Some reviews from the first four months of the year … part three!

We’re efforting, I promise, and it looks like there might be a light at the end of the tunnel that is not an oncoming train!

Blood Train (February) by Adam Glass (storier/writer), Andrew Dabb (storier), Bernard Chang (artist/colorist), Nelson Zorzetto (color assistant), Ace Bibbs (color assistant), Dave Sharpe (letterer), and Joe Pruett (editor). $7.99, 40 pgs, Image/Ninth Circle.

One thing that bugs me about horror is the idea of the “ending twist.” You know, where everyone thinks the badness is over, and then we get the reveal that, yeah, no it isn’t, sorry! I get that for movies, this often sets up sequels, but that doesn’t mean I like it, and for something like this comic, where I doubt there will be a sequel, I really don’t like it. I get that the metaphor is that evil can never really be defeated and that horror, like other genre fiction, often comments on society better than a lot of “straight” fiction and that this is just a way for creators to let us know that it really sucks out there, but … I don’t know, it’s kind of boring. It always happens, and it’s not much of a shock, and as horror (and other genre fiction) has become more “mainstream,” even the commentary on society is watered down a bit, as if creators know we know it’s there, so they feel more comfortable making it text instead of subtext, so even that idea is lost because we already fucking know it (there was an article making the rounds on Facebook recently about the loss of subtext in movies – I didn’t read it because it was behind a paywall, but it’s only the same point I’ve been making for, you know, some years now). Which brings me to Blood Train, in which your classic stereotypically horrible American young people are on a train that leaves Beijing for points west and bad things happen. Someone injected one of the ‘Muricans with a virus that turns people into vampires, basically, and although the Russians send some agents in to … I guess stop it?, it’s really just a way for Glass and Chang to have fun as the monster tries to kill everyone on the train. We never learn much about what’s going on, which is certainly annoying, especially because of the “twist” ending, and the main characters – the Yanks – are kind of assholes and it’s not upsetting at all to see them get slaughtered, but Glass keeps it minimalistic and Chang kicks much ass, especially with the creepy designs of the monster (which is more detailed than what we get on the cover). It’s your standard “monsters run amok” story, and there’s not much else to it. Why Glass couldn’t have devoted a few pages to an explanation and/or given us a satisfying ending is unclear, except that “that’s the way it’s done,” which is a terrible reason for doing something. Sigh. I want to like these “Ninth Circle” books, because anything that gives us creators able to do their own thing at their own pace is neat (this is probably the best Chang art I’ve ever seen), and the first one was pretty good, but this is just kind of there. It’s not terrible, but it feels like a missed opportunity. Oh well.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Blow Away (January) by Zac Thompson (writer), Nicola Izzo (artist), Francesco Segala (colorist), Gloria Martinelli (color assistant), and DC Hopkins (letterer). $19.99, 110 pgs, Boom! Studios.

Thompson gives us Brynne Brautigan (yes, really), a wildlife photographer hanging out on Baffin Island trying to get images of a rare bird but instead happens to photograph what she thinks it a murder. It’s Rear Window in the frozen north! The sheriff in the small town near her spot doesn’t necessarily believe her, especially because there’s no body and her evidence is sketchy at best. She, of course, becomes a suspect because she’s had some trouble in her past that she’s running away from, so she decides to investigate, which you know won’t go well at all. It’s a pretty good thriller, made a bit more interesting by Brynne’s financial and employment situation. Her boss isn’t the most patient of people, and as the story evolves, it becomes clear that the story is more about fame and what we will do for it. Brynne has to make some hard choices about what she’s willing to put up with, and while we suspect that she won’t go full douchebag, Thompson does a nice job showing her moral dilemma and why it matters so much to her. It’s not the most original story, but Thompson does give it some nice twists so it stays engaging. The murder (or is it?) isn’t completely the point, which is kind of clever. Meanwhile, Izzo’s manga-inspired art is quite nice – it’s hard and angular to fit the harsh landscape, and he does nice work showing the vastness of the island and how minimized Brynne and the other humans are in it. He uses interesting blurring techniques to show the past, enough to make it a bit jarring but not enough to obscure what we see, and Segala does nice work with the “special effects,” adding white blotches of snow that help create the chilling atmosphere. This isn’t a great thriller, but it’s a pretty solid one, and sometime, that’s good enough.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

The Butcher’s Boy (January) by Landry Q. Walker (storier/scripter), Pannel Vaughn (storier), Justin Greenwood (artist), Brad Simpson (colorist), and Pat Brosseau (letterer). $19.99, 115 pgs, Dark Horse.

This is, unfortunately, kind of a dull horror story, in which a group of friends head off to a small town with a horrifying local legend that turns out to be all too true. Walker and Vaughn do put a tiny bit of an oddball spin on it which is interesting, but basically, it’s people who go somewhere they shouldn’t, realize fairly quickly it’s not the best place but of course they don’t leave, and get slaughtered. The main characters are all horrible, so it’s not even as if we, the readers, care if they get slaughtered – none of them seem to like each other all that much, and they’re all stereotypical vapid young people who mock anything that’s not hip and trendy (as the town most definitely is not) and each of them thinks they’re the only person in the world who matters. I mean, sometimes in horror you’re rooting for the monster, but it’s often because you’re supposed to. I don’t think you’re supposed to here, but man, I definitely was. Greenwood does his usual solid job on the art, and he gets to draw a lot of horrific violence, and he gets to go a bit esoteric at a few places, so the book looks pretty cool, but overall, it’s just a dull horror story. Too bad.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Crashdown (February) by “Comic Tom” Garcia (writer), Ryan Sargeant (writer), Ben Templesmith (artist/letterer), Rand Bellavia (assistant editor), and Michael Calero (editor). $16.99, 109 pgs, Massive Publishing.

