The Dark Tower Companion: A Guide to Stephen King’s Epic Fantasy (33 page)

First they need to find and challenge John Farson, who is rebuilding more of the weapons of the Old People. They witness his first experiment, in which a laser beam incinerates a nameless subject. General Grissom doesn't have a handle on all of the weaponry yet, though, and when they come under attack, he inadvertently slays a number of his own men. Roland and his
ka-tet
blow up most of the others, allowing a few to flee to bear witness to the assault and spread fear among Farson's men and inspire hope in Farson's enemies. General Grissom survives as well, secure inside a tank.

For several weeks, the gunslingers keep watch. One of the most dedicated is Randolph, one of Roland's friends. His wife, Chloe, and young son, Edmund, are kidnapped by a slow mutant acting on orders from Farson, who uses them to turn Randolph against the others. After Farson kills Chloe, Randolph lures Sheemie into a trap. Sheemie gets a hand on the grapefruit and sends a telepathic message about Randolph's treachery, but Roland doesn't hear it.

While Roland and his
ka-tet
try to recruit supporters from survivors of Farson's reign of terror, they encounter a manic cult that worships the oil fields and a god they call Amoco (based on a detail from
The Gunslinger
). The cult captured men from Kingstown (or King's Town) who had been trying to destroy the oil fields to cripple Farson's deadly weapons, which aligns perfectly with Roland's plan.

The campaign to increase the Affiliation's numbers is a success. However, they base their strategy on false information supplied by Randolph, failing to learn the lesson of the downfall of Gilead. They plan to attack an ammo dump at Rimrocks, but the stronghold is a decoy and General DeMullet's men are ambushed.

Alain heads back to camp in the darkness to report on Randolph's betrayal. Roland and Cuthbert already have their suspicions about their friend when they stumble upon a Farson camp that Randolph should have known about. They raid the camp and, during the skirmish, hear a rider approaching. Thinking it is an assailant, they fire at the same time and discover, to their horror, that they have shot Alain, who dies after telling them about Randolph, unaware that his friends killed him.

Marten infiltrates Roland's camp disguised as a monk bearing a creature that looks like Marten, bringing Randolph with him. Edmund is dead. Cuthbert confronts Randolph with the evidence and the traitor shoots himself. Meanwhile, Roland sees through Marten's deceit. In the guise of Walter o'Dim, he identifies himself as a minion of the Dark Tower and claims he knows how to find it, thereby setting up Roland's motivation for pursuing him.

Roland hears the Horn of Eld—it's Cuthbert announcing the attack on their camp at Jericho Hill. They are vastly outnumbered by an army of soldiers and mutants led by General Grissom, with Marten at his side. The gunslingers don't give up without a fight, taking down hundreds of the enemy. Aileen Ritter is pierced by a spear. Then Cuthbert is wounded. A flamethrower takes out Thomas Whitman and several others. Jamie DeCurry dies saving Roland.

Roland asks for the Horn to sound the final, desperate counterattack, but Cuthbert holds on to it, telling Roland he can pick it up after he's dead. The remaining twelve attack thousands of adversaries. A crossbow arrow kills Cuthbert Allgood. Roland neglects to pick up the Horn of Eld from his friend's body. Instead he goes berserk, shooting without thought. He is shot several times and falls among the bodies of his friends, seriously wounded but not dead.

Farson's decision to forgo gathering the heads of his victims is the only thing that saves Roland that day. Marten taunts Roland's “corpse,” but Roland rises from the killing field and pledges his vengeance on the enemies of Gilead and his plan to conquer the Tower so Gilead will live again.

E
XTRA
F
EATURES:

I
SSUE
1: _______________________________________________

T
HE
R
OAD TO
J
ERICHO
H
ILL

Robin Furth reflects on the story they have told in the graphic novels over the past four years, the challenges Roland Deschain has faced and how he has changed in response to these challenges.

I
SSUE
2: _______________________________________________

T
HE
M
ACHINES OF
M
ID
-W
ORLD

Though Mid-World has devolved into a preindustrial society, where the people no longer have the means to manufacture modern machinery, the wastelands are still littered with the terrible killing machines of previous civilizations. These tanks and lasers and flamethrowers have fallen into the hands of Gilead's enemy: John Farson and his massive army. Furth explains how the Old People, who had a godlike knowledge of technology, created these weapons and how they used them to destroy one another.

I
SSUE
3: _______________________________________________

T
HE
B
LUE
-F
ACED
B
ARBARIANS

Part of General Grissom's army consists of blue-faced barbarians called Picatu, a tribal people from the north who enter a frenzy whenever confronted by an enemy, making them almost impossible to kill despite the fact that they don't wear armor or other protective garments. They seem demonic, butchering anyone they capture and decapitating the corpses so they can turn the skulls into chalices. The blue dye that is applied to the bodies of all adult Picatu (the name means “the painted ones”) is derived from the sacred woada plant. The dye lends some measure of protection to these soldiers, possessing antiseptic properties to ward off infection for anyone who is injured. The essay concludes with a description and meaning of the various patterns painted on the Picatu using woada dye.

I
SSUE
4: _______________________________________________

T
HE
G
REAT
G
OD
A
MOCO
, L
ORD OF
T
HUNDER
, L
ORD OF
D
EATH

Amoco is a fearsome Mid-World god of fire and thunder. Among his other names are Sunoco, Mobil, Exxon and Citgo. The ceremonies performed in his name are notoriously cruel and include ritual human sacrifice akin to the ceremony of the charyou tree. The evidence to support the notion that Amoco was a principal deity of the Old People includes the thousands of shrines found along the roadsides across Mid-World. These roads might even be part of a complex and elaborate pilgrimage route across the land. Amoco's blood is derived from the oil pumped from beneath the earth—it fires the sun-chariot so it can move across the sky. Rival factions claimed Amoco as their own, enraging him to the point where he poisoned the Earth when the priests engaged in violent battle.

