out again the next day. For eight days he finds nothing to eat and precious little to drink—nothing for the past two days. As he slogs onward across the hardpan, his thoughts drift. He remembers a song from his childhood and then his mother, who sang it to him. Naturally, he recalls that he killed his mother and he torments himself by saying only a monster would do such a thing before he emerges from his reverie. The memory was enhanced by a dust devil—a real demon of the desert formed out of its essence.
His next vision is of Cort, who drives him onward after he falls. Ultimately he sees a Way Station in the distance. Two buildings: a house or inn and a stable. He thinks he sees the man in black leaning against the building. He expends the last of his energy running to the Way Station, believing that he has accomplished his mission. However, when he gets close, he sees that it isn’t who he thought it was. He passes out. He meets Jake Chambers, who tends to him in his weakness. Later, he hypnotizes Jake and finds out his story, which is the version from The Waste Lands rather than the briefer account he gave in The Gunslinger. Later, Roland dreams of Jericho Hill.
They set out across the desert and eventually end up at the mountains, where they find a river and fresh water. While Jake is swimming, he spots Walter scaling the side of the mountain. Roland goes hunting for supper and bags a few rabbits. He cuts himself while making his way through the overgrowth and is immediately assailed by five suckerbats, or vampire bats, which cost him five valuable bullets—though the alternative would have been more dire.
He dreams of Susan Delgado again, but she screams “The boy!” He has a vision of Jake standing in a window of the Dark Tower with a spike through his forehead. He awakens with his arm in the campfire, singeing his hand. Jake is gone. He finds him entranced by an Oracle in a Speaking Ring. The demon attempts to seduce Roland, but he banishes it with the j
aw of the Speaking Demon from the basement of the Way Station. Then he consents to her desires in exchange for information. He leaves Jake with the jawbone, takes a hit of mescaline and returns to the circle, where the demon presents herself in the guise of Susan. After the Oracle tells Roland of the three who are his way to the Dark Tower and has her way with him, Roland and Jake break camp and continue up the mountain until they catch up with the man in black for the first time. The man in black promises Roland they will palaver on the other side of the mountain. Alone.
Characters (in order of mention): Roland Deschain, Brown, the man in black, John Farson, slow mutants, Gabrielle Deschain, Cort, John “Jake” Chambers, Greta Shaw, Elmer Chambers, Cuthbert Allgood, Great Old Ones, Susan Delgado, Alain Johns, Sheb, Allie, Speaking Demon, Marten, Merlin, the Oracle, Sylvia Pittston.
Places: Mohaine Desert, Mid-World, Checkpoint, Way Station, Piper School, MidTown Lanes, Jericho Hill, Salt, Hambry, Travellers’ Rest, Gilead, the Dark Tower, the Drawers, Speaking Ring, Na’ar.
Things: Zoltan, desert dogs, devil-grass, dust devil, David, North Central Positronics, High Speech, taheen, howken, suckerbats, jawbone, mescaline.
EXTRA FEATURES: