The Dark Tower (comics)

The Dark Tower (comics)

The Dark Tower, first published in 2007, is an ongoing series of comics by Marvel Comics based on Stephen King's The Dark Tower series of novels. It is plotted by Robin Furth and scripted by Peter David. Stephen King serves as Creative and Executive Director of the project.

The first chapter run of the series consists of 30 issues that make up five volumes illustrated by Jae Lee and Richard Isanove. The first volume, The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born, is based primarily on flashbacks from The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger and The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass; the later ones are new content.

As stated by Peter David's afterword to The Long Road Home, the series will detail Roland Deschain's "progress from callow youth to gunslinger," starting with his adventures in Mejis from Wizard and Glass and ending with the Battle of Jericho Hill (as detailed in The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla and The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower).

The second chapter run consists of another 30 issues broken up into volumes under the title of The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger. The first volume of the second chapter run is The Journey Begins and it takes place twelve years after the Battle of Jericho Hill. The final volume, The Man in Black, is largely an adaptation of the latter portion of the first Dark Tower novel, namely the novellas "The Slow Mutants" and "The Gunslinger and the Dark Man".

Marvel has been publishing hardcover collections for each story arc, and on September 21, 2011, it was published as an omnibus hardcover collection (ISBN 0785155414, 928 pages).