Comics Corner - The Immortal Hulk (2018 - Present)

Comics Corner - The Immortal Hulk (2018 - Present)

One comic that has been garnering a lot of praise recently is Marvel's latest take on the Hulk, aptly titled The Immortal Hulk.  This is partly a fresh approach, but it also serves to turn back the clock to the days when everyone's favorite green behemoth first hit the scene.  Once upon a when, the Hulk was more of a monster that men feared who only became a hero when greater threats arose--sort of like Godzilla in the flicks where he gets to play the good guy.

Writer Al Ewing has certainly cast the Hulk as a creature to be feared in this stellar run, and he has conjured up some wicked threats to pit against the titular character.  Joe Bennett has done a gnarly job of translating Ewing's vision to the medium.  Combine their fiendish efforts, and this book somehow manages to give me the Hulk I crave while seemingly paying homage to the grotesque delights of John Carpenter's The Thing, or perhaps some of Sam Raimi's work when he's in "paint the screen red with blood" mode.  Then there's the icing on the cake: the covers from Alex Ross, who is always impeccable, but has taken things up a notch with these diabolical visions of everyone's favorite raging jade goliath.

With Marvel being known and loved the world over for its playful sense of humor, I feel that people probably underestimate what I and other fans mean when we refer to this as a horror comic featuring the Hulk.  It's not a typical Hulk book with him facing off against a few beasties with red eyes, it runs much, much darker than that.  The Hulk himself is a tortured creature, and he has been dismembered, corrupted, and even taken to hell in the fourteen issues of this title released to date.  He has faced off against some deeply malevolent foes, and the pages have dripped with sinister imagery.  Is it on the same level as Alan Moore's legendary take on Swamp Thing so far as plunging a beloved entity into the very depths of the macabre is concerned?  That's a good question.  Maybe it hasn't gone quite that far, but then again, maybe it has.

It hasn't been as surreal as Moore's work with DC's green force of nature, though it has paused to ask some very profound questions and there have been some metaphysics in play.  I like the way the supernatural elements have been portrayed in a straightforward manner--it's quite unique, somewhat akin to marrying high adventure to the sort of body horror that David Cronenberg is famous for.  Seriously, I'll stand by that.  I have always enjoyed the Hulk, but this direction caters directly to my sensibilities, and I will join the choir in hailing it as perhaps Marvel's finest offering in 2018 and 2019.

In short, if you dig comics, and you like the Hulk, you may well be intrigued.  If you dig horror and you like material with some serious oomph, you too may enjoy this title.  And if you dig the Hulk, you have love for comic books, and you're a horror fanatic like yours truly, this is looking like "can't miss" territory, isn't it?  While there are a lot of good books out there these days, and the last couple of years have been really kind to horror lovers (Elvira, Gravetrancers, Blackwood, Justice League Dark, and The Spider King are among my recent favorites), this is probably the title I look forward to most on my pull list these days.  The hype is real, my friends.  Long live The Immortal Hulk.

Final Grade: A

Short Attention Span Review - Castle Freak (1995)

Short Attention Span Review - Castle Freak (1995)

Like many of my fellow fright fans, I spent Friday night enjoying The Last Drive-In courtesy of the good folks at Shudder* and Joe Bob Briggs**.  Not only did I have entirely too much fun with this resurrection of one of the horror staples of my youth, but I also watched Castle Freak for the first time as a result of its inclusion in a nifty double feature (the first film was C.H.U.D., a familiar favorite that I like a lot, even though Joe Bob was clearly not a fan).  Now, I may have mentioned my disdain for Full Moon before.  I know, I know, that's a Holy Grail of sorts for some of you horror lovers out there, but the studio never really did a lot for me.  With that in mind, I'm pretty sure that I never even noticed that Castle Freak was a Stuart Gordon film with Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton in the lead roles.  After Seedpeople, I avoided Full Moon productions like the plague.  Regardless, that was a mistake, and I'm glad that Joe Bob remedied this situation for me.  Castle Freak is a creepy picture, lean and incredibly mean, with fine performances, quality direction, and a beastie that really made my skin crawl.  Despite the presence of Combs in the lead and Gordon in the director's chair, there was no humor in play, and Castle Freak painted a nasty picture in gruesome detail.  Like most Full Moon features, the budget wasn't an asset, but in this case, a crafty screenplay and terrific work from the cast and crew enabled the film to rise above any limitations.  In truth, while a tale of this variety could never find as much love with a larger audience, I think it sits as a worthy companion piece to either Re-Animator or From Beyond, and it was far more unnerving than either of those beloved oddities from the same diabolical entertainers.  The effects were gnarly, and Jonathan Fuller positively slayed it as Giorgi, who is both a creature to be pitied and the stuff of nightmares.  This isn't one of those fun horror movies where you snicker and lay odds on which dumb teenager will be next on the chopping block, this is a frightening spectacle where everyone involved worked very hard to scare the hell out of the audience.  I rate it as a success, and I'm going to join Joe Bob in hailing it as a superior effort that warrants more attention from the horror community.

*For any horror fan who has yet to subscribe, Shudder is an absolute steal.

**I mean, he's no Elvira, but Joe Bob is great at what he does--and his recent work for Shudder has found him at the very height of his game.  You may not agree with everything he says, but it's a lot more fun to watch one of these pictures with him, and even diehard genre fans like yours truly will gather a few nuggets along the way.

Final Grade: B+

The cast as a whole performs admirably, but it is quite possible that Jonathan Fuller's work as the titular creature is  the key to Castle Freak's success.

Comics Corner - Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (2018 - Present)

Comics Corner - Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (2018 - Present)

Elvira was my first crush.  As a wee fella, I stayed up late one Friday night, and then BOOM!--there she was.  Wow.  I've got goosebumps just thinking about it.  In truth, as a lifelong horror fanatic, my fondness for dearest Elvira and my love for things that go bump in the night represent a legitimate "chicken or the egg" scenario.  In other words, I'm not sure which one came first.

Anyway, the Mistress of the Dark is still my biggest celebrity crush (and my only celebrity crush, truth be told*), and I may just have her to thank for all the joy the horror genre has brought me over the years.  I also dig comics in a big way, so when I heard that Dynamite was set to launch this Elvira: Mistress of the Dark series last year, I made sure to put it on my pull list at Fanboy Comics.  To be quite frank, I didn't know if it would prove to be a solid book (I'm a reader first and a collector second), but I was willing to give it a shot, and I knew it would make for a quality keepsake if nothing else.  Hey, nostalgia sells.

As it turns out, writer David Avallone and artist Dave Acosta have taken this loaded property and ran wild with it.  I am grateful for their efforts; the art is inviting, as it should be, the writing is clever, and the series exists largely as a love letter for both those who treasure horror at large and those who are as charmed by the title character as yours truly.  That bawdy Elvira schtick works as well in this format as it does on the screen, and the tongue-in-cheek approach to the macabre and our lovely heroine's unique assets come through loud and clear.

And the puns!  Oh, the puns!  Puns for days, peeps.  Throw in some classic horror characters and their creators, a diabolical pace, a demented and appropriately snarky sense of humor, and you wind up with a genuine crowd-pleaser that delivers big laughs and big thrills in every issue.  I'm sure the naysayers were expecting nothing more than a big bust, but I am greatly pleased to take this opportunity to rate Dynamite's vivacious Elvira: Mistress of the Dark as an absolute blast.

Final Grade: A

*I'm not counting my man-crush on Michael Fassbender.