Haunted #1 (Red 5 Comics)

CREDIT: Red 5 Comics

Rating: 4.5/5 – When science goes awry the world becomes haunted.
by ComicSpectrum EiC Bob Bretall.

The premise here is that the Large Hadron Collider has ripped a hole in the universe and let “ghosts”, for lack of a better term, loose on the world.  Our story takes place 13 years after the catastrophe, and things have pretty much gone to crap.

We get a lot of the standard post-apocalyptic tropes; searching for food, avoiding/battling the creatures as the situation demands, and having to be just as wary (if not more so) of other humans than of the supernatural creatures.  If these are the kinds of things you  look at and say “I’ve seen this before, I’m bored”, then you may want to steer clear.  If you’re the kind of person that enjoys reading variations on a theme like me, then you may enjoy this just as much as I did.

Scott Chitwood has crafted a story that blends sci-fi and horror, using the post-apocalyptic genre to tell a tale with enough new elements and cool twists on things I’ve seen before that I was thoroughly entertained from start to finish.  The art by newcomer Danny Luckert was impressive.  The way he captures motion, body language and the faces of the characters, these are all elements of his art that stood out for me.  He did a pretty good job on the design of the various ghosts too, enhanced by some really nice coloring by Ivan Plascencia.

I was very happy with this debut issue.  If the main protagonist Sarah McAllister wasn’t likable I’d have enjoyed this a lot less, fortunately Chitwood has crafted a great character that I got quickly invested in. We spend most of the first issue inside Sarah’s head and we get to know her and this post-apocalyptic world pretty good from her narration.   We get a larger cast as the story moves along and characters start to band together so I’m interested to see how the story will develop as we move on beyond #1.  Red 5 puts out some great comics and the gems they publish often get overlooked in the mass of product put out by the larger publishers.  As for Haunted, I’m on board for this 4 issue series and looking forward to issue #2.

Reviewed by: Bob Bretall
(bob@comicspectrum.com)
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