Dune: House Harkonnen #11 - BOOM! Studios

DUNE: HOUSE HARKONNEN No. 11, November 2023

There surely can be no denying the truly palatable pace to this “penultimate issue of the stunning prequel series from Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson”. Indeed, the comic is absolutely packed full of assorted deaths, physical mutilations and various characters conducting their blood-thirsty revenge upon perceived enemies. Disappointingly though, such speed in the storytelling also results in this book’s authors making some sizeable leaps of logic or imbuing various cast members with an impassioned loathing which has never arguably raised its head before.

Foremost of these ‘jumps’ comes at the publication’s start, when Liet Kynes is somewhat shockingly shown marrying his recently deceased friend’s wife and promising to raise the dead man’s newborn son as his own. Such abrupt timing debatably smacks of being in very bad taste considering just how horrific poor Warrick’s demise was. However, the audience are not only then asked to celebrate the Fremen’s wedding. But also support his bizarre holier-than-thou hatred of his hapless dad, when the Imperial Planetologist arrives to congratulate his son, and gets a highly irrational mouthful for doing so; “You never understand anything, father. You’re never here.”

Similarly as unconvincing is debatably this tome’s brief visit to the now decimated Swordmaster School on Ginaz, where the surviving warriors realise that they’re going to need every trained soldier available if House Moritani is to be defeated and their honourable way of life restored back to its former glory. Having spent years relying upon the people there for his intense training, and believing Caladan to be in the safe hands of Duke Leto Atreides, Duncan Idaho still strangely decides to turn his back on his friends’ pleas for help, claiming he’s supposedly needed more on the “lush oceanic world” than the pillaged planet. Such a choice appears utterly contrived in view of the catastrophe Ginaz is facing, and makes him out to be a far cry from the ”admirable fighting man” Lady Jessica would go on to call him. 

Perhaps therefore this comic’s soul redemption lies within the enthralling fall from grace (and sanity) of Kailea Vernius. Having effectively lost both her son and brother to her own evil machinations, the concubine is superbly pencilled by artist Michael Shelfer utterly losing her marbles with those confederates around her. Indeed, armed with a vicious-looking blade and completely psychopathic, the only surprise is probably just how few people she hacks to death before taking her own life.

Written by: Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson, and Illustrated by: Michael Shelfer