Damnation Crusade

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Warhammer 40,000: Damnation Crusade
Cover to Damnnation Crusade No. 1 Art by Lui Antonio
Publication information
Publisher	Boom! Studios
Schedule	Monthly
Format	Limited series
Genre	Military science fiction
Publication date	December 2006 – July 2007
No. of issues	6
Creative team
Written by	ISBN 1-934506-11-7

Damnation Crusade is a six-issue comic book limited series from Boom! Studios, written by Dan Abnett and Ian Edginton.

Set in the fictional world of

chapter.

Characters and plot

The series follows several characters in each issue. Dates and places are given in the form of crusade names and battlefields.

Sword Brethren Gerhart, part of Marshal Korneliusz's Company, is followed fighting at the battle of Carrion Gulf, during the Third Year of the Torment Crusade, fighting

. The Chaos forces flee, despite having both the troops and the tactical positions to drag out the fight. Gerhart and other fellow Space Marines follow the retreating forces of Chaos, only to find why Chaos had invaded the planet; Two Titans, legendary machines of war, have been found by the forces of Chaos. As his squad mates die one by one in duels with Chaos Astartes and with Brother Skeld's reinforcements en route but delayed, Brother Gerhart makes a final stand.

Brother Tankred is a

, where Tankred suffers damage from a Battlesuit, although Tankred makes short work of it soon after. Tankred is next shown awakening before repairs from the previous battle were carried out. As the servitors under Arnulf's command scurry for more chemicals to soothe Tankred back to sleep, Tankred declares he has had enough sleep and wishes to speak to Arnulf of previous battles and times, despite the pain of being repaired. When Tankred next awakes, it has been over two centuries and Arnulf is dead, replaced by Techmarine Piramus, his Adept. Piramus informs Tankred on the situation, that Tankred is tasked with destroying a Daemon Prince of Chaos that has destroyed countless Imperial Forces sent to destroy it.

Recruit Raclaw, on Kilhaven, has been chosen to join the Black Templars after being forced to fight for his life against fellow kinsmen and an alien tiger-creature called a Carnodon. Victorious, he is chosen to be tutored in the ways of war by Brother Brunner. Raclaw is then shown after going through the rigorous surgical process of becoming a Space Marine. His first test is fighting and killing another recruit whose body reacted violently with the surgical process and is no more than a ravening monster. Raclaw goes on to suffocate it with the very broken chains that kept it secured to a wall. Raclaw is then shown having become a Neophyte, about to be led into battle against

. Brunner is killed, ripped in half by a Wraithlord. After the battle, which the Black Templars are victorious, Brother Tove replaces the deceased Brunner as Raclaw's Initiate.

The ending of the six-part story shows Raclaw being elevated to the status of Initiate after six decades of training and taking Brunner's forename, "Gerhart", as his own. As the ending unfolds, it seems that Raclaw was Brother Gerhart when he was a Neophyte, and after taking serious and mortal wounds while fighting a successful last stand in the Battle of Carrion Gulf on Magnum Christi, Brother Gerhart was in turn placed in Dreadnought armour. Meanwhile, the Dreadnought Tankred is shown fighting the unnamed Daemon Prince and, although badly damaged, he manages to slay the monster. Shortly after the battle, he is shown being tended to by Techmarine Piramus when Brother Tove, whose full name is revealed to be "Tove Skeld", enters the room where Tankred is hoisted for repairs. He tells the Techmarine that Tove was once Tankred's Initiate and later his Brother-in-Arms. Now that it is known that Tankred was once Brother Gerhart of the Sword Brethren, and before that he was Neophyte Raclaw. The story ends with a barely conscious Tankred saying "Tankred endures...", alluding to the idea that the whole plot revolves around one individual rather than three different ones, to which Tove replies, "As do we all, Brother – In the Emperor's Name!".

The

storytelling.

See also

• Warhammer 40,000 comics
• Blood and Thunder, the next Warhammer 40k series
• Forge of War, Warhammer Fantasy comic by the same writing team

References

External links

• Boom Studios
• Preview of issue #1 Archived 8 January 2008 at the Wayback Machine, Comic Book Resources, 19 December 2006
• Dan Abnett talks Boom’s “Warhammer 40K” Comic Archived 24 December 2007 at the Wayback Machine, Comic Book Resources, 11 September 2006
• Edginton Lifts Off with “Warhammer 40,000” Archived 3 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine, Comic Book Resources, 17 November 2006
• Bringing The Warhammer Down: Dan Abnett on Warhammer 40K: The Damnation Crusade, Newsarama, 22 December 2006
• Review of issue #1 Archived 8 July 2009 at the Wayback Machine, Comics Bulletin
• Review of the trade paperback Archived 23 November 2008 at the Wayback Machine, Comics Bulletin