I'm not really sure why I had this issue filed as a Halloween comic book. Despite the monsters, the horror, and the gore, there's nothing to tie-in Halloween. None of the trio of stories are set during Halloween. There's not a single jack-o-lantern or kid trick-or-treating in this black and white comic.
I also thought that this 2021 book was a one-shot. Instead, it's the first issue of a 3-part miniseries. That means that all 3 stories end in cliffhangers. However, all 3 stories that comprise this story have endings that if the editors or authors didn't put a 'to be continued' blurb at the end of each segment, you wouldn't know that this any of these stories had continuations. So I am actually okay with that even though comics unexpectedly ending with cliffhangers are major pet peeves of mine.
Despite my accidental belief that this was a Halloween one-shot special, that mistaken believe isn't what irked me to no end! It's the banner on the bottom of the cover! It says 'The Frankenstein Monster! The Mummy! The Werewolf! Reimagined!' Well, despite there being a Frank and a Wolfman on the amazing cover pencelled by Neil Vokes (Untold Stories of Spider-Man), there is not a single mummy in this issue. And None of the stories are about a Frankenstein monster or a lycantrope!
This was a major print issue that somebody in the editing department made a giant goof on. You see, the 'reimagined' banner was used in the first volume of American Mythology Monsters. And those monsters were used in that series! The logo looks completely the same, with the exception of a pair of Roman numerals I's. I'm thinking whomever designed the cover used the same template for the 2021 follow-up, but they forgot to change that pesky banner on the bottom of the cover.
The stories themselves were decent. The first story is about a man whose visit to the doctor for a wound that will not heal could bring about the end of the world. The middle story seems like a typical crime noir about a coal magnate trying to silence a rabble-rousing union rep. About halfway, the story goes from criminal to kinky to killer to just plain mysterious. Our last story is about a scientist whose desperate to save her son from a dread disease and accidentally kills herself from an untested cure. Buried in her family plot in New Orleans, the researcher returns as a cross between a zombie and a vampire.
That last story was definitely a reimagining of both the zombie and the vampire- combined into 1. The first story was one that I really have not a care in the world if I ever find out what happens next. Good story. Just not my thing. But that middle story. Man, it was intriguing. And dirty. And bloody. I really need to know the rest of that story. But what I am really wanting to read more about isn't even something that is officially part of this story.
At the end of this comic, there's a 5 page preview of a comic book based on the slasher flick villain Victor Crowley from Adam Green's Hatchet series of films. In the preview, a group of filmmakers and their guides are in a swamp looking for an elusive type of Bigfoot known as a Skunk Ape. Instead of finding the cryptid, the documentarians find Victor in the swamp. Oh, and then the Skunk Ape appears! As soon as that glimpse at that book was over, I was crying foul! I wanted more! I'm definitely on the hunt for that one-shot special.
I enjoyed this read. But the flaws of the cover threw me way off and hampered my enjoyment. One story was a dud. One was so-so. One was fantastic! But my biggest enjoyment was the sneak peak of Hatchet: Unstoppable Horror in the advertisement section of the book.
Rating: 6 out of 10 stars.
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