Wow.  I thought it was going to take six issues, but instead here is Haunted City going balls out and leaving my jaw on the floor.

The comic is already showing what I was hoping this series would be.  It is a story of the city, past and present (could be future too, but we wont know until later).  It is a story of families and neighborhoods.  The decisions of the past are affecting our characters today in ways they don’t even know.

Tom’s dad, way back in the Civil Rights movement, walked the streets as Sergeant “Iron” Mike Whalen.  The odds could be twenty against him and yet he and his partner Officer Rudd fought back.  They found the child killer, but at what cost?  So much is implied in this issue.  Voodoo gods, protection spells, magic handcuffs and why the hell don’t we see Officer Rudd’s head?!

Tom is in the present, running from Internal Affairs and drug runners who are owed some cash.  Usually this would be enough to screw up anyone’s day.  But when the drug pushers are werewolves your problems have magnified.

Also magnified is my love for this comic.  I love comics (and books and TV, etc) that are about world building.  Harry Potter is its own world, the Marvel or DC Universes.  Haunted City will be that kind of story.  With 8 million people in the City (give or take) there is no end to the nightmares that they could unleash.

The werewolves are the most frightening since the original Howling, the Hoodoo Man is going to haunt my waking hours for years, and the Morrigan is still there corrupting and killing children.

Haunted City is a buy the day the comic comes out and start reading it at the counter.  Maybe finish it in the car.  Then run back into your local comic book shop and talk about everything that happened with the other comic people intelligent enough to read Haunted City.