Haunt #19
Writer: Joe Casey
Artist: Nathan Fox
The Haunt comic has been re-birthed with this weeks issue; welcoming new creative team consisting of Joe Casey and Nathan Fox. Here’s a quick recap of who the Haunt is, no spoilers, promise:
The Haunt is a symbiotic entity that consists of a former priest, Kurt Kilgore and his deceased brothers ghost, Daniel Kilgore, an ex-agent of a mysterious military group known solely as, “The Agency”. The Haunt’s power is within his ectoplasmic/malleable body, which can create constructs that seem to fit whatever the Haunt can imagine. The Haunt, in previous issues, worked for “The Agency”; helping to bring down the current kingpin of crime, Mr. Hurg. Other than Kurt Kilgore being a ghost and the recent introduction of “The Apparition”, the book has taken a real world approach to the stories and it’s characters. But with this new creative team, we seem to be jumping head first into the Other-Wordly.
The first couple pages introduces us to an avatar of chaos, obviously on some hell-bent mission to bring on an apocalyptic scenario to our not-so-seasoned protagonist, Haunt. His motives are unclear, but we understand he’s powerful and has a taste for destruction. This foe seems quite overwhelming for the Haunt, basing his actions from past events; Kurt and Daniel Kilgore have a lot to learn, in a short amount of time. There’s also a new demonic tone that Joe Casey brings, one that I was expecting from issue one. Though the idea was seeded throughout previous issue, the build-up was incredibly slow. So, this issue may be jarring to the senses, much to do with new artist: Nathan Fox. But truly, I’m excited to finally get into the thick of it and find out what a Haunt, really is.
The art style has radically changed (as mentioned above) with the coming of artist, Nathan Fox and colorist, FCO Plascencia. Fox’s pencils are relaxed with thick lines, which works good with the nature of Haunt’s power. The action can get quite confusing, which is understandable when bodies are being shredded apart, with the blood and all. FCO’s colors are rich and vibrant, making Fox’s imagery less hectic and more defined; the duo works well together. One thing that I truly did miss, were Greg Capullo’s splash pages! Honestly, most of his old splash pages, which were many, I used to think were a waste of space. Pretty? Sure. But a waste of space. Here, almost every other page I was expecting/secretly hoping, to find a sexy splash page of Haunt flipping in the air or of him flying above the city using wings constructed from his suit.
The Haunt series has just turned over a new leaf. One that was unexpected and hard to process, but a necessary one for the series survival. Hopefully new readers were drawnto the bitchen’ cover and hopefully old readers didn’t feel too lost. I for one, will be here for the next issue, as I’m interested in the direction Mr. Casey is going with the Haunt mythology.
Also, why was Daniel such a prick in this issue? You better have answers coming my way Joe!
Story: 7
Art: 8
Follow me on Twitter @ddsuperbatnix
[amazon_enhanced asin=”1607061546″ /] [amazon_enhanced asin=”1607062291″ /]
