The Marked Halloween Special // Review
It’s already been nearly two years since The Marked made a fresh appearance on the comics rack. This October, writer David Hine and artist/writer Brian Haberlin welcome the group of 21st-century tattooed mages back to the comics pages with a big 48-page story that plays with traditional trick-or-treat imagery in a small town. Once Hine and Haberlin’s premise is fully revealed, it’s kind of fun, but the overall stiffness of the action keeps everything from feeling quite as fluidly creepy as it would need to feel to truly live up to its potential.
Rogue’s Night approaches. The Marked know the rules: once every 100 years, the magic of an ancient mischief-maker unleashes dark monsters. If they aren’t all dispelled by midnight, they are free to run around making a murderous mess of things for the next 100 years. This time around, Rogue’s Night happens to fall on Halloween. It’s a game, but it’s not. It’s a game, but human lives are at stake. Rogue’s Night last struck in Cornwall in 1922. The Marked portal over there to begin an investigation that just MIGHT aid them in protecting the world from impending doom.
Hine and Haberlin weave a tight little adventure for the group of mages. A single story in a single chapter that runs for a total of 50 pages might run the risk of opening the story up to too many details that might bog down the rhythm of the story, but Hine and Haberlin keep it tidy from beginning to end. There IS kind of a lot of exposition at the opening of the issue detailing exactly what it is that’s at stake, but once things get rolling, it’s a fun contemporary action horror story that breezes quickly to its end.
The highly detailed art style gives some of the drama an impressive impact. The hazy, mist-covered atmosphere of the background adds a great deal of appeal to the page, but it all feels just a BIT too clean to deliver the kind of natural feel to the supernatural. It’s all a little too precise in too many places. Once it’s revealed, the full potential of the horror that Hine and Haberlin are working with isn’t really delivered. The concept that they’ve come up with for the monsters has the ability to be truly disturbing. Instead, they’re going for a weirdly detailed comic effect that edges over into something darker in an otherwise entertaining action story.
It’s nice to return to The Marked for another 50 pages. The premise for the world of The Marked is fun and stylish. Hine and Haberlin are definitely moving things in a direction that could work on many more levels than the duo has managed thus far. The nearly two years away from the series could have resulted in a fresh approach to the series, but Hine and Haberlin find energy in old rhythms that work as well as they did a couple of years ago.
