Every family has its secrets. It’s one of the inevitable things that everyone must accept. That’s especially true if that secret is deadly. Thus is the plot of “Manor Black†by Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt with Hurtt doing the artwork.
The Black family has an inherited ability to control blood. However, Roman Black found a protégé that can control fire. So, Roman tries to teach her how to properly control fire despite objections by his family. Why he’s teaching an outsider may have to do with what happened to his family in the past.
The mystery the comic puts forth is an interesting one. Yes, this is something many people have seen before, but the comic’s writing is solid enough for the reader to want to continue with the story. Besides what happened in the past, the biggest mystery is how can the Black family control blood, and what role does fire have in this mystery? This is something that’ll hopefully be explained in the following issues.
The art style works perfectly with this type of story. With few exceptions, the characters have this dark aura to them that tells the reader these are not nice people. You take one look at them, and you know that something’s that right with them. The fire used by the protégé looks amazing. You can see this fire doing massive damage to a large group of people. Hurtt uses the cliché that whenever there’s a flashback to when Roman was young it’s in black and white. It’s a cliché that’s been so accepted that at this point you can get away with it and nobody will complain about it.
“Manor Black†has a great mystery surrounding it with some great artwork despite one cliched flaw While the plot is cliché, the strong writing more than makes up for it with readers wanting to know more about this mystery.
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