A dare. A house rumored to be cursed. A doorway that leads… elsewhere. Six classmates. And the things that came back with them from the other side.
Daniel and Emily are tentative friends, both outsiders from the cool crowd at their school. As the story opens, a run-in with four of the popular kids raises tensions and the story soon reveals that each of the six has more going on at home than meets the eye. But it’s Halloween season, a time for fun and thrills. By chance, the six meet up at a ruined home that is the subject of dark rumors and vague fear among the citizens. Trash talking turns to challenges and the six step across that threshold in an effort to prove they are not afraid. But the door is a portal and what they find on the other side is the stuff of nightmares.
Dropped back into reality a short time later, each teenager finds themselves changed. Struggling to understand surprising new abilities and reckoning with the changes to their interpersonal dynamics, the experience is hard enough to process on its own. But something came back with them—something that has its sights set on one of their own, and it doesn’t plan to stop there. From rivals to allies, the lives of their town will soon rest in the hands of these six teens struggling to find their own places in the world.
From Seismic Press and AfterShock Comics, The Darkness We Brought Back is written by Alex Segura and Rex Ogle with art from Joe Eisma and Manuel Puppo. It’s an exciting premise billed as The Chronicles of Narnia meets Stranger Things. Unfortunately, superficial writing and flat characters leave the premise always struggling to find its footing, even until the very last pages. Each of the characters feels plucked from a standard YA school drama and the dialogue is always delivered in the most obvious terms. The plentiful conflicts and disagreements never offer any depth or carry any substantial weight. The insights we gain into these characters’ lives are only the most basic, and even character growth and shifting relationships happen largely in the margins of the story. From a group of young people grappling with coming of age, to a literal fight against a creature from another realm, the story feels largely like an outline of story beats committed to paper before having the chance to be fleshed out in any meaningful way.
The art, at least, is clean and easy to view, reminiscent at times of Paper Girls though with a wider color palate and a style seemingly aimed at a slightly younger readership. Eisma brings us through the bustling hallways of a school, across the threshold of a house barely left standing, into nightmare realms of another existence, and back again. For both the paranormal and the everyday, the art focuses the character emotions as well as the paranormal action that thrusts the story forward. All in all, the visuals are perfectly serviceable for the story being delivered.
AfterShock gives The Darkness We Brought Back an age rating of 13+ and this feels like a perfectly suitable age recommendation. There’s some language, violence, and frightening images throughout, as well as some more intense sequences over the course of the story, but none of this content is particularly lingered on or delivered in graphic detail.
In the end, this title lays out a stronger premise than it delivers. There are so many dynamics at play here that could have gone deeper, allowing the story to be more than a rehash of so many other YA dramas. However, if you have a readership starving for more paranormal YA content in the vein of Stranger Things, this title might be enough to meet that need, at least temporarily. If not, then consider spending your money elsewhere.
The Darkness We Brought Back
By Alex Segura, Rex Ogle
Art by Joe Eisma
Seismic Press, 2023
ISBN: 9781956731279
Publisher Age Rating: 13+
NFNT Age Recommendation: Older Teen (16-18), Teen (13-16)
Character Representation: Black
