Wednesday, October 10, 2018

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 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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2 comments:

  1. 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.

    $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.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 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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