Horror in comic books can be weird, and sometimes very disappointing. On one hand, the limitations of the medium can cripple a good story and stop it from being truly scary. It’s a genre that is dependent on proper timing and sound cues to really scare its audience, which are two things that can’t really be done in a comic book.
However, just because horror comics can’t really be that scary doesn’t mean they’re worthless. There’s a lot of great things you can do with comic books in terms of character design, new ideas for stories and themes, and most importantly there’s a level of creative freedom available to comic book creators that you can’t find anywhere else.
Let’s see if “Phantom on the Scan” #1 can be an effective horror comic.
Written by Cullen BunnCover by: Mark Torres
Illustrated by Mark Torres
Lettered by David Sharpe
Twenty years ago, a comet fell to earth. Since that night, Matthew has been haunted – haunted by a spirit that gives him incredible psychic abilities. But these abilities come with a price…and payment is due.
Every time Matthew uses his gifts, he draws closer to death, and other psychics – all of whom gained their powers on the night the comet fell – are dying in the most horrible of ways. To save himself, Matthew gathers a group of psychics to solve the mystery of their powers before it’s too late.
Matthew has a gift, which is also a big problem. Matthew has some sort of unexplained psychic ability that grants him incredible power, but that gift comes at the price of being haunted by the spirit of a boy he watched drown twenty years ago, the exact same time a strange comet fell to Earth. Fortunately for Matthew, there are people just like him who have special gifts that are going through the same thing he’s going through. Unfortunately for Matthew, there are forces at work with sinister motives, and people like him are also dying in horrible and gruesome ways.
“Phantom on the Scan” #1 is written by Cullen Bunn, who is one of the best and most prolific names in modern horror comics today. The book is very well written and Bunn demonstrates a clear understanding of how a comic book should be paced, how to use images to tell a story with very few actual words, and how to reveal just enough information to the reader to get their interest and leave them wanting more for the next issue. The book is a very good personal story, Bunn understands how to use relatable and natural problems like guilt and trauma to give the supernatural blood and guts weight and meaning.
While “Phantom on the Scan” #1 is a good personal book, it does fall apart a little bit when it comes to the big picture. While the reader does know about the comet, there is barely information given about it, or even if it has anything to do with the people getting their powers. While Bunn is doing his best to make the narrative feel natural and mysterious, he almost does the job too well and doesn’t make what’s going on as clear as it could be. Also, the book does give some hints with a mysterious and shady group of people called the Trellux Institute, but the reader only finds out about them in the plot summary at the back of the book and some strange documents that were added on as filler. It’s not necessarily a bad narrative choice, but sometimes the pain and suffering of the main characters needs clear and proper context.
The art for “Phantom on the Scan” #1 is provided by Mark Torres, and it’s a very good style of art that suits the story incredibly well. Torres draws the characters and settings in a realistic manner with some slight variations that evoke hints of other horror artists like Ben Templesmith, but the inks and colors add two different layers to the finished product that give the book a hazy, mysterious, and spooky vibe. The inks are used to tell the natural world apart from the supernatural events in the book, whenever the regular characters are on their own they appear perfectly normal, but when they evoke or interact with the supernatural elements Torres makes everything go blurry and haywire with inks that feel like watercolor splotches. Also, the design for the ghost in the story deserves special mention because Torres does a great job of making the creature look like a body made out of smoke wisps and something strange and unnatural. As for the color scheme, it’s very minimal but effective. Each page usually only has one or two colors to it, but the colors are muted and unnatural, which do a very good job of providing subconscious hints to the reader that something is very wrong.
“Phantom on the Scan” #1 is yet another solid horror comic from two creators who are very good at this particular genre in this particular medium, and while there are a few things that could be improved upon, these are things that just add to the mystery of the story and leave the readers wanting more.
Final Verdict: 7.9- While Cullen Bunn could have done a better job at world building, it’s still another solid horror comic with a great idea, creepy design, and great characters.
