#41-#42 = EPITAPHS FROM THE ABYSS #6 (Oni Press / EC Comics, December 2024) More good stories, as the EC titles from Oni Press have been consistently satisfying. Kudos to the editorial staff. It was even harder to pick a favorite this time. I love all three stories in Issue #6.
Things kick off with “How Was Your Day?” by Matthew Rosenberg and Tyler Crook. A self-centered, arrogant and rude NYC businessman continually ignores and berates a homeless man he passes each day. Still, he receives a greeting from the sidewalk squatter - a simple statement of “Hey Mister, How Was Your Day?” Until one significant day, when he is followed into the subway and his life is altered forever. He should have answered the question.
Now that I’ve read it twice, I have a favorite. It’s “Writer’s Block” by Tim Seeley and Charlie Adlard. A struggling novel writer is out of ideas, but he has to pay the bills, his agent, alimony, etc. So he keeps four people chained up in his basement and picks their brain for story ideas - - until the day when he trusts them too much.
“Triggers” by J. Holtham and David Lapham takes not-so-subtle aim at gun shows and conventions with a surprise ending that is very satisfying to those of us who despise the greed of arms dealers. A FOUR-STAR collection.
#43 = CREEPSHOW HOLIDAY SPECIAL 2024 (Image Comics, December 2024) There were enough one-shot horror comics anthologies with Christmas/Holiday themes this year that I didn’t get to read them all before the season passed.
I guessed how both of these stories would end, but that didn’t spoil the enjoyment of reading them. Well done, and very well illustrated.
In “Auld Lang Syne” by Tini & Blake Howard with art by Steven Subic it is New Year’s Eve in London, 1899. Eccentric bookkeeper Bertie Crenshaw gets an invitation to a party of rich collectors of Ancient Egyptian artifacts. The tea they drink comes from ancient ingredients, including a honey sweetener that is from a tomb as well as bits of the mummified flesh of Isarion The Mystic. Bertie imbibes and eats too much, and . .. well, you get it.
My favorite of the two stories is “Late Night Terry Reno” by Rob Williams and Pye Parr. A late night television talk show host is rehearsing his Christmas special and it’s not going well for the arrogant former ventriloquist who abuses his staff and writers. When things call for a rewrite, he is asked to resurrect his old ventriloquist act, and the dummy has a mind of its own, and . . . well, you get it. THREE AND ONE-HALF STARS overall.
#44-#45 = CRUEL UNIVERSE #5 (Oni Press/EC Comics, December 2024) Horror comics anthologies often rely on taut scripts and a twist ending. Read enough of them and you begin to anticipate how they finish a story. I spoiled the endings (for myself) on all three stories here by guessing correctly. But, the story telling and art kept me going and held my attention. In fact, 67% of the art this issue brought back memories of the EC glory days with Wally Wood and Reed Crandall. Awesome to look and marvel at the detail and utilization of multiple panels per page.
A futuristic mining colony run by women is a bare bones operation, with employees rationing food and supplies. They hope to remedy the situation when a stuffy male corporate inspector makes a visit/audit. (“The Paring Knife” by Corinna Bechko and Lemoacs).
A psychoanalyst utilizing questionable methods with her patients gets to observe things from their point of view, with unpredictable results. (“Ink Spot Test” by Cullen Bunn and Peter Krause).
My favorite this issue is “Billionaire Trust” by Corinna Bechko and Daniel Irizarri. When a wealthy industrial suffers a massive heart attack that leaves him in a severely weakened state and aging rapidly he agrees to be frozen. When his body is thawed out years later, he gets a tour of the current ruined world, for which the residents hold him responsible. OVERALL, THREE AND ONE-QUARTER STARS.
#46-#47 = HELLO DARKNESS #6 (BOOM! STUDIOS, DECEMBER 2024) Issue #6 offers up three new stories, another cartoon page by Robert Hack, an art showcase, and Part 6 of “The War”. While I’m still enjoying this anthology and will continue to have it on my pull list, this issue was inconsistent in quality and theme.
“A Christmas Log” by Steve Orlando and Adam Gotham starts out in the festive spirit with main character Manuel returning ten years later to his childhood home in Massachusetts to spend Christmas with his mother. During a chat over old times with his mom, Manuel confesses that “high school wasn’t exactly my Peak Era.” Quite the understatement.
