Haunt #1 - Review

This title has been highly anticipated to say the least, you all know that. What you want to know is if it’s any good, and judging by other reviews on the net you’d probably be inclined to think this book was terrible, well you know what, I thought it was great. Here’s why:

The two lead roles for this story are brothers who lead very different lives but are both really captivating characters. One is very depressed priest named Daniel Kilgore who seems to have a lot of women issues, firstly for being in love with his brothers girl, secondly as he has a tendency to visit prostitutes.

The other brother, Kurt, is a Special Ops type action hero who gets killed on a mission (during some great action scenes). What we learn throughout the issue is that Daniel is now being haunted by his dead brother who urges Daniel to visit Amanda, whom it seems they were both in love with, as Kurt believes she may be in danger.

While Daniel stays at Amanda’s house it is raided by some nasty looking guys out to kill the girl, they start shooting and the ghost of Kurt merges with Daniel just as he is about to be shot and together they suddenly take on the ghostly monstrous appearance as seen on the cover. Cool stuff.

The idea of this book came from both Robert Kirkman and Spawn creator Todd McFarlane with the actual series being written by Kirkman, with layouts by Greg Capullo, Pencils by Ryan Ottley, and inks by McFalane.

I really like Kirkman’s script, the dialogue is realistic and sharp but the art on this title is the real star, it just looks fantastic. Ottleys pencils especially. It’s also worth noting that this is a $2.99 book but this has a glossier paper that is slightly heavier than normal with a really nice feel and it makes the art and coloring extra bold to look at.

I thought this was a brilliant first issue and I’m definitely on board for future issues, I’m really unsure why it has received such negative comments elsewhere as I think the execution of this book and its creators was fab. It seems a lot of people had problems that the story was not very original and there have been a lot of comparisons to Spawn but I’ve never read a Spawn book so can't comment there. All I know is this book is fun and cool and has action and espionage and really looks amazing. I say sod everyone else and pick it up.

4.5 out of 5