Forsaken Souls - Black Pharaoh

LINK: Forsaken Souls - e-hentai

Author's Website

First Things First

This is review is a little bit different the last few I've done. Because those were for legacy stories with authors that are no longer actively publishing, their reviews served more as retrospectives. However, Forsaken Souls is a work in progress with the author putting out work as we speak. As such, this review will be longer and more detailed than the last few. 

Because Black Pharaoh is still active, I want this review to be constructive and detailed. However, if you just want a quick review/recommendation, here it is: This comic is pretty good. It stands high above the vast majority of corruption material you see on places like e-hentai in both art and storytelling. That being said, it is a bit repetitive and features an antagonist with far too much power from the start. These issues don't ruin the comic for me and I still find myself curious as to what happens next. 

However, there is a lot more to be said of this comic. It draws from not one, but two vast mythos for its story and that fact alone makes it a complex nut to crack. So with all that being said, let's dive in to Forsaken Souls. 

Some Background

The Crawling Chaos - Nyarlathotep

One thing I've noticed from looking over Black Pharaoh's discord server as well as the comments on e-hentai is that many of the readers of this comic do not actually know where the antagonist, named The Master in the comic, comes from. I think a lot of people come to this comic with a passing knowledge of the DC Universe (you'd have to be living under a rock not to), but many do not seem to have the same passing knowledge of Lovecraft's mythos. 

The villain of Forsaken Souls is Nyarlathotep, an outer god of Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos and Dream Cycle. Nyarlathotep is a shape-shifting being of chaos and corruption with a penchant for spreading madness. The character is most prominently featured in Lovecraft's prose poem of the same name, but also features heavily in his Dream Cycle, serving as a primary antagonist of Randolph Carter in The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath. 

One complaint about Forsaken Souls is that Nyarlathotep is too overpowered. The character topples the greatest of the DC Universe in a span of less than a week and manages to corrupt every superhero beauty he comes across. From a narrative perspective, I can understand this criticism. That being said, from the perspective of Lovecraft's mythos, this immense power is not out of place. 

Nyarlathotep is an outer god. Such things are nothing to sneeze at. Their powers aren't just tremendous, they are inconceivable. In the context of Lovecraft's stories, Nyarlathotep could easily turn humanity to dust without much effort. He chooses not to. This is important and will factor into my later criticism. 

The Story

The Beginning of the End for the DC Universe

Given this background, let us dive into the plot of Forsaken Souls. The comic begins with Green Arrow, Zatanna Zatara, and Mary Marvel responding to a call at a house wracked by an extra-dimensional force. It is clear that some unholy ritual has been performed in the basement of the house and corpses line the floor. Before the gang can react, Zatanna is attacked and then corrupted by a mysterious new villain with incredible power. 

Through sexual intercourse with the beast, Zatanna's body and mind are warped into a debauched new form and the sorceress is given a choice by the mysterious villain. He tells her that she could banish him easily with her power, or she could give her soul over to him. Zatanna struggles for a couple of seconds, but the alterations to her mind and body win out and she gives in to her unholy lust. From there, the rest of the DC pantheon falls like dominoes. 

Soon enough, only Batman, Wonder Woman, and a band of outcasts and stragglers remain and the story becomes a race against time to stop The Master (our favorite outer god). This is bad enough for our heroes, but the master also has his sights set on Wonder Woman for a nefarious purpose yet to be revealed. 

Common Criticisms 

A Forsaken Souls Reader (I assume)

There is a small, but vocal group of people that HATE this comic. If you look at the comments on e-hentai, it gets pretty nasty. I personally do not understand this vitriol. Forsaken Souls is a decent corruption comic with good art, a unique story, and regular updates. Guys, trust me, I've been looking at this type of stuff for a while. Most of the material that comes out of e-hentai on a regular basis isn't half as good as Forsaken Souls. Chill. 

That being said, there are common criticisms of the comic that I see as valid. These can be boiled down into the following: 

1. The villain is overpowered. 
2. The story is dragging on for too long. 
3. The corruptions are repetitive. 

I think there is truth to all of these criticisms, but they have stated over and over again, and I don't see the point in regurgitating feedback that Black Pharaoh has heard dozens of times by now. Besides, part of the purpose of this review series is to explore corruption as a genre. To break it down into minute pieces and understand each one. 

As such, I want to gear my criticisms towards the broader genre and help foster discussion in the community. I'll touch on these common criticisms in my review, but I don't see the need to beat a dead horse. 

