Filed under: Comic Reviews, IDW Comics | Tags: Damien Worm, IDW, Steve Niles, The October Faction
After a stronger than strong opening the story of monsters, dark magic & a family dinners continues with Steve Niles & Damien Worm unraveling the Allan family’s past, present & future.
Opening with Frederick reminiscing about an old job with Lucas…..a job that also reveals a big secret about Lucas himself….and while the job is a success…..it looks like this was a turning point in their past careers as monster hunters.
We’re brought back to the present and Frederick’s return home sees him finding his kids Gregory & Vivian calling a ghost/demon and capturing it in their bedroom closet…..as you do. Cue a face-off between Frederick and said ghost/demon and then we’re onto having dinner…..all pretty “normal” for this family and the nonchalant approach form them all makes this all the more easy to feel involved with.
There’s more mystery surrounding Lucas as he’s seen making a deal that involves his past with Frederick and what seems to be a double-cross. Lots going on in this as we find out that Deloris has been taken to hospital following an attack……….BOOM…..it’s all go with this issue and there may be a lot of story threads on the go but the subtle link between them all & well-paced transition from one to another by Niles makes this story build quickly over a few pages.
The characters are becoming more detailed as we go too, with their very real traits merging seamlessly with the strange elements of the occult that drift in and out of their daily lives with a natural familiarity to them and us the reader as a result. While Niles handles the mix of macabre and intricate dialogue the layers of the story are matched by Damien Worm’s sublime artwork.
Worm captures the darkness of the situations & characters across ever page but still manages to lighten things up and convey that “normal” family life is still going on amid the darkness around the Allan’s. The gritty & gruesome are there but as its depicted in such beautiful visuals the edge is taken off of them to make this far more accessible in what could have been a case of throwing blood & guts at us. The pages themselves seem to have an age to them too as the weight of the past seeps into every page and it’s really only missing that familiar crackle of a black & white movie to give this that real authentic horror feel.
The month wait between #1 & 2 thankfully passed quickly and it brought us an equally enjoyable and expertly crafted issue……the concern is whether Niles & Worm can go on creating quality of this level over an ongoing series…….that being said……if it even dropped a bit it would still be in the “amazing” category so it’s a minor concern. More of this please as I begin the countdown to #3 (due out in December)
10/10
G-Man
Leave a Comment so far
Leave a comment
Comics Anonymous 