Haunt 1. Frères ennemis

Haunt (Collected Editions) #1

by Robert Kirkman, Todd McFarlane

La vie du prêtre Daniel Kilgore n'a jamais été un modèle de stabilité, et la haine qu'il voue à son frère Kurt n'a pas arrangé les choses. Ennemis, ils sont néanmoins contraints de collaborer par-delà la mort lorsque Kurt, agent secret fraîchement assassiné, revient le hanter... Plongés au coeur d'une sombre conspiration, les deux frères s'unissent et donnent forme à une entité appelée Haunt.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Horror, Superheroes, Comic Book, Graphic Novels Comics, Supernatural

152 pages, Paperback

First published April 6, 2010

About the author

Robert Kirkman is an American comic book writer best known for his work on The Walking Dead, Invincible for Image Comics, as well as Ultimate X-Men and Marvel Zombies for Marvel Comics. He has also collaborated with Image Comics co-founder Todd McFarlane on the series Haunt. He is one of the five partners of Image Comics, and the only one of the five who was not one of the original co-founders of that publisher.

Robert Kirkman's first comic books were self-published under his own Funk-o-Tron label. Along with childhood friend Tony Moore, Kirkman created Battle Pope which was published in late 2001. Battle Pope ran for over 2 years along with other Funk-o-Tron published books such as InkPunks and Double Take.

In July of 2002, Robert's first work for another company began, with a 4-part SuperPatriot series for Image, along with Battle Pope backup story artist Cory Walker. Robert's creator-owned projects followed shortly thereafter, including Tech Jacket, Invincible and Walking Dead.

Reviews

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of my good friends didn't like this one, but I thought it was really cool. Maybe it was because I didn't mind that this Haunt character seems a lot like Spawn and Venom all smooshed up together?



If you're wanting something super-original that you've never ever seen before, then this may disappoint you the way it did some of my buddies. However, and this is just my opinion, but I thought it was great. I was pretty much sucked into the story right off the bat, and even though neither of the main characters were awesome examples of everything good and righteous, I liked them both.



Ok, so what you have here are two brothers who aren't on good terms with one another due to some spoilery stuff from the past. One is a badass secret agent who seems at first to be above reproach, and the other is a surly priest who frequents hookers. After Super Spy gets killed, Grumpy Priest finds out that he can not only still see and communicate with his brother, but the two of them can (for some admittedly not well-explained reason) combine together to become this Spawn/Venom hybrid called a Haunt.
Think: Firestorm
Spoilery things happen, and they end up working(ish) for Badass Dude's agency.



There was actually a pretty layered story happening, but I especially enjoyed the stuff between the brothers. The way they circled each other, angry but unwilling to completely cut the other off? It rang true to me because I've seen my boys do it. Often.


There was also a decent mystery that unfolded over a dead scientist's notebook - the thing got the one brother killed. Then you toss in Spy Guy's (now widowed) wife, a deeply embedded and high ranking sleeper agent, a couple of ex (or not so ex?) girlfriends, plus Haunt's weird powers, and you've got a pretty interesting read.



Or at least, I thought so.
This seems to be one of those love it or hate it titles, so I won't be offended if you think I'm wrong.

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story isn't very deep considering Kirkman's run on Invincible and The Walking Dead. It definitely feels like McFarlane came up with most of the story and Kirkman put it all together. It has that same half-baked plotting that Spawn does.

The story goes, two brothers, one an assassin, the other a priest who visits a prostitute once a week, are forced to work together when one dies and possesses the other giving them the power of Venom. There's a lot of over the top, graphic, eviscerating-type violence which the priest never has a problem with. The story elements just kind of conveniently fit together in that 90's era Image way to make the story head in the way the authors want it to go. That being said, the art's great and the run is short so I'll probably read the rest of it.