My Review

It's Finally Here, Baby

So what is my take? Forsaken Souls biggest challenge is its source material. 

What do I mean by this? Let's compare the two pools of material this comic draws from. On one hand, you have the DC Universe. This comic book universe(s) contains grand heroes and villains. There are clashes between good and evil. There is black and white morality and humans with fantastical powers like those of ancient gods. I know there is a lot more to the DC Canon, but it's still a comic book universe constrained by comic book logic. 

On other hand, you have Lovecraft. The world of Lovecraft is an existential nightmare in which human beings are vulnerable specs in a vast stretch of space and time. There are gods and devils, but more often than not, these beings are so far beyond human understanding that they cannot even be considered villains or heroes. The mighty Cthulhu lying in the deep isn't just Godzilla + Hentai, he's a force of nature. 

"Godzilla + Hentai"

These two universes can be combined, but you have to be careful and you have to consider the particular elements of each Canon you want to combine into a big story stew. Another issue is that DC Comics are ubiquitous in our culture whereas Lovecraft is obscure. No matter what, the DC elements are going to stand out more. 

In Forsaken Souls, Nyarlathotep has all of the power of his Lovecraftian incarnations, but his behavior is constrained by the comic book world of DC. Given those circumstances, he inevitably becomes an overpowered and less interesting villain. 

You have a character that can bend reality and spread madness like it's second nature for him. There are so many possibilities to explore here. Nyarlathotep is a perfect character for a corruption story. He's shown to constantly be tinkering with new forms of madness and domination in Lovecraft's stories. Think of all the fresh and interesting corruptions you could explore! 

Unfortunately, the character is given a straightforward goal in Forsaken Souls: Conquest. As such, he's more focused on gathering up slaves and crushing heroes than he is tainting the human race's best and brightest. 

I think this is why people have such a negative reaction to the master. It's not because he has too much power. He's outer god, he's supposed to have oodles upon oodles of power. The reason he seems boring is that he uses his powers of corruption like a jackhammer rather than as a chisel. 

My biggest recommendation to Black Pharaoh would be to have the character get creative. What forms can he take? What new corruptions can he concoct? The possibilities are endless and could make the master a brilliant character. 

Nyarlathochan is Here to Bathe You in Madness

Another issue that arises from the source material is the sheer volume of favorite characters in the DC Universe. To put it in simpler, cruder terms: There's a lot of hot DC pussy. 

Because there are so many heroines and villains people want to see corrupted, the story ends up dragging along as we see Nyarlathotep bone and corrupt one fave after another. This causes the story to drag in parts and become repetitive in others. That being said, this is one of those "damned if you do, damned if you don't," situations. Corrupting Harley Quinn or Raven might stretch the story painfully, but can you imagine the audience's reaction if those characters were left out?

One key challenge faced by every corruption story is the need to keep things fresh. After enough corruptions, it doesn't matter how raunchy you write your material - the audience will grow bored. You have to go deeper. You have to explore the individual quirks of your characters as they are turned to evil. This is hard to do when you're dealing with hundreds of hot fan favorites. 

Never a dull day in the DC Universe

That All Being Said...

Guys, I like this comic. I like it a lot. I just spent several paragraphs criticizing it, but don't get the wrong idea. There are moments in this comic that made me dizzy with how hot they were. Black Pharaoh doesn't always get it right, but when he does, all bets are off. 

The thing this comic does best is capture shock and despair in corruption. When a corruption goes well, we see in excruciating detail as a good and pure heroine descends to darkness. 

Despite some repetitive aspects, this comic has kept me on my toes. One moment in particular really caught me by surprise and got me hooked on the comic. Early on, after the group sent to the cursed house is defeated, Green Arrow is taken back to the watchtower and put in intensive care. Black Canary arrives in tears and runs to his bedside. Little does she know, the master has placed a part of himself inside of Green Arrow. This is what happens next: 

I like squick more than your average corruption fan, so this moment was fucking orgasmic for me. This scene had a perfect setup and execution. 

Don't get the wrong impression. My criticisms of this comic are longer than my praises because the good parts of this comic stand up on their own. They don't need my stilted prose to make them work. This is a good comic. It has its flaws, but all works do. 

This comic has a lot of little moments that are corruption gold and looking back, I still appreciate them years later. If you're a fan of corruption and you haven't read Forsaken Souls yet, give it a shot.