Hello, my friends. The Summer winds have ceased for the year and in their place, there’s a familiar chill creeping in. As the leaves begin to fall, costumes get purchased & prepped and the Spirits of Old get ready to soar once again, it can only mean that the Halloween season has returned. On that note, it’s time for a certain kind of randomness to get resurrected as I welcome you all back to my…
Back in October 2018, I introduced this concept in order to mostly review anthology comics that all had a looming theme of horror. In said month, I checked out the three short stories within the sixth issue of Shiner Comics Group’s signature series, a trio of tales where an overarching evil went up against three different superhero groups over different time periods and numerous narratives told by several Arkham inmates while they waited for their chance to escape from the infamous asylum. I would close out said month by reviewing a two-issue mini-series that tied into a table-top board game, but we’re going to make a tiny tweak for this month. It’s going to be nothing but Horror Anthology comics for October 2024 as I declare these five combined weeks as an “Oops! All Anthology” Edition. First up, we’ll be venturing back into the world of WildStorm in order to see the kinds of terrors that can lurk within its walls.
Released in October 1995, “WildStorm Chamber Of Horrors” would actually be the 64th best-selling comic book for the month, although it’s unknown how many copies were purchased within said timeframe. As for the certain kinds of horrors that’re lurking within its pages, let’s venture into this chamber and find out.
We open on our first tale (Story: Ron Marz, Layouts: Bernie Wrightson, Finished Art: Alex Bialy, Colors: Lee Ann Clark, Computer Colors: Ominous Color), which focuses on Reno Bryce a.k.a. Warblade as he visits his parents’ grave. He apologizes for not visiting them often, even though he feels responsible for his folks losing their lives at the hands of an alien race called the Daemonites. Just as he asks for forgiveness, his parents suddenly emerge from their graves as animated corpses before he asks them why they’re doing this to him. They tell him that he let them die, to which Reno says that he tried to save them but couldn’t. Suddenly, his zombie parents transform into Daemonites as Warblade engages them while also blaming them for killing his parents. However, he’s unable to cause some significant damage to them while they continue to blame him for the loss of his folks. Ultimately, Reno admits that he can’t defeat them since he’s unable to atone himself for his own failure. The Daemonites then tell him that he should’ve died alongside his parents and that even though he’s been seeking his own demise ever since the incident, he’s actually been avoiding it. As such, they convince him to surrender before they mutilate him.
Fortunately, it’s then revealed to have been a nightmare as he wakes up in the Smithsonian and tells his recurring dream to a fellow teammate named Kenesha a.k.a. Savant. She assures him that they’re in the museum and that it’s actually good that he dredged this up since it’ll be helpful in exorcising it all from himself. From there, they make their way back to their private celebration as it’s soon revealed that a Halloween party is being held by the superhero team known as WildC.A.T.S. (Covert Action Teams) within a private wing of the Smithsonian while the rest of the museum is having its own promotion. She then mentions how because Warblade had revealed his personal scary story from his own consciousness, she asks her teammates if they have something “better” to share. Ultimately, the team’s diminutive founder named Lord Emp has a tale to tell, particularly one that saw him on a weird venture while he used his alias of Saul Baxter.
From there, we transition into his yarn (Story: Steven Grant, Art: Trevor Scott, Color: Gina Going, Computer Colors: Ominous Color) that takes place on Halloween night. Emp says that he was in Los Angeles in order to secure “some lucrative aerospace contracts”, yet he also mentions that he hasn’t been on a date for over half-a-year. As such, a friend of his from Hughes Aircraft would ultimately set him up with a tall woman named Lola. He would introduce himself as Jacob (since he also has an alias called Jacob Marlowe) before she went back inside to make some final preparations to her hair with some hairspray. While she does so, Emp narrates how she wasn’t much of a talker, yet he wasn’t there to engage in conversations. From there, they head out on their date where they proceed to do some dancing and fine dining. Eventually, they drove out to a cliffside view of the city where he proceeds to kiss his way up her arm before reaching her neck. Suddenly, she speaks to him about some “danger” and that she needs to go home. As they head out, he narrates about how her voice weirdly sounded like “insect legs skittering”, yet he knew that something had spooked her. Just then, a police car pops up and pulls him over as they suddenly draw their guns while ordering him to get out of the car. It turns out that a psycho killer was hiding in the back seat with an axe as the officials manage to shoot him down.
