May 12, 2009

Stuff That Doesn't Suck - by Steve Wik

Haunt Comicbooks

Okay, this time I’m kinda breaking with tradition...
a little hopey-changey thing that I guess could be called: “Stuff that kinda sucks, but is somehow entertaining anyway”.

This time around, our cultural microscope is focused on Haunt, the latest dark, ultraviolent superheroTM comicbook-soon-to-be-collectable-toyline thingy from McFarlane Inc. Stripped down to it’s barest essence, Haunt is basically scary-murder-spider-man. Which is admittedly already kind of cool. Instead of webs, this guy’s got some sort of ectoplasmic jizz spurting everywhere.

The ecto-spunk does all the things Spidey’s web goo does, while also slicing dudes to bloody rags which makes it completely awesome. Rob Liefeld’s career is jealously rolling in its grave right now for not having thought of ectojizz.

To be honest, I read the first issue and thought: “LMAO -that was complete crap!” But then I remembered that I’m perversely entertained by complete crap. (That’s right, my favorite movie of all time is Death Warrior. If you’ve never heard of it, that’s because you’re either lame, didn’t grow up in Turkey, or you never let me choose the film for drunken movie night.). Anyway, five issues later the thing has actually grown on me and I think I’m going to stick with it for awhile. Plus, at this point I’m kind of thinking the cheese factor may just be intentional.

Adding Greg Capullo as full-time penciller with #6 didn’t hurt my decision-making process either, ‘cause I loves me some Capullo art. Like I always say, Capullo is like McFarlane, if McFarlane could actually draw. Zing. Thank you folks, I’m here all week.

(And if you think I’m being too hard on the Toddmeister, just take a look at the cover he drew for issue #6. Click and look at it all largified. I dare you.)

Now tell me what the fuck is going on with the MC Escher moebius perspective on her left hand and the crate. Not to mention the overall “I learned how to draw women yesterday” awkward pose and face effect. I think Billy drew the strip that month. The rotting corpse of Rob Liefeld’s career just girl-shrieked with vindication.)

Frankly, the many, MANY annoying variant collectable foil/sketch/jizz-soaked/butthole-scented-scratch-n-sniff covers are the best part of Haunt, but the allure of the cheese factor in the story department should not be underestimated. While it’s lacking in any real literary nutritional value, it’s laced with enough fanboy panderiffic MSG to make you spontaneously grow five more heads and arms so you can enjoy all the variant covers at the same time while bad-touching yourself. Though really, if they had wanted absolute marketing perfection, they should’ve made Haunt a hot chick with giant bewbs, squirting ectoplasm straight into the viewer’s eye. But I digress…

The story (written by Robert Kirkman, who seems to be pretty popular these days despite the fact that he comes up with character names like “Amanda Kilgore”) revolves around two brothers; one, a tainted priest with a taste for the ladies of ill-repute, the other, a badass covert government operative who kills because he cares too much.

Anyway, operative boy arbitrarily executes the scientist he was ordered to rescue when he sees the deplorable experiments the guy’s been running (which appear to have something to do with randomly growing huge tumors all over small children. Don’t worry, this never factors into the “plot”, so don’t think about it too much). He just assumes his covert government handlers weren’t aware of these atrocities and will totally understand when he gets back.

Later, he’s beaten, tortured, murdered and his dick is cut off (no, I’m not making that up) by seemingly unrelated covert goons who are looking for the dead scientist’s missing notebook (sigh, there’s ALWAYS a notebook). Anyway, his ghost appears to his priestly brah, imploring him to look out for his wife (who used to be the Priest’s girl until covert boy banged her out from under his nose, more on that later) ‘cause she may be in danger. And, of course, the bad guys oblige the plot device by politely waiting all this time to suddenly kick her door in. They think she might know where the aforementioned scientist’s secret notebook is hidden. The only thing missing is a chimp and Jackie Chan/ Owen Wilson as the priest/covert bro Odd Couple.

Facing imminent death (because idiot covert ghost bro didn’t think to suggest that maybe they’d need some sort of weapon for when the thugs show up), the brothers arbitrarily fuse together and spontaneously become Haunt, a walking moneyshot with the Lightwave 9 logo made out of jizz on his chest.



The next four issues feature largely nonstop Spider-Man action poses while slicing badguys into ectojizm coldcuts. Meanwhile, Haunt slowly discovers all the stuff that was so obvious to you, the reader, in issue #1, and also the fact that dear departed covert bro has banged every hot female in the book. (-and there are only hot females in this book. –plus one black guy, but he gets pointlessly snuffed in issue #5 like a `Trek redshirt, ‘cause this shiz is edgy, yo).

The fact that this whole production hangs from the single thread of “Spider-Man + McFarlane trademark dark/ultraviolent/occult junk” is clear in several scenes where Kirkman takes some nearly witty jabs at some ubiquitous Spidey-tropes.

For example, in issue #2, when Haunt spews his first verbal smackdown during a fight, covert bro asks him why the fuck he’s talking. [Cue canned laugh track] And really, the whole bro-inside-his-bro’s-head thing is simply an answer to the question: “how do I do the whole Spider-Man internal-monologue-as-plot-exposition-device and make it seem less retarded?” The answer: stick the ghost of his dead brother in there so he actually has someone to talk to! Fucking brilliant, I say. –As long as you forget that Brother Voodoo already did that one in the 70’s. (Then again, it’s not like anyone actually read Brother Voodoo.)

So… yeah. Haunt is actually pretty kewl as long as you’re not expecting anything more than a gratuitously dark violence burger with Spidey seasoning. It’s no Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E., but I’m not ashamed to admit I enjoy it in much the same way as I enjoy the Quadro Gang. Personally, I’m kinda looking forward to the Pr0n remake starring Peter North.

Okay, that Quadro Gang remark was pretty mean and I actually feel bad about it. Here’s a picture of a cute kitty and baby. Feel better now?

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