Comic Review: Haunt #1

Haunt is a new ongoing series from Image Partners Robert Kirkman and Todd McFarlane. The idea for the series was supposedly spawned at SDCC 2006 when Robert Kirkman publically challenged Todd McFalane to step out of the shadows and create a brand new character, having not done so since the creation of Spawn in 1992.

Created by both Kirkman and McFarlane the series is written by Kirkman, with layouts by Greg Capullo, Pencils by Ryan Ottley, and inks by McFalane.

Haunt is a story about Daniel Kilgore, a Catholic priest, who is haunted by the ghost of his estranged brother Kurt, a murdered secret agent.

The story opens with Daniel leaving money on the bedside table for a hooker before donning his priestly vestments. He then makes his way to church, where his brother Kurt is waiting to give confession. Kurt describes to Daniel his latest mission, which saw him infiltrating a base to extract a scientist who has been performing controversial experiments on human beings. Once Kurt sees what he has been doing to children though, he shoots him dead then rescues all the test subjects.

Back in the confessional box, Daniel tells Kurt to leave, and when Kurt tries to approach him, he blows him off. Kurt then leaves, but as he is crossing the street a woman walks up and injects him in the neck with some sort of knock-out drug. He is then taken to a facility and tortured by people who want Kurt to tell him where “it” is. Kurt claims not to know what they are talking about, so they kill him.

The next scene takes us to Kurt’s funeral. Daniel is there, and he seems to be hearing the voice of his dead brother. Kurt is urging him to keep an eye on a woman called Amanda, who both of the brothers seem to have a history with. Daniel heads to Amanda’s house after the funeral, and agrees to stay on her couch for the night. In the middle of the night Daniel is woken up by Kurt, who tells his to get Amanda and get out of the apartment. Before he can do anything though, two goons smash down the door and start shooting the apartment up. A bullet heads Daniel’s way, and Kurt jumps to push him out of the way, and his ghost transfers into Daniel’s body to create Haunt. Haunt decapitates the goons, and the issue is over.

I had high hopes for this series, but I have to say that I was sadly disappointed. If you are looking for something along the lines of Kirkman’s other series, such as Invincible, The Walking Dead, Brit, Battle Pope, or his recent Destroyer miniseries, then you are looking in the wrong place. If you want something that is derivative of comics like Spawn, The Darkness, Witchblade etc, then this might be just up your alley!

I really didn’t enjoy the concept of the book. Everything in here was just tacky and cliched, from the hooker using priest to the evil scientist conducting experiments on humans, it was all just terribly cheesey. Even the character of Haunt himself looks like a tacky combination of Spawn and Venom! Even Robert Kirkman couldn’t save this terrible title. Gone is the interesting dialogue and great character development seen in Invincible and Walking dead, leaving behind dull and uninteresting characters who you just don’t really give a damn about.

The only good thing about the comic was the few panels when Ryan Ottley’s pencils shine through, but even those moments are sparse, as Ottley’s style is stolen by Capullo’s layouts, then covered up with McFarlane’s inking.

I normally don’t give that many bad review on Hypergeek, but I just can’t find one good thing to say out the book. I had such high hopes for this one too!

Avoid at all costs!