After they arrive back at Lola’s house, Emp narrates about how she wasn’t remotely phased by that recent ordeal and that she purposefully left the front door open for him. He decided to prepare some champagne as they share a drink before he leans in for a kiss. Suddenly, she forces her lips onto his before he forces her off and spits out some spiders. It turns out that she had some arachnids oozing off of her as he uses his psychic power and causes half of her head (which turned out to be “a desiccated husk”) to explode. However, she’s still standing and is blocking his only way out as he’s forced to hide within a nearby room. However, he discovers that she’s had past dates that wound up as her victims to her hungry spiders. Lola then smashes her way through the door in order to get him, but Emp still had his cigar lighter as he grabs one of her hairspray cans and uses them to set her on fire. She and her house would begin to go up in flames as Emp manages to jump through a window in order to reach his car and drive off. From there, his concludes his tale by sharing something that he learned later on from a coroner. Specifically, Lola had swept her hair up and kept in place with hairspray while never washing it, which turn out to be the spiders’ habitat as they ultimately ate their way into her brain and intelligently worked in conjunction in order to operate her body. As he wonders if they’re other spiders like the ones that he came across, he vows to never go on a blind date ever again.
From there, a fellow WildC.A.T.S. teammate named Lady Zannah a.k.a. Zealot says that his story was “cheerful”, yet she doesn’t find a tale about “bugs” scary. As such, she decides to weave her own spooky yarn about someone whom she would ultimately become “entangled” with as we move into our next tale about the immortal sorceress known as Tapestry (Story: Merv, Pencils: Jason Johnson, Inks: Chris Carlson, Colors: Monica Bennett, Computer Colors: Ominous Color). We begin in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692 where the Salem Witch Trials were rampant. We then focus on a pair of children named James and Beth as the former leads the latter down a wooded path that they’ve never been on. She tries to tell him that they’re not supposed to be out here this late into the day, especially since she a cold. He then notices some quicksand before they both catch a flash of light from beyond the bushes as they hide in order to see what’s going on. They soon spot Tapestry with her own coven of witches as she has plans for them and their takeover scheme, starting with the town of Salem. Unfortunately, Beth’s cold gives her & James’ location away as her sneeze attracts Tapestry and her witches.
The kids are soon forced to run away while the coven pursues them in order to prevent them from ruining their plans. With the sinister ladies gaining on them, James and Beth work their way past the quicksand while one of the pursuing witches runs into it and starts sinking into the soft earth. Although two of her fellow members manage to pull her out, Tapestry berates all three of them for being outsmarted by children and punishes them by pushing them back into the quicksand so they can sink to their deaths.
After James and Beth manage to fend off two more sinister ladies by smacking them with a tree branch with enough force to send them into a nearby river, the kids manage to get back into town and warn a fellow citizen named Mr. Burn about the pursuing witches. Although he initially doesn’t believe them, he soon spots Tapestry and her coven heading right towards Salem. With the witches now being forced to speed up their original plan and just take the town by force, the kids were able to warn the local stable master in time along with several other citizens. From there, the men were able to arm themselves as a massive scuffle ensues. In the end, the coven lost and were placed into the local witch trial where they were all found guilty and sentenced to be hanged. Later, James and Beth see the swaying corpses from their bedroom before they’re suddenly met upon by Tapestry. While she says that she’s not here to kill them, she does tell them that she’ll let them grow up before she finally makes them suffer for ruining her plan. From there, the story ends with her warning the kids that she’ll be watching them and that when they least expect it within their sleep, she’ll finally strike as she takes her leave while the kids become stricken with fear.