[David Dalton · Rating 3 out of 5]

This Haunt character looks an awful lot like Spider-Man. But the two characters are nothing alike.
Reading this via Comixology Unlimited. Plenty of action. Not bad overall, and I think I will move on to Volume Two.

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's pretty derivative of McFarlane's Spawn and Venom projects from last century. Interesting story idea, bad pacing, really abrupt and unnecessary corner-turn at the end to set up various possible plotlines. But now that one thread has been tied up, do I really care enough about entirely new, unearned plots to come? The story has wrapped up enough that I have to evaluate whether I want to see more of this writing on its own merits, and I really feel indifferent to it all.

Where's the pathos that Kirkman spent so
much time building into The Walking Dead? Is he just phoning his writing in these days? Wolfman was a trainwreck of bad stereotypes and one-dimensional characters; this feels like there's two dimensions to te characters but still pretty predictable. And sadly, Kirkman throws away the best part of his protagonist by teasing us with a vice in the first couple of pages, and then never allowing the character to be that "dirty" again.

[James DeSantis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Anti-Venom, is that you?

Well this was kind of terrible. It had silly dialog, gore just for the sake of gore, pacing all over the place, a odd plot, and one dimensional characters.

So why did I give it two stars? I think the art is solid, if not a copy of every other comic. I also enjoyed some of the dialog, I know, crazy? The moment in the room with the two brothers about leaving his wife, was well done. Too bad the rest of the dialog isn't nearly as well done.

Overall this is sloppy. It's about a assassin dying at the hands of some secret organization. His brother, a priest, steps in and becomes this new assassin but has a suit like venom. Then lots of blood, cursing, and more blood.

I got all 3 volumes for 8 bucks...it's worth about that much so far. On to the next. Pray for me.

[Münevver · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spider-Man ve Firestorm karışımı gibi gibi. Ama harika bir şey!

[Courtney · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25

[Jason · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is just... just plain awful. The characters are one-dimensional--completely forgettable--& the book is full of "been-there-done-that" structures.

One of the main characters is a self-absorbed cynical/rogue priest who indulges in sin more than tending his flock--sleeping with whores, etc. How original. Tom Judge anyone? How about Jesse from Garth Ennis' far superior books? We discover the priest is seriously flawed because of the fact his brother stole the only woman he ever loved away from him. Here's where the story has its SPAWN influence:

The brother is an assassin for a black ops organization who is killed on a mission. & he's a major asshole. So instead of the assassin losing his wife to his best friend in death (Spawn), the assassin steals the girl, gets killed & the little brother is a priest who can never get the girl because he is a man of the cloth.

What a plot twist. What a completely unoriginal plot twist that we, as readers, should forgive because it's a team-up of two comic greats who brought us THE WALKING DEAD, INVINCIBLE & SPAWN. Bullshit. Crap is crap no matter who brings it to the table. & this book is a big steaming pile.

& to be even more unoriginal, the priest gets a suit which makes him into a Spawn/Spider-man-like character who is limited in the amount of time he can use the suits powers based on the amount of physical/mental energy he exerts while in it. Again, Spawn anyone? Plus he shoots forth a webbing-like substance so McFarlane can draw his highly detailed webs he used to crank out during his run on Spider-man. & he can climb walls, do acrobatics, etc., like a certain wall-crawler we all know. Ugh. It makes one's brain bleed.

& to add further insult to the readers, lets make the priest character have a mind-meld with the dead asshole brother who trains his jerk of a priest sibling how to be a bad ass. The whole sharing-the-body thing just sucks. Yes. I know. It's now obvious the brothers have to get to know each other again & come to resolutions/revelations about each other. Who cares? They're both complete assholes & make you want to not get to know them at all.

Even the supporting characters are complete assholes who do nothing to further the plot, nor make you want to delve further into this legendary comic writer/artist circle jerk.

Not everything Kirkman writes is gold. This book proves that. McFarlane should know better too, but then again he did buy that legendary McGwire home-run record breaking baseball for $2 million only to have it be reduced in value when it was revealed McGwire was on steroids when he broke the record. Todd should draw a big asterisk on the ball.

