The Dark Tower Companion: A Guide to Stephen King’s Epic Fantasy (36 page)

As he eats a rabbit that night, he sees a light near the horizon, most likely from the man in black's campfire. He stocks up on as much water as he can carry, then sets out again the next day. For eight days he finds nothing to eat and precious little to drink—nothing for the past two days. As he slogs onward across the hardpan, his thoughts drift. He remembers a song from his childhood and then his mother, who sang it to him. Naturally, he recalls that he killed his mother and he torments himself by saying only a monster would do such a thing before he emerges from his reverie. The memory was enhanced by a dust devil—a real demon of the desert formed out of its essence.

His next vision is of Cort, who drives him onward after he falls. Ultimately he sees a Way Station in the distance. Two buildings: a house or inn and a stable. He thinks he sees the man in black leaning against the building. He expends the last of his energy running to the Way Station, believing that he has accomplished his mission. However, when he gets close, he sees that it isn't who he thought it was. He passes out. He meets Jake Chambers, who tends to him in his weakness. Later, he hypnotizes Jake and finds out his story, which is the version from
The Waste Lands
rather than the briefer account he gave in
The Gunslinger
. Later, Roland dreams of Jericho Hill.

They set out across the desert and eventually end up at the mountains,
where they find a river and fresh water. While Jake is swimming, he spots Walter scaling the side of the mountain. Roland goes hunting for supper and bags a few rabbits. He cuts himself while making his way through the overgrowth and is immediately assailed by five suckerbats, or vampire bats, which cost him five valuable bullets—though the alternative would have been more dire.

He dreams of Susan Delgado again, but she screams “The boy!” He has a vision of Jake standing in a window of the Dark Tower with a spike through his forehead. He awakens with his arm in the campfire, singeing his hand. Jake is gone. He finds him entranced by an Oracle in a Speaking Ring. The demon attempts to seduce Roland, but he banishes it with the jaw of the Speaking Demon from the basement of the Way Station. Then he consents to her desires in exchange for information. He leaves Jake with the jawbone, takes a hit of mescaline and returns to the circle, where the demon presents herself in the guise of Susan. After the Oracle tells Roland of the three who are his way to the Dark Tower and has her way with him, Roland and Jake break camp and continue up the mountain until they catch up with the man in black for the first time. The man in black promises Roland they will palaver on the other side of the mountain. Alone.

E
XTRA
F
EATURES:

E
ACH ISSUE:
_______________________________________________

A
RT
E
VOLUTION FROM
S
CRIPT TO
C
OLOR

A four-page section shows an excerpt from Robin Furth's script, a page of thumbnails by artist Laurence Campbell and his corresponding finished inks, and Richard Isanove's color art. The finished page, including Peter David's text in word bubbles, can be found in the corresponding issue.

I
SSUE
1: _______________________________________________

T
RANSCENDING
T
IME

Robin Furth discusses the publishing history of the two chapters from
The Gunslinger
that will be adapted in this five-issue arc. The first issue takes twenty pages to adapt a passage that is less than five pages in the novel, most of it internal dialogue. She explains how she expanded King's prose and the decisions she made to fill out the narrative. Playing off the sense of déjà vu that King added to the novel when he rewrote it in 2003, Furth decided to open again with Brown, emphasizing the fact that Roland's relationship to time and space is unique. She was also faced with finding things for Roland to do during his arduous trek across the desert and coming up with sources of water to get him through that journey. She reveals how she used details from future books, including a passing reference Roland made in
The Waste Lands
to having eaten dog meat.

I
SSUE
2: _______________________________________________

J
AKE
C
HAMBERS

Robin Furth discusses meeting Jake for the first time on a snowy day and how, when faced with the prospect of scripting his death, she relied on a passage from
The Waste Lands
that describes events in much greater detail than in
The Gunslinger
.

I
SSUE
3: _______________________________________________

T
HE
P
ROBLEM WITH
C
ELLARS

Referencing the issue's scene where Roland encounters a Speaking Demon beneath the Way Station, Furth writes about her abiding fear of cellars and how basements are associated with burial.

I
SSUE
4: _______________________________________________

S
PEAKING
R
INGS

Furth differentiates between the Great Old Ones, who formed North Central Positronics and created advanced technology that melded magic and science, and the Old People who came before them. They were a brutal people who offered human sacrifices as part of their religion. The Speaking Rings found
across Mid-World were sites where these sacrifices were carried out. Furth then lays out the details of Roland and Jake's encounter with the Oracle succubus in this issue.

I
SSUE
5: _______________________________________________

T
HE
S
UCCUBUS

Furth starts by talking about genre—is the Dark Tower series fantasy or science fiction?—then discusses the differences between succubi (and their male counterparts, incubi) in the series and in folklore. In some legends, an incubus fathered Merlin. In the Dark Tower series, most succubi seem to be trapped in Speaking Circles and can appear to men when they are awake, whereas in legends they are free to roam and come only to sleeping men. In the series, they are also oracles, though whether their predictions are to be believed is another matter.

