The Black Pearl

The Black Pearl comic book series was created by Mark. He worked on it together with his cousin Eric Johnson. Originally laid out as a screenplay, Dark Horse liked it and offered to make it a comic book. It was published in 1997. It was later repinted as a trade paperback collector's edition of all five issues.

Mark has aspirations to make The Black Pearl a movie. In an interview in early 2005, he confirmed that he was well on the way to securing financing. At this point in time, there is no further information on the status of this project.

To avoid confusion over the title, it has been said that it was renamed The Dark Diamond for the time being. I don't know whether this is still the working title, or indeed whether it has ever really been.

The Black Pearl is available from Amazon.Com.

Summary

Picking up the comic book, this is what you'll find written on its back:

Luther isn't a hero. He isn't motivated by honor or justice - at best he's a regular guy. He went out one night; he followed that woman home because he hoped to see something. What he saw was her abduction. What he did was save her... for himself. But the newspapers and TV personalities turned it into something else and turned him into someone else. Now he's The Black Pearl, and the media won't let him quit.

Here's Sienn's summary of the plot:

This series tells the story of Luther Drake, a man obsessed by his beautiful neighbour Tina. One evening he follows her, as he has done many times before, and witnesses how she is kidnapped by two psychoptahic criminals the police has been trying to catch for months.

Luther kills one of the shock jocks, more by accident than by intention, and flees in a panic. What he didn't count on was the sensationalism of the media. They make him a hero, a hero that tried to save Tina, and Luther, introvert and troubled as he is, decides to try and BE the hero everyone thinks he is. Adopting the name the media picked for him, he becomes "The Black Pearl" and actually manages to free Tina.

He starts to take a liking to the hero business and believes he's got a handle on the situation, but things spiral out of control as he himself seems to lose sight of what's right and wrong. The media call him a hero, the authorities call him a criminal and Tina, only recently saved from a horrible death, is still in danger, a danger that he knows of and desperately wants to protect her from.

Things keep building and by the time Luther realises he must somehow quit the game before it leads to complete catastrophe it might already be too late...

Cover Art

Issue #1   Issue #2   Issue #3   Issue #4   Issue #5

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