Manuel uses the opportunity to get revenge on the high school bully who tormented him regarding his Latino heritage, etc. The story changes course quickly and gets very brutal. Not for the squeamish.
Speaking of retribution (the accidental kind) two black slaves forced to work in a North Carolina mine in 1853 do their best to explain after re-capture that they were fleeing recently surfaced monsters. Bosses think it’s just an excuse. ("Into The Mines" by Justina Ireland and Valentine De Landro.)
“Aisling, Drowned” written and illustrated by Sas Milledge is a whimsical folk/fairy tale featuring an attractive banshee that takes its’ time to develop and occupies 13 pages of this issue. The story is told like a children’s book in text boxes with similarly appealing art that looks painted/washed. Both story and art seem out of place in this title next to the other stories.
We finally get some necessary explanation in “The War, Part Six” by Garth Ennis and Becky Cloonan. Last chapter ended with soldiers advancing on a couple in an isolated cabin. Before they can break in, they all collapse. One of the dying soldiers, laying against the exterior cabin wall, lives long enough to update the occupants on everything that has happened. They are smart enough to stay indoors and speak with him from the window.
The editorial page in the back refers to a special Christmas cover done with stop-motion clay figure photographs. It’s effective, but you can only view the images on the interior pages. I guess someone in editorial decided in the 11th hour that they wanted to stick with the themes of previous covers. Overall, this issue is THREE AND ONE-QUARTER STARS.
This is a prequel/sequel of sorts to WILLY’S WONDERLAND, an indie horror film. I had not heard of it, so I checked out the trailer on You Tube. Nick Cage stars, and it looks like a hoot! Imagine a Chuck E. Cheese franchise gone to hell, where the animatronic characters just want to kill you.
But that wasn’t what attracted me to this book. I found that out later. The cover stared me down, so I picked it up. It was the bloody graphic dismemberment by these creatures that caught my attention, luridly illustrated by local comics creators Buz Hasson & Ken Haeser.
The long-abandoned Willy’s Wonderland family fun restaurant/arcade has a new owner, and he’s offering a preview to a select audience. Things don’t go quite as well as hoped for, but nobody in the gathering dies (better to wait for a larger crowd, just settle for the help for now). The storyline introduces us to the new owner, who bears an uncanny resemblance to a maniacal serial killer (whose horrid back-story gets detailed for us). But don’t jump to conclusions. There’s some surprises here.
The storyline flips back and forth between the serial killer and fellow asylum inmates (whose spirits now inhabit the animatronic creatures and need to feed on blood and guts) and present day where the monsters from Willy’s Wonderland invade the town and then retreat to the restaurant for a showdown with townsfolk.
Very bloody, very graphic dismemberments, creepy - - yet funny in a very darkly comedic way. Pure escapist entertainment of the extreme horror variety. THREE AND ONE-HALF STARS.
#52-#55 = NEONOMICON #1-4 of 4 by Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows (Avatar Press, July 2010-February 2011) Alan Moore’s series of comics based on the cosmic horror mythos of H.P. Lovecraft are not for everybody. This is a sequel to Moore’s THE COURTYARD.
You don’t have to have read that to follow this, but those familiar with Lovecraft’s stories will have a keener appreciation for what goes on here. Moore pulls from incidents from Lovecraft’s “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” -a story about a New England coastal town where residents have been worshiping the Old One Dagon and cross-breeding with ancient amphibious creatures from the sea, hiding their offspring from prying eyes.
Following up from the gory homicide and strange incidents in THE COURTYARD, federal agents Merril Lamper and Gordon Brears are still investigating what happened. The trail takes them to a occult bookstore acting as a front for Dagon worshippers. Name-dropping some info they gleamed from visiting an asylum and interviewing a serial killer connected to the group gets them an invitation to the evening ceremonies.
A trapdoor in the floor leads down to ancient tunnels beneath the city of Salem, Massachusetts that lead towards the sea and an underground swimming pool fed by river water from a channel that empties into the sea. The cult disrobe and have an orgy in the swimming pool in order to attract the attention and lure one of the creatures from Lovecraft’s Innsmouth story to join them. As depicted by Jacen Burrows, the amphibious creature bears a huge, hulking resemblance to the Creature From The Black Lagoon.