But I digress.

Kirkman may have brought us some great comic titles which will make the pop-culture history books & Todd has also done the same. You would think the team-up would result in another entry into the legendary realm of comics--not so. What we are left with is two guys who couldn't come up with anything original & just rehashed a lot of story/character structure we've already seen in their comics & others. These other comics did it better because they are better than this crap-fest of a book.

Anyone want my copy? You can have it for free.

[Sumit Singla · Rating 2 out of 5]

I started reading 'Haunt' only because of Robert Kirkman's association with it. I've read a bit of The Walking Dead, Book One and thought it was phenomenal.

However, Haunt is a bitter disappointment. It is the story of two brothers - one an assassin, who gets killed early on in a mission gone wrong, and the other a somewhat shady priest. The spirit of the dead brother returns to fuse with the other one, and together they form some kind of superhero - Haunt.

I haven't read Spawn, but some of the plot seems to overlap with whatever I know of Spawn. Also, Haunt seems to be very Spiderman-like in the way he looks and acts. Overall, I think the plot sucks and is highly unoriginal. I did enjoy some parts of the art though, which is why I decided to add a star.

Not really sure if I'll read the next volume(s) or not. I might just be struck by morbid curiosity (or a streak of masochism) and end up reading it. But, my expectations are really low!

Also, if there is only ONE work by Kirkman that you should read, it would have to be The Walking Dead.

[Alex Sarll]

It's sometimes easy to forget that I didn't really rate the first volume of Kirkman's Walking Dead either - it seemed like a fairly generic zombie story, and only after I was talked into persevering did I come to realise how much of its power was in the cumulative effect. So maybe I should know better than to write off his more recent efforts, like Thief of Thieves and this, after one volume which seems fairly generic. But really, the co-creator influence of Todd McFarlane looms far too large here, as a sulky priest is bonded to his dead superspy brother and becomes, essentially, Undead Spider-Man. Few of the supporting characters get as far as two dimensions, and to add insult to injury, the spelling and grammar is appalling.

[Cale · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's like Spawn is back in all of his ultra-gory detail. This Image 'super-team-up' of Robert Kirkman and Todd McFarlane and Ryan Ottley shows off all of their relative skills - the art has McFarlane's fine details (especially the innards during the over-the-top eviscerations), and Kirkman's surprisingly workable story, taking the tropes of two brothers - one an agent and one a priest, and building an interesting story as the one gets killed and 'haunts' the other; the combined form creating a Spawn-like creature that tears through people like paper. The story isn't Kirkman's deepest, but it does actually build up characters with more than the basest descriptions. So long as you can stomach the gore, and some cheesecake artwork, it's not a bad book.

[Sonic · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not as great as (Kirkman's work in) THE WALKING DEAD had led me to hope for, but it was fun enough for something I got for free from the library.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this more than I expected. Definitely a gritty series. Not for little kids.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reminds me of Spawn..

[Dan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tired and already been done plot...very unoriginal creation.

[Jacob · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's an interesting premise and the artwork is enjoyable. I do give them massive credit on the impressively done sibling dynamics. They really capture the hate/love well on that.

[Trent · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestly, I just don't think I was in the right mood for this. Really awesome, but at the same time wasn't quite grabbing me.