T
HE
M
AN IN
B
LACK

Original release dates:
June 2012 through October 2012 (5 issues)

Credits:

•
Creative Director and Executive Director:
Stephen King

•
Plotting and Consultation:
Robin Furth

•
Script:
Peter David

•
Pencils:
Alex Maleev

•
Color Art:
Richard Isanove

•
Lettering:
Joe Sabino

The story told in the final miniseries of
The Gunslinger
arc starts with Jake and Roland camping near the cleft in the mountain into which the man in black vanished at the end of
The Way Station
. Impending bad weather is emphasized—it's cold and ready to snow. Roland is tormented by the demons of his past, which he sees in a fire he builds using devil-grass. The man in black appears to him in these flames, taunting him and offering information in exchange for abandoning Jake.

The exchange between Jake and Roland after this vision is more intense than in the novel. Roland encourages Jake to turn back, going so far as to give him his compass to guide the way—though such devices are mostly useless in Mid-World. Jake seriously considers staying behind but ultimately packs up his things and follows Roland, who has gone on ahead.

It takes Jake a while to catch up with Roland. He has a torch, but it's not enough to reveal the man in black, who is watching from the shadows, or the slow mutants who lurk in the crevices. A cave-in—reminiscent of the avalanche the slow mutants caused in “The Little Sisters of Eluria”—blocks the entrance to the tunnel. Mutant rats chase him. He falls, dropping his torch. The rats swarm past him.

After he starts a small fire and relights his torch, he finds a second tunnel with train tracks. Then he encounters the ruins of a train surrounded by skeletons in a blocked tunnel. He returns to his fire. Devil-grass demons tell him he has the touch and how to access it. When he follows their instructions, he finds himself transported into the subway car at a time when it was in service, back in the days of the Imperium.

One of the people on the subway is Walter. He gets off, leaving behind his suitcase. Poison gas emerges from the bag. A spark causes the gas to explode, sending Jake back from his vision.

Roland hears the cave-in and backtracks toward the entrance, where he finds Jake. He won't listen to Jake's story of his vision, blaming the whole thing on noxious smoke from the devil-grass. They start on again, following the tracks. They extinguish their torches to conserve light. During a break, Roland describes the geography of Mid-World to Jake and explains the nature of the Dark Tower. He then tells Jake the story of the Sowing Night Cotillion when he, Cuthbert and Alain spied on the festivities from a balcony and saw Marten dancing with his mother. He finishes his story by telling how the gunslingers were ambushed and his father was stabbed to death. He says that what happened to his mother is a story for another day.

As in
The Gunslinger
, they stumble upon the talking handcar and encounter the slow mutants, but here Walter has given them permission to eat Jake so long as they leave Roland alone. The battle plays out much as in the novel. Roland and Jake get past the barricade and eventually end up in the subway terminal filled with mummies. While Roland shops for guns and ammo, Jake is enchanted by ghostly figures called corpse lights in the water that warn him the gunslinger will betray him. Jake falls into the river, but again Roland saves his life.

The rest of the story is the same as in the novel, ending with the tarot reading at the golgotha and Roland's dream wherein Walter explains the universe.

E
XTRA
F
EATURES:

E
ACH ISSUE:
_______________________________________________

A
RT
E
VOLUTION

An excerpt from Robin Furth's script (issues 1, 4 and 5), thumbnails by artist Alex Maleev and his corresponding finished inks and Richard Isanove's color art. The finished page, including Peter David's text in word bubbles, can be found in the corresponding issue.

I
SSUE
1: _______________________________________________

W
IND
T
HROUGH THE
K
EYHOLE
C
ONTINUITY AND THE
D
ARK
T
OWER
C
OMICS

Robin Furth mentions a complaint from a faithful reader that King broke continuity with the Marvel adaptation in
The Wind Through the Keyhole
. She uses this as a launching point to explain why she sometimes chose to diverge from King's plot in this series. Much of the conflict in
The Gunslinger
is internal, which is difficult to convey in a comic. Having Jake go off by himself for a while was a way of building tangible suspense. She believes the Marvel series takes place in a different world from King's novels; however, in one that is very close.

I
SSUE
2: _______________________________________________

B
ETWEEN THE
P
AGES

Furth explains the reasons why she chose to alter the story line in this issue. She wanted to enhance the image of the man in black as a puppet master. Roland's story about his battle with Cort had already been told in earlier issues, so she expanded the Sowing Night Cotillion story, underscoring the
significance of Gabrielle's treachery to Roland's psyche. Finally, because so much of this part of the novel takes place in the dark, which isn't interesting graphically, she decided to have Roland explain the nature of his universe here instead of later.

I
SSUE
3: _______________________________________________

M
ID
-W
ORLD'S
R
AILWAYS