Been There, Done That – Review Of Ferals #2

My comics pull list from last week turned out to be heavy on the supernatural. Lots of vampires, even in the cape and cowl books (X-Men #25, I’m looking at you.), magic, and even werewolves. On the upside, nothing sparkled or seemed designed as an excuse to have some former Power Ranger walk around shirtless, and for that I am grateful. On the downside, it feels as though someone in editorial at many of the publishing houses has decided to milk this trend in popular culture until the resultant stories look like Kristen Stewart after she has been even more rode hard and put up wet.

For example, let’s take a look at what turned out to be the best of the lot in this week’s take, David Lapham’s Ferals #2.

Blood, guts, gore and spoilers after the jump.

Dale Chestnutt is having a bad day. Having spent what he thought was the evening before scoring with a hot, mysterious chick at the local bar, he’s awoken after a five day coma in the hospital with grievous physical injuries. The girl and two other people are dead, with extreme malice. Since Dale had a connection to all three, he is suspect numero uno. He tries and fails to convince the local sheriff that a large animal, like a bear, was present on scene. Predictably, the sheriff does not believe Dale, so Dale has to escape the hospital and go off in search of answers on his own. Oh, and his life threatening injuries are healing at an alarmingly quick rate. He’s eventually tracked down by the local law and incarcerated in a jail cell where the werewolf we all know is lurking in the background attacks the sheriff and all his officers, while Dale watches helplessly from his cell. When the werewolf busts its way into Dale’s cell, Dale fights back with strength he didn’t realize he had in him and scares the monster off.

Nope. We’ve never seen this movie or read this story, or one more or less similar, anywhere else before. Not. So far it’s The Wolfman with some police procedural stuff thrown in, like the obligatory visit to the colorful medical examiner. Ok, so there’s another upside – nowhere does David Caruso put on sun glasses and act robotic. So, there’s that.

Look, as werewolf stories go, Lapham isn’t breaking any new ground here. Why is the werewolf targeting Dale and hurting the people he is close to? Was Dale a werewolf before this particular one decided to throw down with him? Who cares?

If you’re reading this book, it’s because the story is simple and Lapham moves it along quickly, with big, gory action scenes that are viscerally penciled by Gabriel Andrade (Lady Death, Die Hard: Year One). In his November 2011 interview with Bleeding Cool, Andrade said he wanted to “make the Ferals something that would put a real fear in people”. He’s got that down in spades. Look:

Clean up, aisle 2. Bring bleach...and a rocket launcher.

If this comic book were live action and the special effects crew managed to pull that off, that beast would haunt my nightmares for weeks.

So, with a glut of supernaturally oriented books on the market, you could do worse than to pick up Ferals. It’s a straightforward werewolf story with the grotesque and violent action sequences that we’ve come to know and love from Avatar Press books (Crossed, Strange Kisses, etc.). If you’re picking up an Avatar book, chances are you knew what you were getting into to begin with. In this particular case though, come for the werewolf story and stay for the art. Gabriel Andrade is what makes this book worthwhile.