Thoughts

After a slight incoherent ropey start, this issue is when you really get to see what they are trying to do with the title. It’s dark, its striking. It’s also a lot of fun.

The Demon Bear still doesn’t really make any sense – but its giant amorphous monstrous nature fills this issue, creating a large and unsettling threat. It constantly seems on the verge of breaking out the panels, creating a genuinely thrilling danger.

Claremont’s writing is sharper here too. The issue has a single strong focus, and he delivers a growing sense of unnatural threat. Even though the execution left a lot to be desired, you can see why they went for this for the New Mutants movie.

To work though, I think you need a director capable of capturing this unsettling tone, or presenting kids with a danger that is hard to grasp (and, to be fair, a studio willing to back them. Maybe a David Lynch could have pulled it off but it would always be a challenge.

Speaking of directors, we also get another cameo here. It does seem a bit confused – why Hitchcock? As with the previous issue, there’s something jarring about this. Is it meant to be important? Are we, the reader, missing something to explain why he’s here. I know cameos are fun, but in an issue – and an artistic style – that exists to challenge the reader visually and in terms of storytelling, it runs the risk of feeling like the reader has missed something.

But that’s a minor niggle here.

Fun Panel

An image that really shows the title coming together – this is how its meant to work!