Bruce & Jeff Haas are a father and son writing team that have brought Nightmare Patrol to life as an all new supernatural superhero team aim to face evil head on.
The group itself is made up of a Werewolf called Poe, a vampire called NightCorpse (hands down my favourite character, I’d read a solo on him any day), a Witch called Hester Mathers and The Golem, a Hulk-like behemoth – they make up a military team unlike any other they may have pulled together before. They’re the group you call into action when a zombie like army are preying on a town of army families and that’s exactly what they get to face off against in the form of Legion.
They’re current mission plays out with the usual twists and turns a new team gets with equal part success & failure but there’s no denying the group dynamic works and as we see their initiation into the team interspersed with the main plot it gets a bit confusing as the timeline jumps around in that first issue. By the time we reach the second issue most of those kinks are evened out and although we get more flashbacks to some origins the pace is much slicker as it eases into the half-way stage of its 4-part run.
Bruce & Jeff keep the story running at a fairly hectic pace but that only helps the team gel and the humour slip in and out of the situations much more naturally. That all helps with the team building of our main characters and they do eventually fit together as a cohesive unit in the end…..if anything, it’s a refreshing approach to see them mess up along the way.
The art style changes between issues one and two as JC passes the reins to Frankie B Washington and while they have very different styles the initial jarring change is brief because the colouring by Mae Hao & Lettering by Zen merge with the Haas script to maintain the same momentum and pace. Not sure which style I prefer but the whole team feels like they belong together so the story doesn’t suffer.
It’s more supernatural than superhero in the end but that’s still a welcome change and the evil they face doesn’t come across as another horde of mindless zombies as Legion has a firm idea of its goal and it avoids the pit fall of being yet another comic about zombies. Instead, it focuses on the team and it ends up being a fast-paced, fun return to the days when horror comics were a unique blend of gruesome & giggles. Great start and definite progress with the title across these two issues and here’s hoping we see the next two released soon through Vector Comics.
Head over to the Nightmare Patrol Facebook page to keep tabs on what’s next and check out Comixology to get your hands on the issues themselves.
7/10
G-Man
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