Thursday, March 07, 2013

80-Page Thursday: Dark Horse Presents #18!


Another 80-page Thursday, and another DHP: Dark Horse Presents #18, featuring stories from Joshua Williamson, Peter Hogan, Phil Stanford, and more; with art by Victor Ibáñez, Ulises Farinas, Victor Santos, and more.

Captain Midnight starts this issue: a 40's mystery-man character mysteriously returns out of the Bermuda Triangle. The trouble with DHP seems to be that a new serial will only run maybe three chapters, then spin it off into its own ongoing series, so you don't really get to see where it goes here. Crime Does Not Pay, on the other hand, is on it's third chapter this month, but the various plot threads don't seem to have come together quite yet. Then again, Carla Speed McNeil's Finder appears to be the only ongoing serial, but even though sometimes it feels like I missed a chapter, it still entertains.

Ulises Farinas' Gamma starts this issue, and it's like an insane grown-up version of Pokemon--but that's underselling it. Dara Naraghi and Victor Santos' bring "Memories of the Caspian," a short memoir that I wasn't expecting here, but was good. Richard Corben adapts another Edgar Allen Poe poem, "Shadow." Resident Alien returns, although it comes back midstream. A couple of serials like UXB and Alabaster aren't my favorite, but DHP remains a solid package, even surprising sometimes.

1 comment:

Susan said...

Captain Midnight? Wow. I remember reading about him in an issue of Smithsonian magazine nearly 30 years ago (it covered his history, along with pics of various merchandise like decoder rings and toy guns). Never actually seen a story with him in it.