We then move into our last tale for this comic as Savant describes her yarn as “a spooky story and a history lesson all in one” (Story: Jeff Mariotte, Pencils: Tom Raney, Inks: Al Vey, Colors: Gina Going, Computer Colors: Ominous Color). Taking place on the Caribbean-based Island of Isla Verde in the early 18th Century, she was actually alive back then due to her Kherubim Physiology granting her immortality as she explains that she was looking for a pirate named Henry Fletcher. By the time that she was able to reach him however, he was being hanged for his “merciless raids”. She explains that he initially came to the island ten months prior and somehow lost his ship known as The Talon. He was then able to elude the island’s governor for several months before he was caught & hanged, while she arrived six days too late to prevent his grim fate. It turns out that she was after a prized possession of his called the Pirate’s Mirror, but she now had to do some investigation in order to find it. As such, she makes her way to the local jail in order to meet up with Fletcher’s first mate named Edward Bean. She comes across a guard on the other side of a locked door before she uses her super-strength in order to pick him up by his shirt, takes his keys and tosses him aside before letting herself in. She then meets up with Edward who warns her that the mirror is cursed. He explains that it lets you see yourself in a very good state before lethal dread falls upon you. Captain Fletcher looked into said mirror and saw himself as a rich man, yet he wound up within the hangman’s noose. It was also owned by the Duke of Provence where he and his wife had been feuding with each other for several years. When he looked into the mirror, it showed them together as a loving couple, but the only permanent kind of closeness they would achieve was when they wound being caught and decapitated back-to-back. Finally, one of Fletcher’s shipmates named Kenny looked into the mirror and saw himself wielding his captain’s prized sword. When he attempted to claim said blade as his own, Fletcher instead used it to stab him. Despite Edward’s warnings, Kenesha says that she doesn’t believe in its superstitious claims as she lets him out in order to get properly guided towards the mirror’s location. As they approach a seaside cave, Bean explains that the mirror was created by sorcerers within ancient times. Since the locals kept bothering them about their desires for wealth, they made the mirror into confounding others. Savant then narrates about Edward also mentioning about the mirror being forged from “graveyard sand, bone shavings and ashes of people they had burned”. She mentions how back then, she didn’t care about how it was made and that she was only interested in adding it to her collection. They ultimately arrive at the Talon as Bean explains that they sailed into the cave in order to avoid a Spanish warship. They had entered while the tide was high, but the vessel wound up grounded once it receded.
She then makes her way onboard by herself before she comes across the mirror covered in a sheet. She does mention Edward’s warning about the ship being left to rot for a whole year before she unveils the mirror and sees herself surrounded by lots of wealth. She stood there for a long time enamored at the mere sight of money surrounding her, completely forgetting about Bean’s cautious reminder. Soon enough, the rotted floorboard gives out under her weight as she, the mirror and lots of gold pieces fall through several floors. She ultimately finds herself wedged within the ship’s hull as the water started to rise. With a grim fate awaiting her, she thankfully had the mirror to help her out once enough seawater poured in as it was able to be buoyant, allowing her to pull herself free and float out of the crumbling ship. With Savant’s story completed, a fellow teammate named Priscilla Kitaen a.k.a. Voodoo then asks about what she did with the infamous mirror. Kenesha explains that its frame became weakened as a result of the whole affair, so she decided to shatter the mirror. Afterwards, another teammate named Adrianna Tereshkova a.k.a. Void asks her if the mirror’s own inherent evilness will live on within its shards. And so, the overarching story ends with Savant explaining that they’re all drinking out of them since the shards were collected and molded into their goblets before she warns them to not look too closely into them since they “might not like” what they’ll see.
Before I close, the comic technically has one last drawing called “The Lone One”, with its pencil work being done by Jeff Rebner and its inking handled by Richard Friend. There’s not much to say about this, so I’ll wrap it up by mentioning that it’s an interesting image of what looks like a native.