[OmniBen · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Zero spoiler review for the deluxe edition collecting this volume) 3.5/5
I didn't know this series was a thing. I really didn't. It took me by surprise a few months ago when I was trawling through some online comic book website. What, what's that. A Kirkman deluxe edition I've never heard of! And with Otley, Capullo and McFarlane on board, holy shit! Have I just discovered the holy grail? So yeah, I ordered it, knowing little more about it than the roster of it's creators. That said, I've bought just about all of Kirkman's indpendent work in hardcover, but I've only currently read Outcast. I'm saving The Walking Dead and Invincible. I found Outcast to be really good, right up until it wasn't. With Kirkman losing the plot halfway through, throwing away everything he was building for a very unsatisfying downhill slide to it's conclusion. That said, I've always thought him to be a very competent writer, if nothing overly spectacular. And whilst following Alan Moore (the last book I read) is enough to make anyone look decidedly average, jesus christ Kirkman didn't need any help here in that department. All I can say is, he should be grateful he had Otley, Capullo and McFarlane providing the purty pictures on this, because if it had to stand on the writing alone, this would fall so flat it would make your average pancake look positively astronomical by comparison. The guy obviously knows how to put a comic book together, but hot damn is this a lesson in sheer balls to the wall mediocrity. The overall narrative is fine, but the dialogue is dreadful at times. The characters are barely one dimensional, and its filled to busting with your bargain basement comic book tropes. But then again, the guy probably wipes his ass with $100 bills, so what do I know. And despite all that. Despite how badly its written, how badly its executed, I couldn't put it down. There are many better books than this that I could barely be assed reading, but with this, I kept turning the pages with metronomic regularity. Of course, this is almost wholly and soully down to the above artists, with Capullo turning in a performance that made his Batman run look limp by comparison. I've never been his biggest fan, but he actually outshines Otley here. Without the art, it would probably be about as appealing as watching porn with your mother, but hey. All in all, a very, very good looking book, that was surprisingly readable too. I don't think I've enjoyed a worse written book more. 2.5 for the writing. 4.5 for the art. 3.5/5


OmniBen.

[AviChaim Snyder · Rating 5 out of 5]

I honestly don’t understand why this volume has such a low score. I absolutely loved it! Kirkman and Ottley prove once again that they’re a powerhouse team. The writing is sharp, the art is dynamic, and from the very first page I was hooked. The action and drama between the Kilgore brothers were gripping, making it impossible to put the book down.
This arc is a fantastic example of how to introduce a new character, world, and concept without bogging the reader down with exposition. It strikes the perfect balance of action, tension, and fun. My only minor critique is the look of Haunt’s costume; the stark white of the suit and tendrils just didn’t click with me visually. Personally, I think a darker tone, like Spawn’s or Venom’s, would’ve worked better, but that’s more a matter of taste than a flaw.
Overall, this was a thrilling read from start to finish, and I highly recommend it. Grade: A

[Kirk · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is competently written. The art is good. But it is painfully basic at times

We have an underdog, and we have an alpha male who has pretty much slept with every woman in the book, and that is one of the first things you’ll learn about each woman: has the dead protagonist screwed her? Probably.

I’m tired of hyper male narratives. This guy is dead, so I guess it makes it less annoying, but it is still cliche

The plot is your basic espionage/double agent/crime thriller with a paranormal twist.

Our superhero: Spawn, but his costume is white and he has tendrils like Venom or Carnage . . . but they are white!

It is pretty gory, but that has been McFarlane’s thing, and it has lost its shock value at this point.

All of that said, I’d still read another volume for free down the road if I ran out of other things to read. It isn’t terrible. It’s just good enough 🤷🏻‍♀️

[Kris Shaw · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I was sad to see writer/ co-creator Robert Kirkman axe The Astounding Wolf-Man, this is a nice consolation prize. Inker/ co-creator Todd McFarlane is finally back where he belongs: behind the boards! While the day-to-day business of running a comic book company is surely something he must love, the fans just want to see him draw. McFarlane is pretty much the only one of the original Image guys whose work that I enjoy. Erik Larsen, Jim Lee, etc.? No thanks.

While the "hero" of the series, Haunt, reminds me of Spider-Man enemy Carnage in appearance and powers, the premise of this series is different enough for me to give it a fair shake. Super violent and super fun, this is definitely not intended for children.

