Haunt by Robert Kirkman, Todd McFarlane and Ryan Ottley

Hauntvol1-covWorld-weary priest Daniel Kilgore has fallen. Arriving at his church after his usual visit with a prostitute, he is asked to take the confession of his brother Kurt, who works as an agent for a secret intelligence outfit. Daniel listens, grudgingly, more out of duty than love or divine inspiration.

Soon after, Kurt is killed during a covert operation in Bolivia and Daniel finds himself quite literally haunted by his brother. Kurt begs him to look after his wife, who he believes in is danger from the same people that killed him. However, Daniel is reluctant – hostile, really – to do so. He’s not sure of his own sanity, and worse, he was once in love with Amanda until his brother stole him away. He eventually agrees, if only to keep his brother’s spirit quiet.

That night in Amanda’s apartment, just as Kurt had suspected, two hit men appear to kill her and Daniel is quickly overcome (priests don’t get much combat training). In desperation, Kurt’s spirit attempts to enter his brother’s body. As they merge Kurt and Daniel transform into, well, something powerful enough to defeat the assassins and resilient enough to withstand a hail of bullets.

Physically drained and horrified at his brutal actions, Daniel returns to his church, only to find another hitman, Cobra, waiting. Cobra slaughtered the parish priest and Daniel narrowly escapes. Kurt insists that Daniel seek out the organization Kurt once worked for. Upon his arrival, he is drugged and imprisoned, along with some of the people Kurt had rescued in Bolivia, where they had been undergoing some kind of horrific experimentation by a Doctor Schiller. A female prisoner, traumatized and quite possibly insane, tells Daniel that he is Haunt – a spirit caught in the physical realm, bound by blood and unable to move on.

But none of this helps Daniel who now finds himself at the center of a deep conspiracy within Kurt’s old agency. All sides are searching for what is left of Dr. Shiller’s research, none trust Daniel and further blood and betrayal await Daniel and Kurt. And what – or who – is Haunt?

Kirkman (Walking Dead) writes action and violence adeptly – this not a comic for the faint of heart. There are reminders here of other characters like Spawn and Venom. McFarlane drew the 2009-10 series of Spawn and two Spider-Man series in the early ’90s, and those characters’ influence is strong here. If you enjoyed Kirkman & McFarlane’s previous work, and if you’re in the mood for some grimdark action, you should definitely pick up Haunt.

Black Science Vol. 1: How to Fall Forever by Rick Remender, Matteo Scalera & Dean White

BlackScience_vol1-1Across an alien landscape, two people in space suits race for safety. At each turn, they are thwarted. The woman is killed, but the man runs on, clutching a container, cursing himself for his mistakes, his obsessions, that have brought him – and his family – here. A race against time, it seems, to reach the Pillar before it is too late.

This breathless scene opens Rick Remender’s Black Science. Grant McKay, our narrator, does make it back to the Pillar, moments before it jumps. Along with Grant are is two children, teenaged Pia and younger Nathan, his five (now four)-person team of scientists and the man who bankrolled the project. We learn that Grant and his team have done the impossible – punched through the barriers between the multiverses’ dimensions, allowing humans to travel to new dimensions not only to explore, but also to exploit, possibly finding the keys to preserving our species. The method is called black science, and the Pillar is the tool. But the tool has been sabotaged, and now it and its passengers have no control over when or to where they will jump.

Grant laments his hubris and his recklessness for taking his children and his team with him on the first manned jump throughout the story. Each new dimension is as strange as the next, dumping the team into war and circumstance that are truly alien. There appears to be no way of repairing the Pillar, and now that the multiverse has been breached, nothing is certain, especially survival.

Remander’s (Uncanny Avengers, Fear Agent) novel moves at a frenetic pace, the art is both stark and riotously vivid. It harkens back to the era of pulp science fiction with non-stop action and lurid details. With three more volumes already published, this is a great choice for anyone looking for a true science fiction adventure. Fans of “The Venture Bros.,” will enjoy this considerable darker series (and the close similarity Grant McKay bears to a certain winged super-villain).