Haunt #28 – Review

By: Joe Casey & Todd McFarlane (writers), Kyle Strahm, Nathan Fox & McFarlane (art), Brad Simpson (colors) & Comicraft (letters)

The Story: The Brothers Kilgore are squabbling again.

Review: Well, this is awkward.  When looking at my comics for this week, I saw Haunt and realized I hadn’t reviewed this series since Haunt #24 back in July.  I always think it is a little sad when an ongoing comic series drifts below the radar like that.  “We” comic fans always say that we want these long runs of comics, but if that’s true “we” should probably at least bother to review and discuss a long(er) running independent series, right?  Thus I decided to review this issue and now I kinda wish that I hadn’t.

This wasn’t a very good issue.  It starts with an art change after only a few pages where Nathan Fox gives way to Kyle Strahm.  These two guys are not remotely similar in terms of style.  Simply put, I love Nathan Fox.  His style is pretty wild – and occasionally too wild – but it is also angular and sharply defined and that works well for Haunt.  The main Haunt character has these ectoplasmic projections from his body that are always stabbing enemies and we need those projections to look like something sharp.  Strahm’s work – in contrast – is also chaotic, but in a softer and mushier kind of way.  It just doesn’t work quite as well.

Web of Spider-Man #10 – Review

The Extremist, Part 3 by: Fred van Lente (writer), Nick Dragotta (art), Brad Simpson (colors) & Clayton Cowles (letters)

Negative Reinforcement by: Marc Guggenheim (writer), Sana Takeda (artist) & Dave Sharpe (letters)

The Story: Spider-Man wraps up his conflict with the Extremist and Jackpot gets into a bind with Mr. Negative.

What’s Good: I’ve quite enjoyed this Extremist story over the last 3 issues of Web of Spider-Man.  It isn’t the best Spider-Man story ever and the ending here isn’t quite as good as the beginning of this story, but its still an above average Spider-tale.  Throughout it has played on the theme of the dual nature of Peter Parker who is both kinda wussy and spineless, yet incredibly brave once he puts on his mask.

The art is also quite good on both portions of this issue.  Dragotta is doing more of a classic Spider-Man look whereas Takeda is doing something more photo-referency with the Jackpot tale, but I don’t have any complaints with how this issue looks.