Solomon Kane: The Serpent Ring #2 Review

 

Writer, Artist & Colorist: Patrick Zircher

Letterers: Richard Starkings & Tyler Smith

Editors: Chris Butera & Matt Murray

Cover Artists: Ivan Gil, Rafael Kayanan, Patch Zircher & Nicola Scott

Publisher: Titan Comics

Price: $4.99

Release Date: April 23, 2025

 

Life as one of Queen Elizabeth’s privateers clashed with Solomon Kane’s conscience. So, the Puritan forsook his pay to fulfill a pledge to a dying man. When riders from Naples block his way through the Passo Del Furlo, Solomon Kane collects the lead ball he avoided from Paolo Laurenti's flintlock.

 

Will Abramo Bensaid, a scholar at the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice, welcome his brother-in-law's killer? And what's the story of the abomination Father Goncallo’s student found near the San Mancos Mission in the Kingdom of Ndongo? Let’s grab our flintlocks and rapiers, leap into Solomon Kane: The Serpent Ring #2, and find out!

 

Story

When they return to the Ghetto Vecchio, Abramo and his daughter discover a stranger in their home. The former Puritan privateer has ridden hundreds of miles across Italy to reach them. As he feels guilty about killing Paolo Laurenti, Solomon claims a dying shipwreck victim begged him to bring the carved serpent's head to Venice. When Abramo and Diamanta mourn Paolo’s passing, guilt stings Solomon more than the gunshot in his leg.

 

In Patrick Zircher’s story, the Knights of the Order of Saint John summoned Abramo and his brother-in-law to Malta. Based on what Abramo and Paolo discovered at the excavation site, Don Rolando Zarza funded an expedition to the Kingdom of Ndongo. While Paolo traveled to the African nation, Abramo worked in the Biblioteca and worried about his daughter. As Jews, their options are limited. Yet Diamanta refuses to abandon her aging father in the ghetto and pursue a better life in society.

 

Solomon Kane: The Serpent Ring #2 unites Solomon Kane, Abramo Bensaid, and his daughter Diamanta with Don Rolando Zarza and his colleague Nico Cassani. Don Rolando Zarza wants to profit from what Paolo discovered, and Paolo’s artifact holds the key to untold riches. Abramo wants his daughter to get her share of whatever Paolo discovers. After taking Diamanta's uncle from her, Solomon decides to protect the Jewish father and daughter's interests from an avaricious Knight and a womanizing fop.

 

Art

Solomon Kane clothes himself in black and white from head to toe. The only exceptions are the green sash that secures his flintlocks and the red-stained bandage on his thigh. Abramo wears a gold jacket over his pantaloons, sash, vest, and shirt. A cloth cap rests upon his head. Diamanta wears a stylish purple dress and feathered hat. As the three confer, Rolando Zarza bursts into the home wearing black and maroon. But Nico outdoes them all in Solomon Kane: The Serpent Ring #2, with his gleaming blonde hair and Van Dyke, and an array of tailored green garments.

 

Diamanta will trade her dress for pants and a blouse when she boards the Espirito. Yet when they reach Africa's Gold Coast, the adventurers will see Portuguese soldiers escorting barely clad men chained together. And Solomon Kane will feel another twinge of guilt, remembering how he fought and killed the slaves on Paolo's ship. 

 

Amid Patrick Zircher’s densely written story, highly detailed art, and rich coloring, Richard Starkings and Tyler Smith share Jesuit Father Concallo’s words as small, lowercase, italicized letters on scraps of ivory parchment. Stately ivory letters in black boxes denote locations in this story about secret societies and fabled lands.

 

Black uppercase letters in ivory boxes reveal Solomon Kane's thoughts. Uppercase dialogue in white balloons grows bold for intonation, enlarges for volume, and never shrinks. Sound effects accompany a relic’s destruction and a tavern brawl, while a giant yellow scream echoes over the Kingdom Of Ndongo in Solomon Kane: The Serpent Ring #2. Thanks to Titan Comics and Heroic Signatures for providing a copy for review.

 

Final Thoughts

Solomon Kane’s world is one in which nations engage in economic warfare. Discrimination forces racial groups into ghettos. Rulers value their citizens for the wealth they can generate. Christians and Muslims fight while Protestants and Catholics squabble.

 

Amid this fractured world, a Puritan embarks with Jews and a Knight Hospitaller on a voyage that will rival Christopher Columbus. The adventurers seek not fabled lands or to benefit their monarchs but riches, power, and relief from the guilt that plagues them in Solomon Kane: The Serpent Ring #2.

 

Rating 9.8/10

 

To look inside see my preview of Solomon Kane: The Serpent Ring #2.