Here’s another disappointing horror story that doesn’t really do too much to distinguish itself from any other horror story, except that it looks great (I’ll get to that). It’s bleak as fuck, as a spaceship carrying the only human survivors of Earth approaches the planet where humanity will, supposedly, find a new home, but the planet doesn’t really want humans there, and various creatures on the surface are going to make sure any colonization efforts are met with strong resistance. As usual, the idea itself isn’t terrible, but the writers – who have a YouTube channel where they discuss comics, and this is, I guess, their first attempt at creating one – don’t do too much with it. Crew members land, get attacked and killed, and things don’t get any better. The writers introduce the crappier side of human nature, as the higher-ups on board the ship figure out that they can’t really take everyone to the surface, so the “lower classes” will have to be sacrificed, but they don’t even do too much with that, because there’s slaughtering to get to! Yes, we know humans suck and they deserve everything they get, but it’s just dull watching it because there’s only one even remotely sympathetic character, and she has her own issues. Templesmith is the only reason to get this, because he does creepy monster things so well, so the incredibly hostile environment of the planet just feels dangerous, and that’s due to Templesmith. He’s never going to be the best artist at faces, but he’s gotten better over the years, using a bit more hatching to add more nuance, so when bad things are happening, we do feel it a bit more than we would if this had been done earlier in Templesmith’s career. It’s a very cool-looking book, but, much like The Butcher’s Boy, it just lacks the emotional resonance that you need in a horror comic. These are people who are just there to die, and that’s just not all that interesting. At least not to me.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Crocodile Black (March) by Phillip Kennedy Johnson (writer), Som (artist), Patricio Delpeche (colorist), Becca Carey (letterer), Caroline Butler (assistant editor), and Ramiro Portnoy (editor). $17.99, 110 pgs, Boom! Studios.

This is a strange noir-ish tale about a young man who becomes a fearsome killer, pretty much overnight. It’s odd. We begin with Danny, who lives with his parents and sister even though it’s clear he’s old enough to be out on his own. He can’t live on his own, though, because he has some vague kind of “obsessive disorder” that means he can’t keep his head in the real world and he daydreams far too much, which means he has trouble keeping a job. There’s also the fact that his brother disappeared when they were kids and his father somehow blames Danny for it, although it’s kind of unclear what he blames him for. I mean, we see what happens, sort of (it’s from Danny’s perspective, so we can’t trust it), but it’s still not clear what the dad blames Danny for. I mean, yes, the dad is a douchebag, but as becomes clear, Danny really does need to stay on his meds, because when he goes off them, he becomes a fearsome killer. Maybe that works for Danny, but, I mean, it’s not really a sustainable lifestyle, especially as he’s not really that careful about it. Anyway, there’s a supernatural element to the story, too, which, again, is probably in Danny’s mind, but it’s still pretty neat. Johnson does a decent enough job showing us how Danny slowly embraces his new life and how – possibly – he can get away with it, but it’s frustrating reading a book like this, because of what I see as underlying the entire thing. Danny isn’t meant to be particularly admirable, certainly, and the dad is an asshole … but he’s also not wrong. Danny can’t live on his own, and his whining about it early in the book feels like whining when, it feels, Johnson means for it to be something to admire in Danny. The father also shouldn’t have gone through Danny’s stuff, of course, but he did have another son who disappeared while with Danny, and that would be enough to drive anyone to despair, especially when Danny claims he doesn’t remember what happened when it’s clear he has some inkling (even if it’s not enough of one). Johnson, like a lot of comics writers, wants to make things extremely black-and-white, but Danny has troubles, and even if the father is going about it in the worst way possible, he is, it seems, trying to work through his own grief. It’s just frustrating, because some people cannot live on their own, and while Danny is on his own at the end of the book, it’s very clear his situation is fairly untenable and going off his meds has “helped” him only in that he’s able to kill a lot of people with impunity. That can’t work long-term, Danny!

Som’s art is terrific, though, which is keen. His basic style is very solid and no-nonsense, which means that when things start to get wonky, they’re sufficiently grounded to they seem even weirder. We see a lot of the world as Danny sees it, and Som does a nice job showing that Danny is not all right, as he’s seeing some bizarre things coming out of the woodwork. I don’t want to give too much away because it’s part of the fun of the book, but as Danny’s world becomes stranger, Som does an excellent job integrating the strangeness into the mundane world around him, and then we also get harsh red scribbles on top of that (I’m not sure how much of that is Som and how much is Delpeche), which mars the world with its jaggedness and lets us get even further in Danny’s tortured mind. The story itself is fine (despite my reservations about it), but the art really makes the book far more interesting.

The book is a bit open-ended, and perhaps Johnson plans to return to the character and further explore how he’s able to do what he does. We shall see. It’s not a bad introduction to the character, even with the weird tone that maybe only I’m tuned into, so I wouldn’t say no to more of this.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Thanks for reading, everyone, and I promise we’re working on it!