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

This exceeded my expectations. I know some readers think the character is a little too similar to Spawn and Venom, but it didn't seem close enough to ruin the story for me. There are some unanswered questions, but I suppose those will be answered as the story moves along.

In a nutshell, we have two brothers. One's a priest, the other a secret agent. One dies and his ghost combines with the other to form Haunt, the aforementioned Spawn/Venom character. There's some subplots going on with the brother's pasts and some turncoats in the agency.

Overall I thought this was a strong start. Curious to see where things go from here.

[Frantz Jean-Louis II · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not very unique when it comes to character design at all, because looking at it you see Spider-Man & Spawn fused together. The characters presence & abilities where that of Spawn as well, lucky for them I do love Spawn.

The story line starts with a fragile relationship amongst brothers that crosses a line which no real bothers should cross which is new & exciting. The plot itself was nothing new lost item vengeful soul blah blah, but the series has caught my attention & I will see how this ends that’s why it got 3 out of 5 stars

[Yaakov · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm still undecided when it comes to this series. I think the idea is really interesting, but I'm not quite sold on how it's being done. I believe this is a limited series, so I'm not sure how long this storyline will last, and I think it's definitely a concept that won't last long term (at least not the way it's been handled). I love Robert Kirkman, so I plan to keep reading, but this isn't my favorite of his work by a long shot. Cool idea, but he's definitely done better with Walking Dead and Invincible.

[Kevin · Rating 2 out of 5]

One brother is a priest with many problems. One brother is a special agent of the worst kind living two lives. When the latter brother is killed, his spirit comes back to protect him from the people who killed him by merging together into a Venom-like character called Haunt who is capable of… quite a bit, to be honest.

Does this seem a bit weird and disjointed? Reading it wasn’t much better. It was an odd story that I didn’t care much for and probably will not continue to read beyond this volume.

[Colin · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting and bizarre graphic novel - a priest and his estranged brother, who is an agent for some unknown government agency. The brother is killed, and the priest starts seeing his ghost. In a moment of crisis, they merge somehow, with the brother becoming a sort of ectoplasmic suit for the priest, who goes on to join the agency his brother worked for. The priest and his dead brother form a sort of symbiotic gestalt character, the Haunt. Weird, but fun.

[Tommy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the book. Capullo with good visuals and Kirkman tells a nice story but it's basically a symbiote ripoff story. Only difference is he's merging with the ghost of his dead brother instead of an alien life form. Same mechanism where they have unique voices and can talk to each other and shockingly similar power set. I can't complain too much because a decently told story is still decent and I do look forward to seeing where they go with it.

[Shannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

When a dead assassin/soldier's ghost merges with his estranged Priest brother, you get Spider-Spawn from Kirkman and Macfarlane. It is an over-the-top, bloody, action comic book featuring decapitations, amputations, bullet riddled bodies and foul language. Most of the cliches are here.
It was, however, a decent story with good art.
Not sure why Spawn-Man laughs off bullets but is hurt by knives.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the artwork in Haunt is solid and the action level is compelling, there are a few problems. Haunt makes a lot of jumps in plot and expects you to roll with it. I would have loved a bit more back story on the brothers but I assume that'll come in later issues. I'm just not sure I'll come back to read about it.

[Phil Fillinger · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is how this was written... “Hmm... I created the anti-hero Spawn and everybody loved that, but I need something new... Well I drew Spider-Man for awhile and people loved that, but I need something new... Well I saw this documentary on ectoplasm last night... I GOT IT!!!- Todd McFarlane (Not official quotes, haha)

The above description is really the foundation to this character. If you like the badass Spawn, you’ll probably like this. If you like Spider-Man, especially the symbiotes Venom And Carnage, or even better... Amit-Venom you’ll probably like this. And then the ectoplasm thing which is the basis of the whole character, which to me is unique.

I like the base concept here and the book is violent enough to keep me sucked in. Future volumes add in some more baddies but lose a little bit of the polish and direction shown in this first collection.