Definitely Creepy
Cover By: Doug Mahnke
Editor: Alex Antone
Cover Price: $9.99
On Sale Date: October 10, 2018
**NON SPOILERS AND SCORE AT THE BOTTOM**
It’s a special spooky-themed anthology comic
just in time for Halloween! Not much more to say about it, let’s jump right in!
Explain It!
“The Spread”
Writer: Tim Seeley
Artist: Kyle Hotz
Colors: Fco Plascencia
Letters: Steve Wands
A scientist attempts to come up with a compound that turns animal
cells to plan, so people could subsist on sunlight alone. Instead, she creates
a serum that mutates people into monsters and threatens to absorb the Green
into the Red entirely. Swamp Thing shows up and grows some grasses in her body
to quell the rage. As he leaves, he points out that he did for her what no one
did for Alec Holland. Though to be fair, there was no Swamp Thing hanging
around at the time.
7/10
“Gorehound”
Writer: Gary Dauberman
Artist: Riccardo Federici
Colors: Sonny Gho
Letters: Steve Wands
A serial killer dubbed “Gorehound” has been stalking Gotham City’s
environs, setting up macabre scenes of gory death to match popular slasher
movies. Batman looks to have found the culprit, who stumbles along in a hoodie
and wielding a large knife, but closer inspection shows that his mouth and
hands have been duct-taped! It turns out to be some other girl that played the
victim, which might have been a bigger reveal in a longer story with more
background.
5.5/10
“Siren Song”
Writer: Vita Ayala
Artist: Victor IbaƱez
Colors: Matthew Wilson
Letters: Clayton Cowles
Wonder Woman saves a town from a legendary
Siren of Greek myth, but she just sets up shop somewhere else. Terrific visuals
for this story.
6/10
“Life Sentence”
Storytellers: Kenny Porter & Riley Rossmo
Colors: Ivan Plascencia
Letters: Tom Napolitano
Salaak sends Guy Gardner to check on a prison freighter, where
everyone has been murdered and the ship nearly destroyed, bodies floating in
space around it. The few remaining prisoners have been possessed by some evil,
which is controlling an ancient Green Lantern that powers the craft—on a crash
collision with Oa! Well, that reduces the stakes, being that Oa doesn’t exist.
Guy talks the Lantern off his suicide mission, and the Lantern then takes the
honorable way out and commits suicide.
5.5/10
“Yellow Jack”
Writers: Gabriel Hardman & Corinna Bechko
Artist: Gabriel Hardman
Colors: Trish Mulvihill
Letters: Clayton Cowles
Jason Blood transferred his curse to house the demon Etrigan to
some other guy, who is now burning down the neighborhood in his sweet yellow
body. The guy’s wife petitions Jason Blood to put things right, so with some
effort, he does. Once back in the saddle with Blood, Etrigan murders the man he
once inhabited, because he now knows that man’s inner secrets: he beats his
wife. Pretty cool tweest ending on this, I thought.
7.5/10
“Strange Visitor”
Writer: Mags Visaggio
Artist: Minkyu Jung
Colors: Jordie Bellaire
Letters: Josh Reed
First inhabitant of the Phantom Zone, Xa-Du,
teases Lois and Clark while they sleep in an ethereal, wispy form. Superman is
able to send him away, then discovers that there are points around the globe
where the Phantom Zone is weak, and aspects of those imprisoned can creep in.
What are we gonna do about it? Nothing. Definitely the weakest story in the
bunch.
2.5/10
“The Monster in Me”
Writer: Michael Moreci
Pencils: Felipe Watanabe
Inks: Jonas Trindade
Colors: Romulo Fajardo Jr.
Letters: Deron Bennett
Some kind of ego-killing demon haunts Ollie as he does his thing
around Star City. Later in the evening, she takes the demonic form of Black
Canary and breaks his balls along with his bow. The next day, everything seems
okay. Not a great story, but boy it looks pretty sweet.
3/10
“Mercy Killing”
Writer: Bryan Hill
Artist: Dexter Soy
Colors: Veronica Gandini
Letters: Carlos M. Mangual
When a Japanese girl falls sick, Katana calls in Black Lightning to
do battle with a horrifying demon that steals children and scares the piss out
of me. They eventually take the monster down with a two-man play that involves
Katana beheading the shambling nightmare. If this is an indication of the
caliber of stuff we’ll see from Bryan Hill’s Outsiders, consider me on board.
7.5/10
“The Devil You Know”
Writer: Dave Wielgosz
Artist: Christian Duce
Colors: Romulo Fajardo Jr.
Letters: Tom Napolitano
Robin and Solomon Grundy team up to take down Professor Pyg, before
he can turn some orphaned kids into Dollotrons. Indeed, Grundy saves Damien’s
hash, though the kid probably wouldn’t admit it. A pretty cute story that could
have lost a page or two.
7/10
“Halloween Hayride”
Writer: James Tynion IV
Pencils: Mark Buckingham
Inks: Andrew Pepoy
Colors: Jordie Bellaire
A story that seems tacked-on about Zatanna turning the tables on
some mean brothers trying to scare their little sister. The art is really shaky
on this one, though the magical Halloween land conjured by Zatanna is awesome.
4.5/10
A lot of this was alright, I thought. Except
for the Guy Gardner story, the whole thing is pretty solid from an art
perspective. For eight bucks, I’d probably be singing its praises on the Black
Lightning/Katana and Etrigan stories alone. But for ten bucks, you can leave
this on the shelf and spend the money on Fun Size candy.
Bits and Pieces:
Another mixed bag of stories, with a couple that are pretty good, a couple that are pretty bad, and the majority of them are shrug-worthy. Too much investment for too little return overall, methinks.
5.6/10
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I just finished reviewing the DC Universe Halloween Specials from 2008, 2009, and 2010 for my Longbox Junk blog and from the looks of YOUR review, it's par for the course for DC Halloween Specials to have a couple of good stories, a couple bad ones, and "Meh" filler for the rest.
ReplyDelete$9.99 for basically the same thing they put out in 2008 is shameless cash-grabbing. Thanks for warning me off of this one! I'll keep an eye out for it in the bargain box a year or two from now. Ten Bucks? F*ck THAT.
That is absolutely the problem here. Even $8 wouldn't be as much of a rip-off (though still a rip-off.)
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