I really shouldn’t like this series. All signs point to why this should be a bad idea. The designs are by Todd McFarlane, it really just plays like Albino Spawn, and it looks ’90s as Hell. That said, I found myself really enjoying this book. In fact, I was even buying it in single-issue form; I only got the trade because someone gave it to me. Let’s take a closer look at what this series is all about.
Haunt‘s origins stem from a publicity stunt from 2006’s San Diego Comic Con. Robert Kirkman had been evangelizing to creators about the benefits of only working on creator-owned projects. During a panel, Kirkman called out Todd McFarlane, and challenged him to return to comics. Todd had spent the last few years fending off lawsuits, making toys, and playing with his expensive balls. Nobody expected Kirkman to be the one to bring Todd back to the comic world, but Todd later accepted the challenge. Kirkman eventually became an Image partner, but nothing was mentioned about their collaboration for quite some time. Then, Haunt was announced.
Haunt is the story of Father Daniel Kilgore, a Catholic priest who seems to have lost all faith in the church. He’s got a regular weekly date with a hooker. His estranged brother, Kurt, actually stole his girlfriend and married her – the event which initially drove Daniel to the priesthood. That same brother still comes around for weekly confession. You see, he’s a black ops agent who feels the need to atone for the actions he’s forced to take in the field. As the story opens, Kurt is telling Daniel about a recent mission, where a doctor had been conducting genetic experiments on human subjects. While Kurt’s mission was to rescue the doctor, he was so appalled by what he found that he killed the doctor and rescued the test subjects instead. Apparently, the doctor kept a notebook of his experiment, but Kurt didn’t know about it. Unfortunately for Kurt, he’s immediately kidnapped and tortured to reveal the whereabouts of the notes. When it becomes clear that Kurt either doesn’t know anything or won’t cooperate, he’s killed. That’s when shit gets real!
Not only does Daniel start seeing Ghost Kurt, but when they “touch”, Daniel is overcome by a type of symbiote which forms a suit around him. This, in effect, makes him White Power Spawn. With Kurt’s murderers targeting his friends and family, the suit becomes quite the defensive weapon, cutting them down in gruesome fashion. Eventually, Daniel is taken in by Kurt’s former organization, and becomes Agent Haunt. If you’ve ever seen an episode of 24, then you know that every covert organization has a mole, so that gets dealt with. Also, Haunt kills more thugs with his symbiotic tendrils. I won’t spoil all the twists and turns, but the end of the arc finds Daniel quitting the church, and actually looking forward to a life using his new-found powers.
As I said in the beginning, I shouldn’t like this book. Sure, I like Kirkman’s work, but I don’t like all of his stuff. This book, from the look to the subject matter, could’ve come out in 1994. To be perfectly honest, that’s probably why I bought into it to begin with. As we’ve covered in the past, my mom was a bit of an evangelical, and most of my X-Men comics were seen as “demonic”, so there was no way in Hell that I was gonna be able to bring Spawn into the house! So, considering that this, at least from a visual perspective, just seemed like a retread of that idea, I guess I saw it as my second chance.
While Haunt Vol. 1 only collects the first 6 issues, I can tell you that I’ve already read the next story arc in the series. While I enjoy the character of Daniel, I don’t feel like there’s a ton to do with him. I think the problem with a lot of comics is that they don’t know when to quit. Vertigo has a good model where they know that most series are going to top out around 60 issues. This concept could’ve been wrapped in 12. Issue #12 does provide a nice bit of closure to things, though there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight. I feel that the book and characters have pretty much already achieved what they set out to do. Sure, there are always “bold new directions”, but that’s not the best move for every title. I think Haunt is a nice little trip down Image Memory Lane, but it’s only a nice place to *visit*. It’s so derivative of other things that it’s only a matter of time before storylines and characters start to look familiar. Considering that the series was the product of a challenge, I guess it’s only fitting that I challenge them to prove me wrong.
