Dune: House Harkonnen #12 - BOOM! Studios

DUNE: HOUSE HARKONNEN No. 12, January 2024

Considering that this twenty-two-page periodical is the last instalment to a multi-part mini-series supposedly focusing upon the “heavily industrialised” Great House centred upon Giedi Prime and its floating Baron, Vladimir Harkonnen is noticeably absent from the majority of its interior content. In fact, apart from a nineteen-panel piece depicting the corpulent framed ruler torturing his nephew for cold-bloodedly murdering Abulurd, Issue Twelve of “Dune: House Harkonnen” is arguably much more focused upon a grieving Duke Leto Atreides and the man's desperate gamble that Doctor Wellington Yueh can restore his badly-mutilated friend back from the brink of death using “Suk medical techniques.”

Admittedly, this somewhat slow and distinctly dialogue-driven depiction of Rhombur Vernius' fate does prove rather well-written, with the horribly injured Earl’s devoted wife Tessia receiving some marvellous moments in which her forceful love for her spouse can be brought to the forefront of the story; “All of him is here! All that matters. The rest can be… replaced.” Yet overall the pacing to this comic is painfully slow and oft-times sedentary at best, especially when Leto the Just decides to take the Lady Jessica on a pleasant picnic deep within the lush vegetation of Agamemnon Canyon, and illustrator Michael Shelfer tastefully pencils him spending a blissful afternoon in his concubine’s arms before returning to court for poor little Victor’s heartbreaking funeral.

Sadly, even the shocking demise of Pardot Kynes does little to add any lasting drama to this adaption’s narrative, due to the first Imperial Planetologist of Arrakis being poorly penned angrily arguing with his son beforehand for no discernible reason. And just why the aged agriculturist then decides to stop dead in the middle of a lethal rock-fall to contemplatively pick a handful of fruit whilst those around him are being bludgeoned to death by enormous boulders is arguably any bibliophile’s guess..?

To make matters worse, it’s made clear from the character’s last words that Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson would have their audience believe he was trying to save the bountiful crop from extinction. But surely the bearded visionary could simply have safely obtained new seeds from a wandering trader or well-stocked market elsewhere, and debatably only therefore dies just so the “award-winning novelists” had a reason for his guilt-ridden son, Liet-Kynes, to unconvincingly follow in his dead father’s footsteps by ‘secretly terraforming Arrakis into a temperate planet.’

The regular cover art of "DUNE: HOUSE HARKONNEN" #12 by Raymond Swanland