Avengers Halloween Special #1

Avengers Halloween Special #1

Originally released in 2018

Written by Rob Fee, Gerry Duggan, et al.

Art by Eoin Marron, Laura Braga, et al.

My original plan for today was to follow up Batman: The Long Halloween with Spider-Man: The Short Halloween, a one-issue story written by Saturday Night Live veterans Bill Hader and Seth Meyers with art by Kevin Maguire.  Unfortunately, even though it's listed on Marvel Unlimited, it doesn't seem to actually be available, as trying to read it keeps bringing up an error message.

As a result, my choice from yesterday didn't have as much meaning as I would have hoped, though I don't mind re-reading that story in the slightest.  Forced to change my plans, I chose an Avengers Halloween-themed anthology, though it's more like a general Marvel-themed anthology hosted by Satana, who's also known as the Devil's daughter, though "hosted" is a generous interpretation - she only appears on the first page. (I was expecting that she'd make appearances between stories, or at least that she'd appear on the last page)

The first story, which involves Daredevil, is probably the most unsettling, as it feels like it could plausibly happen in the Marvel universe.  Matt Murdock is getting surgery to replace his eyes and allow him to see, though one of his enemies finds out about this and takes advantage of it.

Kidnapping the doctor's family, the enemy in question had Matt's eyes replaced with ones that produce powerful hallucinogens through the tear ducts.  Ironically, now that Matt can see, he can no longer tell reality from illusion.  His solution is gruesome and skin-crawlingly disturbing; it's a strong opening to the anthology, though unfortunately, the other stories don't really live up to it.

The second story starts off as though it's set in the early days of the Fantastic Four, though Doom suspects that something is up with their transformations.  Finding the "cosmic radiation" explanation too simplistic and Ben's post-transformation behaviour uncharacteristic of him, Doom thinks that the four explorers were replaced by aliens and attacks the Fantastic Four, killing three of them before other superheroes intervene.  Doom's suspicions are proven correct, though he can't do anything about it.

The third story is clearly inspired by the John Carpenter movie "The Thing", with a bit of a twist in that the shape-shifting monstrosity in question is Captain America.  Cap was used as a biological weapon during World War 2, only to be frozen in Antarctica afterwards.  Tony lost Stark Industries and is desperate for an edge, though he doesn't get what he expected.

The fourth, written by actor Jay Baruchel, isn't a horror story like the others - instead, it combines the Punisher with the Phantom of the Opera, taking Frank Castle's origin and moving it to France hundreds of years ago.

This story and the last one, about kids breaking into an abandoned version of Xavier's School for the Gifted, were just okay.  The last story in particular felt kind of out-of-place in this anthology - it was Halloween themed, but it seemed skewed at a much younger audience than the other stories, which involved violent murder, mutilation, and David Cronenberg-style body horror.

This issue was all right; it definitely wasn't the type of Marvel Halloween comic that I was hoping to read today (I'm assuming the Short Halloween is much sillier, given that the writers were from Saturday Night Live and I mainly know the artist from Justice League International), but it's a different interpretation of the Marvel characters.  It's darker than what I'm used to from Marvel characters, though not to the extent of some Marvel stories that I've read. (or ones that I've avoided - I'm not going to read "Ruins" or "Spider-Man: Reign" any time soon)