The creature is horny, immediately attracted to Agent Lamper and brutally rapes her. (This is definitely an R-rated comic.) The cult murder Brears and leave Lamper trapped in the swimming pool area as the creature’s sex slave. He ends up bonding with her (in a different way) and helps her escape to the harbor, where she contacts the FBI and they send a squad to break up the cult, only to discover that the creature has viciously killed most of them before agents kill it. There’s still another twist at the end, tied to Lovecraft mythology. If you like cosmic horror told in edgy fashion, this is one to look for. FOUR STARS.
#56-#59 = THE CAPE: FALLEN hardcover by Jason Ciaramella and Zach Howard (IDW Publishing, 2019) Horror novelist Joe Hill is best known in the comics world for LOCKE & KEY as well as spear-heading the Hill House line of horror mini-series for DC/Vertigo. He also wrote a cautionary anti-superhero short story, “The Cape” from his 2005 collection 20th Century Ghosts, which was adapted into a comic mini-series.
Writer Ciaramella and artist Howard return to the character of Eric and script a new story that occurs in-between his first killing and the murder of his mother and brother. (Yeah, THE CAPE is rather dark).
The main thrust of the first series and FALLEN is that not everyone who obtains super-powers will necessarily use them for the good of all mankind. It’s a spin on the famous Spider-Man axiom that “with great power comes great responsibility.” Hill’s spin is that “if power corrupts, then surely with great power comes even greater corruption.” A central theme in both series is that no amount of power will make a bad person good. (That’s going to be tested in the real world over the next four years).
So, in FALLEN, Eric takes a break after that first kill and returns to the forest cabin, where his father used to take Eric and his brother, to clear his head. Except, the cabin is occupied by a group of fantasy role-players (who want to use the woods as their stage/playing ground), including a member who used to bully him in high school. They invite Eric to stay and join the festivities. Except, Eric doesn’t understand the rules of role-playing and when he goes too far, it gets even darker.
A tightly told tale with some great art, this is grim, disturbing, and ends brutally. THREE AND THREE-QUARTER STARS.
#60-#69 = DEVIL'S REIGN #1-8 plus 2 Interludes: A detailed review of this maxi-series was posted on the blog for Saturday, January 18.
#70 = CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN #1 by Christopher Cantwell and Sean Izaakse (DC Comics, February 2025)
The promotional synopsis:
Spinning out of Absolute Power and the DC All In Special, the terror of the Darkseid shockwave has cascaded across the DC Universe...tearing open the very fabric of time and space itself! Only one band of super-scientists have the right stuff to challenge the fate of a universe...enter: THE CHALLENGERS OF THE UKNOWN. Alongside the Justice League--where the Challengers run day-to-day operations for the massive Watchtower base in orbit above Earth--Ace Morgan, June Robbins, Prof Haley, Red Ryan, and Rocky Davis must team with Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and the rest of the League to seal the rifts that threaten the galaxy.
In their sporadic history in DC Comics, the Challengers have normally existed and gone about their adventures separate from the rest of the DC Universe - in similar fashion to SEA DEVILS and BLACKHAWK (usually), for those familiar with those other irregular DC titles. After reading this, I think I prefer them that way.
Cantwell brings them into the DC fold, and makes them support staff for the Justice League Watchtower, including janitorial duties. Mister Terrific does pair some members out with superheroes (like Ace with Superman in this issue) to investigate some weird anomalies linked to Darkseid’s disappearance. Mr. Terrific also treats the Challs like minions, and acts like a drill sergeant regarding their outside assignments. During the investigation, Ace discovers something that puts him off-balance. Could Darkseid be secretly influencing the various members? What aren’t the JLA members disclosing to the Challengers? Cantwell seems to be dropping the seeds for a future bumper crop.
As I type out my summary and read it, it seems more interesting that it actually is. A debut title for a new series needs to have some solid hooks to bring readers back - - and this failed to interest me. In fact, I found it very average and tedious. TWO AND ONE-HALF STARS.
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