Haunt #17 – Review

By: Robert Kirkman (writer), Greg Capullo & Mr. Sheldon (pencils), Jonathan Glapion, Todd McFarlane & LeBeau Underwood (inks), FCO Plascencia & Ivan Plascencia, Comicraft (letters) & Jen Cassidy (managing editor)

The Story: A final duel with the Apparition comes to an ending with help from an unlikely source.

The Review: As you can tell from the expanding list of credits, this is a bit of a transitional issue for Haunt.  Greg Capullo is departing to work on Batman where many more eyeballs will fall on his glorious work.  Robert Kirkman is also departing because he’s kinda busy writing comics, writing a Walking Dead novel and doubtless consulting heavily on Walking Dead TV shows, board games, video games, etc.  Todd McFarlane is also a really busy dude.  But, the new creative team of Joe Casey and Nathan Fox (who should be great) aren’t quite in place this issue as we wrap up this arc having this demonic Apparition trying to drag Kurt Kilgore (the dead half of the Haunt brothers) into the afterlife.

Things had looked very bleak for our heroes because this Apparition was like getting chased by the Terminator.  It seemed like the Apparition would just keep chasing and chasing and chasing.  It didn’t mind if it didn’t get you this time.  It didn’t have to stop to use the bathroom.  It just kept coming.  Against that kind of foe, you can’t win. As a reader, you feel for the main characters because if Kurt gets dragged off to the netherworld, then there is no Haunt. However, help comes from an unexpected source.  Here’s where I’ll give the SPOILER WARNING…

I forget the name of the lady who helps the Kilgores out, but she’s been around as this kinda quasi-mystical character since the beginning of the series, but she’s hardly been a major character.  She was one of the folks that was rescued from the evil doctor’s lab in the early issues of Haunt and she was the one who recognized that the Kilgores are a “haunt” (as she called them).  I love when a minor character pops back up like that and it raises all sorts of interesting things for future stories:  As she sacrificed herself, she said she had done all she could in our world and needed to move on.  Hmmmm… Something tells me this theme will be revisited and we haven’t seen the last of her.

Quick Hit Reviews – Week of February 23, 2011

Sometimes there are soooo many comics published in a given week (ahem….I’m looking at you Marvel) that despite the heroic efforts of the WCBR writing staff, we simply can’t give every comic a complete review.  Thus, the Quick Hit Reviews…

New York Five #2 – Wow is Ryan Kelly a great artist!  The story here is solid, slice of life stuff as we follow our four college freshmen as they adapt to life in NYC, but the star of this issue is Kelly’s art.  His character work is really strong as young ladies are all cute and express appropriate emotion, but his attention to the city around them in just incredible.  The city just feels alive. I really need to track down New York Four and I encourage everyone to check out this Vertigo series.  Kelly and Tommy Lee Edwards (on Turf) made a LOT of artist’s backgrounds look like dog food this week.  Grade: A-  — Dean Stell

X-Men: To Serve and Protect #4 – All I ask of an anthology series is to give me one really memorable story.  I almost don’t care if 3/4 of the issue is crap as long as I get that one stellar tale.  This issue has a BIG mission accomplished for Jed MacKay and Sheldon Vella’s story of Dazzler, Misty Knight & Colleen Wing engaged in roller derby death match involved a really wacky version of MODOK (Mental Organism Designed Only for Roller Derby!!).  Vella’s art and colors are just amazing.  Toss in a good finale to the Rockslide/Anole story that has woven through this anthology series and you’ve got a winner.  I love the X-office continues to publish these anthologies.  Grade: B+  — Dean Stell

Elephantmen #25 – Review

By: Richard Starkings (writer), art by various

The Story: In a recap of sorts, we follow the inner monologue of one of Hip and Ebony’s fellow agents at the Information Agency, as he reflects on the history of the Elephantmen.

What’s Good: I love Elephantmen, but this is the first really good “jumping on point” issue that has come out since the series started.  It gives a nice recap of the series to date, complete with lots of footnotes to previous issues if you want to know more.  Of course, you’d be better off buying the trades or tracking down the back issues, but if you refuse to do that, this issue will get you pretty well caught up before spending the last 2 pages introducing the ominous new story arc that will carry this series for the near future (which looks like a lot of fun, btw).

The other hook on this anniversary issue is that it is drawn with 25 splash pages, each by a different artist.  In some ways, this issue is a little like having an Elephantmen themed sketch-book.  Not surprisingly, my favorite page was by Ladronn who is probably most responsible for the look of the series.