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Flying Over HAUNT

No Fly Zone: Flying Over HAUNT
© Mania

At San Diego Comic Con in 2006, Robert Kirkman stood up and asked Todd McFarlane a question. He wanted to know why the creator of Spawn and the man that brought Spider-Man roaring into the 1990s hadn't worked on a comic in years. After McFarlane danced around the question, Kirkman asked if he would collaborate. Now, three-and-a-half years later, the first arc of Haunt has concluded. Kirkman and McFarlane came up with the story, Kirkman scripted it, and Ryan Otley, Greg Capullo, and McFarlane--pencils, layouts, and inks, respectively--did the art. That's certainly a lot to process and it almost sounds like McFarlane took less of a role than he did, but his inks make the art in Haunt undeniably his. It would have been great if McFarlane took all the art duties, but no one should downplay his work here. If anything, working with Otley and Capullo curbs some of McFarlane's stylistic excesses and maintains a more believable tone. Haunt has some of the flash, style, and frantic look of its 1990s Image forefathers, but Ryan Ottley keeps the tits, guns, and kneepads at a reasonable size. He also draws in a manner less abstract than his work on Invincible. Invincible knows it's a comic book. Haunt thinks it's a low-budget action horror flick.

The art is good and gritty, and it's certainly nice to have McFarlane back. Both he and Kirkman are two of the most important figures in American independent comics. McFarlane created a superhero that became a household name without the backing of Marvel or DC. Kirkman writes with a pulp novelist's eye for storytelling in long-form comics, while never sacrificing quality for flash or expediency. His work rarely fails to please, and there's always something to say about it besides "Shit got blowed up real good." Haunt is a landmark in that regard. Unfortunately, it borrows so much from Spawn and other sources that it becomes a bit distracting, and it only occasionally rises above most action comics or B-movies.

We have two brothers--Daniel and Kurt Kilgore. One's a priest and the other's a secret agent. Years before, Kurt married, Amanda, the love of Daniel's life. Daniel has become a sad-sack who ignores his priestly responsibilities and sleeps with a prostitute regularly. He hates Kurt, but hears his confessions after each mission. As with most agents and military characters in comics, Kurt does the gory black-ops jobs no one else can. Finally, he gets captured and killed after shooting a doctor who experiments on human beings. The doctor had a satchel with a notebook no one can find and everyone wants, including a terrorist named Cobra. Kurt's ghost begs Daniel to protect Amanda, knowing the terrorists will approach her for the notebook. After Daniel goes to her house, the terrorists arrive and Kurt's ghost jumps into Daniel. Haunt is born. You've seen the pictures. He looks like Spider-Man's skeleton and he shoots something like ectoplasm instead of web. Lots of bad people die. Daniel goes to the agency Kurt worked for, with his brother's ghost in tow. Of course, they don't believe him, but eventually accept the obvious supernatural explanation. There's more haranguing over the notebook and a lot of blood flies, but you get the idea. It's no huge spoiler to say that Daniel/Haunt ends up working for the agency, setting up the series.

First, the good: the story leaves no life unscrewed. Daniel is a self-loathing, hooker-screwing priest. Kurt is a secret agent with a distant, emotionally barren marriage and a lot of Catholic guilt. Even the terrorist Cobra pals around with two women at the same time in a sort of menage au trois. In The Walking Dead, Kirkman has a penchant for exploring the dark corners of domesticity, by way of making his characters live with their situations on the road during a zombie apocalypse. Haunt is no different. Most of the characters are miserable while living in situations that ostensibly make most people happy. Ironically, Daniel only finds a measure of serenity by bonding with the brother he despised--and doing violent work he once abhorred. Most of the dialogue is snappy and fun to read. And, it's kind of interesting to read Daniel and Kurt's internal exchange when they are joined as Haunt. He's actually two characters in one. It's probably been done before, but it creates a conflict within the character that, one hopes, will be explored later in the series. Kirkman's guiding hand keeps Haunt from going off the rails into straight-to-video territory.

That's where the problems come in, though. It would be unfair to call Haunt a success for Kirkman and a failure for McFarlane. They both outlined the story, and it's good to see McFarlane's striking visuals on the page again. But, the story culls so much from early Spawn and the character design from McFarlane's work on Spider-Man that it's hard to get really excited about it. McFarlane was always a much better artist and marketing gurus than a writer. Spawn is the most successful independent comic of all time, but it was more historically significant than good. McFarlane and the original Image crew showed everyone that independent superhero comics could stand up to Marvel and DC. We here at the NFZ give him a lot of credit for that. But, look at Haunt--we have a law-enforcement/military/special forces/whatever guy who dies and comes back as a supernatural avenger, just like Al Simmons. Spawn had a meter that counted down whenever he used his powers. Becoming Haunt debilitates Daniel physically, even hospitalizing him at one point. And, please try to deny that Haunt looks like a Spidey-Spawn hybrid. He shoots ectoplasm instead of web, but come on. It's not that Haunt is a bad comic for wearing its influences on its sleeve. Plenty of comics do that. But, for the hype and talent involved--and three-and-a-half years of waiting--it should be better. It should be amazing.

When the teaser for Haunt hit the web last year, everyone thought it was a joke. You know--make people think that Kirkman and McFarlane were just rehashing Spawn, then reveal the stunningly original new character? Haunt is not a joke. It's a solid action-horror comic. And, damn it, it's not a superhero book and it has still sold a ton of copies. We don't care what anyone says. But, it rarely soars past its genre roots. It has the look and feel of an '80s or '90s sci-fi action flick, except that it has a supernatural element thrown in to good effect. Kirkman keeps the dialogue engaging and the characters fascinatingly troubled. And, of course, the art is damn good. But, that's all the first arc of Haunt manages to be--good, but not great. As an ongoing series, Haunt should take the time to explore more of the relationships that make it interesting. It's fairly obvious that Haunt may end up literally fighting himself if Daniel and Kurt can't agree. And, now that Haunt is set up as a ghoulish sort of secret agent, hopefully the series can move past the similarities to Spawn's origin into something fresh. Hope springs eternal.

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