If you were a fan of Sherlock Holmes, The Phantom, Buckaroo Banzai and Kolchak, The Night Stalker like I am; then you would flip for this holiday special from now defunct Moonstone!
The Ghost Who Walks, Lee Falk's The Phantom, works in the background as a U.N. transport truck tries to make it a Christmas to remember for an encampment of refugees.
Sherlock Holmes and trusty Dr. Watson are called upon to solve a Victorian Christmas Eve mystery.
Genius explorer Buckaroo Banzai is front and center in a holiday first contact with a alien race. Tragedy strikes unfortunately. But there's definitely an air of the nativity story with this tale's fateful ending.
My favorite story was the Kolchak adventure. The beat reporter gets a tip about some mysterious holiday themed killings. It was a good story and all. But that wasn't why I loved this one. It's because Kolchak, who was played by Darren McGavin, is gifted with a Leg Lamp, a la A Christmas Story. If you aren't in the know, McGavin played the dad in that 1983 holiday classic. Another aspect I loved was how some of the characters are drawn as characters from A Christmas Story. The homages just oozed throughout ever pore in this story. It was great!
There's also a story starring a character referred to as The Spider. I'm not familiar with him. The Spider is kind of a cross between a vampire and The Shadow. The story was okay. But the artwork was breathtaking.
I really enjoyed this special. It featured holiday tales of a number of cult franchises of which I am a fan of but didn't know that there was a Christmas story of! If the point of this special was to introduce new readers to the Moonstone line-up, then the publisher succeeded. Unfortunately, I became a fan of Moonstone about 14 years too late! Let's hope I find some luck in the bargain bins!
Worth Consuming!
Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.
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