50 Word Review: The Covenant #4- Swords and Sorcery, Bible Style

Writer: Rob Liefeld
Art: Matt Horak
Publisher: Image Comics
Released: 14th October 2015



Philistines sacrifice virgins to beasts, an offering to snake god Dagon, the power of the arc, of Jehovah is unleashed, a plague strikes the Philistines, an earthquake causes chaos, true God Jehovah favours the Israelites, is this truth, or Israelite propaganda? We’ll never know, history is an agreed upon lie.



Rating: 8/10

There are lots of beasts, monsters and brutal death scenes in this Bible story, so much so that it reads like a very contemporary swords and sorcery text. There’s even a role for warrior women as well, the kind of role that you get in modern feminist texts like Gail Simone’s Red Sonja, with women fighting as warriors and going toe to toe against the men. It’s an exciting book, but for the first time it’s starting to read like propaganda that a religious group would put out after a victorious battle against their enemies, where they portray the real ‘God’ as being on there side, working with them, and helping them to destroy their enemies. It’s fascinating stuff, and well worth picking up, not just for the big battles, beasts and warrior heroes/heroines, but because it’s a Bible story, it’s teaching you something about world history, something of real importance (even if it is the propaganda of a victorious people), and that’s a lot more than can be said for most comic books.

Review: The Covenant #2- A Godless Society is a Vulnerable Society

Writer: Rob Liefeld
Artist: Matt Horak
Colours: Jeremy Colwell
Letters: Chris Eliopolous
Publisher: Image Comics
Released: 8th July 2015



I found issue #2 of The Covenant to be far more accessible, easy to read, and enjoyable than issue #1. The narrative is linear, uncluttered and concise, so when events unfold it’s easy to correlate cause and effect, and to enjoy it as it happens.

The theme of the book is about what happens to a people when they become decadent, complacent and lose their faith in God. Loss of faith brings judgement onto a people. A people without faith are weakened and vulnerable to attack. Enemies seize on this weakness and take what is most precious to that people. In this book it is the powerful military weapon, the Ark of the Covenant.

The Ark of the Covenant

The ark is a devastating weapon on the battlefield. The Hebrew people have used it before, and it has always given them victory, but this time it fails them. They call on its power, but it does not respond. Its carriers are slain, and the ark is captured, taken from the battlefield, and is now in possession of the snake-worshipping enemy of the Hebrews, the Philistines.

‘The ark is but a symbol. Without faith it is an empty vessel.’

The Hebrew people lost faith, and so their great weapon no longer protected them, that is why it was taken, that is why it did not work as it did before. A faithless people that has abandoned their God will no longer be protected, and they will become vulnerable to the enemies that were previously defeated through the power of faith.

Sounds fair to me.

Issue #2 of the Covenant concludes with the defeated Hebrews re-evaluating their defeat, appointing a new leader, and plotting to regain the ark, but will it ever work again for a faithless people who have deserted their God?

We’ll see, and as I’m not as familiar with this Bible story as I want to be, I cannot wait to see what happens next in this fascinating and massively insightful historical story.

I’m very much enjoying this book. It’s teaching me a lot, and as a child raised in a secular/atheistic society I very much appreciate having Bible stories in comic book form where I can read, learn and enjoy the many moral, philosophical and spiritual lessons that were absent in my early life.

The art by Matt Horak helps tremendously, and when I purchased the book today in my comic book shop, the guy working there (Hi Troy) commented that the art looks like some of Becky Cloonan’s friendly faced, accessibly cute work. I agree. It does look like some of Cloonan’s cute and cuddly art-work, and that is a huge plus as it brings an element of accessibility to the book, injecting a ‘fun’ factor that might have been lacking if the art had a darker, ‘edgier’ feel to it.

Because of the accessibility of the artwork you can read ‘The Covenant’ just as you would read any other contemporary, mainstream superhero book. The added benefit is that you are getting a story that is saying something important about man and his relationship with God, and not just another feminist leaning social justice warrior comic book that is pushing politically correct stories that have zero relevance to anybody.

