Tales of the Fallen Foreword, by Jonathan Ross

So, I love comics. And I love mysteries. And I also have a soft spot for stories involving soldiers and mercenaries – especially if those stories involve mysteries and are told in comic form. So you can imagine how happy I am to see Unseen Shadows: Tales of the Fallen finally out for me to settle down with in bed and enjoy while my wife plays World of Warcraft or works on yet another blockbuster movie script or, as is more likely, a family ‘To Do’ list that I should really help her with but won’t because I have a new comic book featuring Tales of Mysterious Soldiers to read! Which wouldn’t make a bad title, but Tales of the Fallen is much better because that’s what gives the series and the stories contained in this collection that extra ooomph.

You see, these are no ordinary soldiers, no regular mercenaries, no run-of-the-mill murderers. These are men with a past. Not always a pretty or likable past – but men who, despite what they’ve done and what they’ve seen, are still prepared to take on their most dangerous mission. A mission that takes them to strange, dark places where they must test themselves against dark and terrifying opponents – demon worshippers, Sacred Holy Weapons that could destroy the world, shadowy creatures from other realms. They’re all here, they all want to mess what’s left of our planet up, and the only things standing in their way are the Fallen. Professor Stone and his rag-tag bunch of fellow travellers, most of whom you might not want to trust unless you really had to – which, it seems, we do.

They get beaten and they come back for more. They get tortured and they keep on coming. They face some pretty icky-looking creatures and they take it in their stride. But it’s the stuff inside them that really takes some beating. The stuff from their past, the stuff they’d rather not have to deal with, the stuff that has the nasty habit of rearing up just when they need to focus on the job at hand – that’s what makes it cool.

So if, like me, you like rip-roaring, testosterone-fuelled pulp fiction with soldiers and mysteries and all-round weird stuff in, then this is the book for you. Now, where did I leave that Holy Weapon of mine…?

Jonathan