Ya’ll know about the movie Nightbreed, right? It was all based on this book, Cabal, and many of you mutants and freaks (like me) found great comfort in the story of misunderstood ‘monsters’ living a peaceful existence in Midian until hunted down by a couple of monstrous humans. It’s basically apre-cursor to the whole ‘fractured fairy tale’ genre thing that hit the ’90s and resulted in the entire millennial generation coming to be, but you can’t really blame Nightbreed for that, and I’m digressing.
Anyway, Clive Barker made the movie, and it kinda failed but didn’t to us, because we loved it and found hope in it. Voila! The history of Nightbreed has been taught by Simply Jackm and we can move on . . .
. . . to the comic book Nightbreed, just released by Marc Andreyko (writer) and Piotr Kowlaski (art). Our boy Marc is all famous and shizzle for ‘What Is It That Disturbs You, Stephen’ (Doc Strange), and a bunch of other stuff. He’s good – I like him, because he can be slightly twisted and doesn’t like you (the reader) to know what happens next. Piotr has entered the scene with a bang, jumping into Marvel and other publishers with titles like, Marvel Knights Hulk and Age of Ultron’s What If. Good stuff. Overall, this is a team with some real street cred.
The story takes us back in time to the 1940s (Boston) and 1850s (Louisiana) – here are two divergent stories that have some similarities that will definitely converge at some point.
Back in Louisiana, we have a couple of escaped slaves being chased through the swamp by some slave owner jackasses. One thing leads to another, blah blah blah Peloquin and voila . . . a story rife with revenge, nastiness, and a very loose end, which we’ll undoubtedly see more of in #2.
Up in Boston, our squeaky clean senator seems to have a bit of thing for Weiner/Spitzer entertainment with an edge . . . specifically lots of sharp edges, and maybe some teeth, claws, and nudity. We don’t see more than an intro here, but the character that our Senator seems to like so much – who you only see in one frame – is quite visually compelling (and not only because she’s naked – although that helps).
So, this issue is basically just one big teaser. Gotta buy Issue #2 to get any closure or even much of a plot – but the character from our Senator’s story looks like she’s got a HELL of a story, and Peloquin and his new prodigy promise to give us old folks trying to relive our youth a cool walk down memory lane.
What this all means? If you saw the movie and loved it, reading this comic is a moral imperative. If you like the story of the monster [and why he’s actually (mostly) innocent], then you gotta read this thing. If you aren’t either of the two things I just mentioned, frankly, I’m shocked you read this review. Go and vote for a Republican, make it rain, or buy a suit and stop wasting your time with me.
