Cursed Comics Cavalcade #1 Review and **SPOILERS**

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 Ibañez 

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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