ASTOUNDING WOLF-MAN #2: This also came with the "Director's Cut" of WOLF-MAN #1, which was on FCBD. I strongly recommend people who missed it to grab both, because this is another quirky superhero work from Kirkman. Basically if you like INVINCIBLE and wouldn't mind something simular to that, only with more elements of the supernatural and horror, than this is for you. As a fan of the superhero genre, it has become interesting that after the tacky 90's, Image has become a sort of bastion for old-school superheroics in ways that the Big Two struggle to duplicate in all their rushes to shock value, headlines and crossover events. Businessman Gary Hampton was bitten by a werewolf and naturally becomes a hulking beastie at night himself. However, he is being trained in how to use his gifts for good by Zechariah, a seemingly benevolent vampire. Gary's wife Rebecca (as well as his employee Dunford) knows his curse and is not terribly thrilled with his exploits so far, while his daughter Chole is still in the dark. After escaping the hospital and tearing into some small animals, Gary has spent 3 weeks since #1 training to control his transformations come nightfall, and becomes discovered by the media as "Wolf-Man" after he rescues some folks from a burning building (a now-typical superhero debut action). I wondered whether this title would interconnect with Kirkman's other hero work, INVINCIBLE, and it does in one respect, when Zechariah brings him to Art the Tailor to get a spiffy Wolf-Man costume that even has it's own wolf-esque Thundercats icon and gauntlets that absorb "moonlight" for limited daylight transformations. Wolfy even helps another band of stock superheroes, the Actioneers, in battling a villain named Spore. In some ways the issue ran a risk of becoming too predictable, even if still fun and packed full of action and quirky ideas, and then the final pages, where we see that Gary's control of his werewolf powers aren't complete, that the cliffhanger page spawns on us and removes any fear of this book being too prototypical (let's say the gore on the cover isn't for show). Jason Howard's art is simple yet effective and fits the tones that Kirkman wants for this book, as most of the artists he works with do. I was aboard with this title after the free first issue, and definitely am still interested now. This looks to be a blend of the horror of WALKING DEAD with the superhero pop of INVINCIBLE that so far is another hit from Kirkman. He also lets readers know of the status of the book's returns in the letter's page, and gladly announces the book is here to stay. I'd definately recommend this to fans of Marvel's superhero/horror genre who miss that sort of stuff from the 70's-90's. Anyone who bothered on BLADE for a year should at least give this a few issues.
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