I
SSUE
5: _______________________________________________

M
Y
M
OST
M
EMORABLE
D
ARK
T
OWER
M
OMENTS

Robin Furth reminisces about events that transpired from the time she first learned she would be involved in adapting Roland's youth in comic form to the end of the first thirty-episode series five years later.

V
ARIANT
C
OVER
A
RT
G
ALLERY

In addition to the artists who drew the graphic novels, other artists provided illustrations for collectible “variant” editions of the comics. These include Joe Quesada, David Finch, Stuart Immonen, Leinil Yu, John Romita Jr., Billy Tan, Greg Land, J. Scott Campbell, Olivier Coipel, Mike Deodata, Marko Djurdjević, Ron Garney, Lee Bermejo, Gabriele Dell'Otto, Jimmy Cheung, Pasqual Ferry, Daniel Acuña, Dennis Calero, Adi Granov, Tommy Lee Edwards, Mitchell Breitweiser, David Lafuente, Rafa Sandoval, Tom Raney, Brandon Peterson, Leonardo Manco, Patrick Zircher, Steve Kurth and Cary Nord.

I
NTRODUCTION

The first series was successful enough that Marvel extended the graphic adaptation to tell Roland's story after the battle of Jericho Hill until his palaver with Walter at the golgotha. This includes his exploits in Eluria and the entire text of
The Gunslinger
.

A different pencil artist drew each of the five miniseries. Richard Isanove continued to color the artwork, providing a look and feel consistent with what went before.

T
HE
J
OURNEY
B
EGINS

Original release dates:
May 2010 through September 2010 (5 issues)

Credits:

•
Creative Director and Executive Director:
Stephen King

•
Plotting and Consultation:
Robin Furth

•
Script:
Peter David

•
Art:
Sean Phillips and Richard Isanove

•
Lettering:
Rus Wooton

The Journey Begins starts just before the opening line of
The Gunslinger
, with the man in black building a devil-grass fire that leaves a message for Roland in its ashes. The five issues are an interesting blend of elements from
The Gunslinger
, variations of those tales and all-new adventures.

The first person Roland encounters is the holy man who gives him a compass and bids him give it to Jesus, an incident mentioned in passing in
The Gunslinger
. The man predicts that the days of the White are coming again.

He then arrives at Brown's cabin. Most of what happens during that visit
is faithful to
The Gunslinger
, including Zoltan the crow eating the eyes of Roland's dead mule. However, instead of telling the story of the battle of Tull, Roland backtracks to Jericho Hill. After Roland crawled from the stack of bodies of his friends, he discovers that Aileen Ritter is still alive. She knows she won't live long, but she doesn't want to be buried in some desolate place. She asks Roland to take her back to Gilead so she can be interred with her family.

The trip will take several days, with Roland dragging Aileen on a travois the same way Eddie Dean will haul Roland up the beach in days ahead. They encounter a merchant convoy destroyed by Farson's “not-men.” The only living witness is a talkative billy-bumbler who answers Roland's questions about what happened. He parts ways with the animal, but he and Aileen are attacked by the invisible not-men that night. A poison dart kills Aileen. The billy-bumbler bite makes the not-men visible and Roland's guns do the rest.

Roland lays Aileen's body to rest with her uncle Cort's remains. In the bowels of Gilead, he discovers a battle between slow mutants and billy-bumblers. He intercedes on the animals' behalf, but is bitten on the shoulder by one of the mutants. Again, a billy-bumbler leaps to his defense.

The story of Hax is revealed as a flashback after Roland encounters the former head cook's ghost. This story is mostly faithful to the version in
The Gunslinger
. Only two details are different. First, Marten—Steven Deschain's chief adviser—is present when Roland reports Hax's treachery to his father. Second, when Cuthbert and Roland go to the gallows before everyone arrives, Cuthbert's clowning around almost ends up with him being hanged by accident—or perhaps through a deliberate act by Marten.

Hax's ghost now apparently regrets his actions, but that is of little comfort to Roland, who wishes him off to the pits of Na'ar. The imagined ghosts of Roland's family and friends, including that of his would-be queen, Susan Delgado, drive him from the castle. Outside, he encounters Marten Broadcloak. Roland unleashes his weapons, but the sorcerer deflects the bullets and taunts Roland for attempting to kill the one person who could help him achieve his goal. Though Roland's pride won't allow him to admit that he needs Marten, he pursues the man in black because he claims that he knows the way to the Tower.

A few weeks later, Roland—with the billy-bumbler still on his heels—ends up in Kingstown, the city from which the captives of the Cult of Amoco originated. Inside its walls, he discovers a carnival under way. The town is celebrating the hanging of a not-man—a story Roland told Jake in
The
Gunslinger
. However, in that version, his encounter with the not-man was two years before he left a girl in King's Town.

The girl he leaves in Kingstown is Susan Black, who is Susan Delgado's twin. She is the daughter of the woman who runs the Travellers' Rest (a common name for inns in Mid-World, apparently). While she serves his supper, she mentions the nearby Dogan. Farson's troops raided the building for weapons and the not-men started appearing after the troops left.

A not-man attacks Susan in her room that night. It carries her off, but she leaves a shred of clothing behind. Roland uses it to provide a scent for the billy-bumbler to follow. The trail leads to the Dogan. Inside, Roland discovers Susan and another woman, Jessica, who is tending to her.