By: Joe Casey (writer), Nathan Fox (artist), FCO Plascencia (colors), Comicraft (letters) & Jen Cassidy (managing editor)
The Story: A new creative team takes over Haunt because Kirkman and Capullo are busy doing other stuff.
Five Things:
1. Not really a jumping on point. – I’m a little surprised that this issue wasn’t more of a jumping on point. Given that we’ve had a delay in publication as the new team got caught up and that a lot of people are probably checking out Haunt for the first time (or first time since #1) some more exposition might have been in order. The story actually exists in a weird place because even though it isn’t much of a jumping on point, it also didn’t feel at all like a continuation of what has been going on in the series. It’s more like we’re catching up with these characters a few months later.
2. Very different vibe from a story standpoint. – The first 18 issues of Haunt were action/espionage with a supernatural twist. This issue was something very different. It had much more of a supernatural vibe to the story starting with an odd opening sequence in a “church” involving some kind of secret cult. I had NO idea what was going on here. And, then even when we do catch up with the brothers Kilgore, the comic didn’t have that hardedge that I’d previously enjoyed.
3. VERY different art. – This was a very interesting book for me from an art standpoint. I LOVE Greg Capullo (the previous artist) and am so tickled that he’s not become this “overnight success” at DC (after doing awesome work for ~20 years). Even though I also love Nathan Fox, I did wonder how Haunt would feel because they’re pretty different artists. The art on this issue is really strong. I like the layouts and I like the heavier line that Fox uses. I like how he gives the colorist ample opportunity to shine (which FCO does!). The only thing nagging at me is that I wanted the fight scenes to have Capullo-style crispness. I like to know what is going on in a fight. Show me the punches and the choreography! Capullo had that in spades. Fox isn’t so much that type of artist. He’s more into showing you a big pile of frenzy where you may not be able to tell exactly what is going on and I’m not sure I like it in Haunt.
4. Nice to see a creator-owned series keep going. – Even though I’m being a little hard on this series, I am so happy to see it continue. Why can’t more creator-owned series do this? Why must they all peter out after 5-15 issues when the creators get pulled away to something more lucrative? The original creators of Haunt clearly think there is more story to tell, so I applaud their attempt to make this into another Spawn. And, that’s a pretty strong test of the story concept: Can you hand it off to another team and let them also find success with it? We’ll see, be at least they’re trying.
5. Love the explanatory back-matter. – I mean this kinda tongue in cheek. Todd McFarlane explains to us why the change in creative team happened. It just made me laugh. With the size of the comic market and the fact that “indie” comic fans are much more plugged in than Marvel/DC fans, I really wonder if there was anyone buying Haunt who hadn’t heard about this change in creative teams months ago. Especially with Capullo getting such plaudits on Batman. Was there anyone who picked this up in the shop and said, “Awww man! What the hell?!?! Where’s Kirkman and Capullo?”
Conclusion: I really didn’t love this issue, but it could be just because it’s different. On one hand, it’s nice to see that Kirkman and McFarlane didn’t just recruit “some guys” to do some Haunt fan-fiction. On the other hand, I really enjoyed Haunt the way it was. I’ll give this a few more issues to win me over, but it could be a drop if it doesn’t engage me more than this issue did.
Jumping on point?: This should have been a jumping on point, but it really wasn’t. On the other hand, it also isn’t much of a continuation from the old material, so I can’t really recommend any of the past issues as the “perfect” place to jump in either. You’ll have to figure this out yourself.
Grade: C
-Dean Stell
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