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Published by: Dark Horse Comics
Released on: Aug. 20, 2014
Writer: various
Artist: various
Cover: Geof Darrow
Purchase at Amazon
Dark Horse re-launches their award-winning anthology series for a third time and other than a couple dozen fewer pages and a monthly schedule, it's business as usual. This issue has 6 stories with a pin-up section featuring The Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot by Geof Darrow that compliments his tale “Terror Comes Forth on the Fourth!!!!!!â€, this issue's cover story. Bug Guy and Rusty do battle with a colossal monster at the most disgusting beach in existence, and no one on the congested sands takes any notice. Not even when Rusty gives them all explicit instructions for a safe evacuation. Darrow's art is just as eye-popping and amazing as usual, and the last panel of the story, a 2-page spread, is frame-worthy. What a fantastic print that would make.
David Mack throws his creative styling into the mix with a Kabuki story which features a series of full-page pieces that are both eerie and beautiful, although it didn't make a lick of sense to this lunk-head. Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse give us part one of “Resident Alienâ€, a tale about Icarus, a purple alien who wears sunglasses and needs to come up with some money to pay off his debts. His best and easiest option seems to be to hit the casinos in Las Vegas. He pays his debts and looks to buy a house.
“Dream Gang†by Brendan McCarthy is the start of a continuing story, where a man stuck in a rut of the same-old, same-old blues falls into a deep sleep and becomes some sort of dream warrior just in time to have to do battle with something not real. Or is it? Yep; that kind of tale. Maybe it'll get better, but other than the vibrant colors of the dream world, it didn't suck this reader in at all. The last tale in the book (yep, went out of order) is titled “Sabretooth Swordsman: Colossal Casuals Crusade†and is by Damon Gentry with artwork by Aaron Conley. The swordsman is traveling the desert and finds an oasis. When a bunch of gigantic beetles steal his pants, he follows them into a temple to get them back. The story was less than engrossing, but the artwork is the star of the piece. Tons of details and little visual gags can be found of you take the time to look and that makes the story well worth spending that time.
Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray scribe a serial yarn drawn by Andy Kuhn called “Wrestling With Demonsâ€, this being part one. A pubescent girl and her widower father are on a cross-country trip to Las Vegas for a vacation together and take a pit stop at an old Wild West ghost town named Copper Creek. The girl Penny goes exploring on her own a bit and gets snagged by a pair of foul and evil hands. Her dad learns quickly where she is and that her being a virgin made her a target for something horrible. It feels like a drive-in type movie that will hopefully last more than 2 or 3 issues. Probably won't though. But this looks like it will be really cool. Think demons and wrestling, like the titles says.
A variety of genres and a variety of creative talent is what keeps this title plugging along. Expect the same satisfying comic book experience that Dark Horse Presents has delivered over the decades, because this third volume continues on that very satisfying path.