Overall, this entry is full of 1990s-style action while being somewhat light on the necessary chills. As I discuss each short story within this issue, keep in mind that I’m only partially familiar with this superhero team. As such, I’m mainly giving my thoughts as a semi-outsider coming into this fresh. Warblade’s story sees him grappling with his own self-guilt as he feels responsible for not being able to save his parents from the Daemonites. With this ultimately revealing itself as a nightmare, he’s not able to let this sin from his past go and he gets consumed by the metaphorical representations of his self-remorse. As this is all thankfully a dream, it’s possible that it’s been a lingering issue for him within the mainline series that he has yet to conquer. Out of all of the presented tales, this one has the most physical horror due to it starting out as a zombie narrative before the shift into a sci-fi horror-esque tone. Even though there’s lots of gradient backgrounds in this part, the brief action is still presentable, and the inking never becomes overwhelming to the point of incomprehensibility. As such, it starts the comic off on a good note. Once the narrative structure gets established, we have Lord Emp’s story in which he deals with body horror from whom he assumes to be his date but turns out to be a bunch of sinister spiders operating an empty husk. The obvious clue that something isn’t right with his woman is that she’s not much of a talker. There’s also another detail that isn’t as consistent as it necessarily should be, but it’s still worth mentioning. In several panels, her eyes are blank white. Of course, there are other times where she does have pupils, and you could chalk this up to the art style of the time for making this notable feature come-and-go. However, the true horror comes towards the end once Emp discovers what he’s gotten himself into before his quick thinking helps him survive this ordeal. While it is a shame that this situation seems to have soured him on the whole blind dating scene, there doesn’t seem to be much in terms of personal growth for him to go through here since this incident occurred during an early part of his life. Even still, this narrative moves as a brisk pace while allowing its readers to take in its major plot points. Despite the artwork reminding us of its style from this era, it’s still presented very well as it builds itself up towards its true horror intentions within its second half and allows another notable character to shine in a wonderfully effective way. Moving into Zealot’s tale involving Tapestry, it neatly uses the backdrop of the Salem Witch Trials to deliver its Colonial America Era-based story about a pair of children who come across and ultimately outsmart some witches. The innocent kids are instantly presented as wholesome and likable while Tapestry’s coven served as a threat that could’ve become a true terror had they not been so easily discovered. She doesn’t necessarily get her hands dirty once the children discover them and dash back to their village, since she’s surrounded by potentially powerful witches under her command. However, this scheme proceeds to crumble apart for the immortal sorceress as she’s forced to rework her plans in some other fashion while threatening those same kids for ruining her initial machinations. The presence of dark magic is what gives this narrative its horror vibe, but the witches don’t really use their magical skills to really hamper the children’s unintended attempt at foiling their scheme. However, the final scene involving Tapestry’s down-the-road threat does end it on a good sense of looming dread. The narrative moves at a quick clip in order for the intended race against time to have a solid feel. As for the artwork, it’s not as extreme as the prior story. Sure, the moments of people have their mouths wide-open can get a bit too angular at times, but the tale succeeds with its protagonists venturing into the unknown (just like America was back then) and there being something of a loss on innocence with what they find & ultimately get themselves in. As such, it’s another effective entry for this book. Finally, we have Savant’s historical quest to acquire a cursed mirror. Its horror ultimately has a “Tales From The Sea” vibe to it and the fact that we have a Western Hemisphere society that’s mainly established, yet not fully grasping the unknown is what lends itself to the genre. The only motivation that we get for why Kenesha wants to acquire this artifact is simply because she would like to include it into her collection. The mirror’s tempting reflection does lead her into her biggest peril, yet her ironic rescue would come in the form of the same mirror that lured her into her predicament once enough ocean water poured into the doomed ship. While she ultimately does succeed in her initial mission and manages to bring the mirror back to her place, its weakened frame made her incapable to retaining it within a proper state and thus, she smashed it up and reformed them into the goblets that her teammates’ glasses. If there’s any lesson that can be taken from this, then it’s to not let your tempting desires get the better of you. Other than that, this narrative is basically boiled down to a simple treasure hunt with a bit of a chill coming from the grim fates to anyone who looked into said mirror and was tempted by its eye-pleasing lures. Out of all of the stories within this comic, its artwork looked the most professional and had the right balance between its colorful palette and the peril-filled plight within its second half. Aside from the complaints that I’ve made for each of its narratives, there is one last thing to nitpick on. Despite its horror themed cover, it shows Michael Cray a.k.a. Deathblow on it and he’s nowhere to be found in this comic. Such an odd choice to have a notable WildStorm figure within an eye-catching image for buyers to see, yet he’s not included anywhere in its pages. Despite some its faults, its strengths are still strong enough to make this a pleasant read and it worth entering this chamber to check out. As for the next horror-themed anthology based comic that’ll catch my critical eyes, check back next time as we keep the review party popping for every past, present and future soul to behold.
WildC.A.T.S. (created by Jim Lee & Brandon Choi) is owned by DC Comics, while the comic was published by Image Comics & WildStorm Productions.