I understand all too well that the atheist, Dawkins reading, arrogant, dismissive, patronising, science knows best, Marxist, feminist, liberal, progressive comic book readers (and that’s 90% of them today) won’t even consider reading a comic book that is based on a Bible story. That’s their loss. I hope they enjoy their teen girl superhero books, but I’m after something with a bit more depth and meaning these days, and a comic book like ‘The Covenant #2’ is perfect for me.

If you take a chance on this book you’ll get some great art and a story that shows the inevitable consequences that will befall a society when secularism, greed and commerce become the driving motivations behind human interaction. Nothing is new under the sun, and what happened before will surely happen again. That’s a lesson that we need to relearn, and that’s the lesson that is being re-told in this essential comic book.



Rating: 10/10 (Insightful, accessible and enjoyable)

Comic Review: The Covenant #1- A Blood Thirsty Cult & the Original Biblical WMD

Writer: ROB LIEFELD
Art: MATT HORAK
Publisher: Image comics
Release Date: 6th June 2015


I enjoyed this book very much, even though it’s narrative construction initially confused me. It begins with talk of the Ark of the Covenant being stolen by the Philistines, and a rescue attempt being planned. It then switches to a history of the Israelites/Hebrews, their exodus, Moses, the Ten Commandments, and the construction of the Ark that contains those commandments.

The book then proceeds to demonstrate the destructive power of the Ark, winning battle after battle, tearing down walls, and safeguarding the Hebrew people. It’s all done in an exciting way and drawn with a style that comes across more superhero than Bible story. It’s not all one point of view though. The Philistines themselves are personalised, and their individual intrigues are explored, as are their motivations for war against the Hebrews.

The book concludes with talk of a ‘Siege,’ so I guess the opening narrative with a small team of Hebrews looking to regain their lost Ark was set AFTER this siege, and that the Ark will be lost during it?

The story then will explore how the Hebrews lost the Ark, and then follow them as they attempt to reclaim it? I think this is what is happening, but it wasn’t easy to decipher, and that’s a problem. It should be easy, and I shouldn’t have to re-read the book just to make sure that I understand what is going on.

Despite the confusion, I’ll keep on reading, as this Bible influenced story intrigued me, a lot. It’s a tale about a decadent society growing complacent and abandoning their God. This sounds very familiar to me. It’s a tale not just of the past, but a tale about humanity as it is today.

What happens to a society when it abandons God? What happens when people work for market forces, and religion is bypassed, treated as a story, as a myth to be told to children?  How can such a people hope to survive, and do they even deserve to survive when all spirituality has been sucked from them, replaced by commerce, greed and complacency?

Does the following scenario sound familiar to you?

A largely Godless society is threatened by a bloodthirsty, human sacrificing, conquest hungry cult of religious maniacs. What should be done, and what would happen if that cult of maniacs got their hands on a weapon of mass destruction?

Was that controversial? Good, it was supposed to be. The scenario is not the latest news coming out of the Middle East, although it certainly does sound like it, doesn’t it? No, that scenario is what is being explored within the pages of this comic book.

In other words, ‘The Covenant #1’ is a mirror on the past that is showing us what is happening in the world today, and that is why it is must buy comic book.

I wish it success, and hope that people will give it a chance.

It can be read in a couple of ways. On the surface it’s an action packed comic book with mighty heroes and dastardly villains, with blood, swords and muscles and scenes of brutality and amazing weapons of supernatural magic. But it’s also a book about the waning influence of God, about secularism, about a bloodthirsty cult getting their hands on a weapon of mass destruction, and a small group of heroes looking to retrieve not just that weapon, but the influence of God on their complacent and decadent society.

The past is alive in this book, buy it now, it has something to say, and as anybody that reads comic books in 2015 is all too aware of, having something to say is a rarity in comic books today.


Rating: 9/10 (A brutal, action packed book about heroes, villains and a biblical weapon of mass destruction)