Greetings to you ghouls and goblins,
Welcome to the House of Horror. This week we will see what kind of creepy things are lurking in Wildstorm Trilogy of Terror. Then we will take a detour down the dark path that leads to the DC Universe Halloween Special 2008. After that, we will visit the House of Mystery. Hopefully, everyone that reads that book will be able to exit to discuss everything!
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Wildstorm Trilogy of Terror! 1 (1997) (rated 12+)
DCU Halloween Special 2008 (2008) (rated 12+)
House of Mystery 5 (2008) (rated 17+)
There are a few new horror comics hitting comic store shelves this week! We might not be reading the books right away and some of them might even be discussed in other clubs upon release. Think of this as a preview of what might be lurking in the dark corners of House of Horror.
New Comics Released On 10/28
Also, I want to remind everyone that the DCU Halloween Scavenger Hunt continues until Halloween! There are plenty of things to find from House of Horror 4!!!
The next installment of the House of Horror will be the first to be bi-weekly and instead of 3 books, we will have 6 or 7 books!
Happy Halloween everyone!!!
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Happy Halloween everybody!!!
I hope everyone has a great and safe day!!!
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Admittedly, I am not very fluent in the Wildstrom universe but I have been slowly reading the available books on DCU. Quick thoughts on Wildstorm Halloween Trilogy of Terror! 1:
- Blood & Faith
- 90s comic art from Image, a huge bonus for me
- Cool action, low on horror but horror elements are present
- “…When all the freaks come out!”
- Reminds me of 70s horror movies that feature a cult or coven
- Berserker
- Set in the arctic The Thing comes to mind, instead, this is a vampire story
While this is an anthology book, they are connected by the villain in each story. Honestly, this was just okay. I was expecting this book to be a lot better considering Wildstorm was an Image imprint at the time of release. There are horror elements throughout the book but the main focus was on the superhero teams. As a showcase for the teams that were featured, I suppose this was effective. I have read the first few Gen 13 books on DCU and those are far better than the story in this title. I also thought the Gen 13 story was the best story in this book.
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Quick thoughts on DCU Halloween Special 2008:
- Deadline Halloween
- The Daily Planet building is haunted?!?!
- I did get a laugh at the kids telling Superman his costume, how bad it is and how they can see the stitches, then to add salt to the wound they are telling him how cool Batman is.
- Fear of the Dark
- Not a bad story. Seeing the fears of Kyle Rayner was kind of interesting but a weird change of pace after Deadline Halloween, which was a bit softer.
- The Ballad of Jonathan Crane
- An Elseworld style retelling of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow featuring Scarecrow. A pretty fun and quick story, the art is decent but not great.
- The Embrace
- A decent story featuring Faust which is strongly based in magic. Not familiar with Faust but I feel like this was a good introduction.
- One Last Halloween
- Young teens on the verge of their last Halloween trick-or-treating end up in the sewers and run into Batman. While there is a Halloween theme, this is a showcase of Batman’s rogue gallery.
- Hell Hath No Fury
- A weird story about kids going house to house in superhero costumes for candy on Halloween.
- Goriest scenes in this book so far.
- Scarred and Scared
- So far, one of my favorite stories in this book.
- A werewolf in Arkham Asylum and the inmates have to stop it.
- Art isn’t too bad but it isn’t great.
- Role Model
- A cool story featuring classic movie monsters, a theater, and Vixen
I did enjoy seeing Ralph and Sue Dibny as hosts in this book. That was a nice touch and it makes me wonder why they didn’t continue that role in the later issues of Halloween Special.
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House of Mystery 5 concludes the first story arc! As this is House of Mystery we got not one but two short stories this week, sort of. Jordan’s Tale was okay, I guess. It felt like filler and rather unfinished. The book opens and returns with a back story to Fig’s childhood and life before she entered the House of Mystery.
The downside to this book is that Rina never made an appearance. Hopefully, she will return and we get some much-needed answers.
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I need to read! I’m totally slacking
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I think Halloween kind of created a busy week for everyone. I know my place of work was crazy busy all week.
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Work has been busy, but I really have no excuse. I’ve been watching Unsolved Mysteries and Snapped on Netflix.
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Wildstorm Trilogy of Terror was sort of interesting in how there was a generational story while still having a different vibe with each installment, but in terms of execution it was kind of ‘eh.’ I think I liked the Gen13 story the best.
DCU Halloween Special '08 I think was the weakest installment of this style of storytelling so far. Just none of the stories really kept my interest whatsoever.
House of Mystery was an interesting end to this first arc. Definitely curious to see what happens next. The story inside was also pretty fun, if only for the awesome Sean Murphy art.
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I agree with all of this. DCU is missing the 2007 Halloween Special titled Infinite Halloween Special. I am curious if this was tied into Infinite Crisis as the font is the same. The 2008 Halloween Special had some cool elements like the Dibny’s hosting the book but most of the stories fell flat. Wildstorm’s entry was weakened by the format they chose. The upside was the common enemy but the downside was the piecemail fashion of the storytelling.
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