Hellraiser: The Dark Watch #1
So obviously this is a spin-off of the Hellraiser title currently coming out from Boom!, the only problem with that is that I haven’t been reading the current Hellraiser title from Boom!. So there is something in this whole situation that I’m missing. A man with liver disease has opened the puzzle box, but instead of the grand entrance of the Cenobites, he is greeted quietly by one Cenobite who proceeds to give him a tour of Hell.
First he is shown The Pit where the petty sinners are held, their only torture being in Hell itself. Moving towards their next destination the Cenobite and the man are attacked by some of those souls, it would seem that Hell is in a bit of upheaval. The former patrons of the Labyrinth are trapped in a some kind of memory loop, and Leviathan has a new army.
At the head of that army is Harry D’Amour, and it would seem that the man knows D’Amour. The man is Marchetti, a member of an order that on the earth fights against Leviathan (and any of the other Hells that dwell in their plane). He has come to assassinate D’Amour, with a magic knife, and a protective talisman, he gives many of the “crusaders” a bit of a tussle. D’Amour has the whole of Hell’s powers at his disposal though, and soon Marchetti is pulled apart, and rendered just another solider in Leviathan’s new army.
Meanwhile back in the real world, the box is found again by a hobo, a group of people want to take it from him (it would seem for his own safety), when he is killed by a evil bone creature. I really need to pick up the monthly title from Boom! and start reading it, so that I have a better understanding of what the hell is going on. As a stand alone this works, but it left me with a lot of questions that I just couldn’t answer and that was a little frustrating. Fortunately there aren’t that many issues of the standard Hellraiser, and I should be able to get caught up at some point. This is a good book (and good looking thanks to some beautiful art from Tom Garcia) that is really engaging (as it is co-written by Clive Barker, and Brandon Seifert from Witch Doctor). I will keep picking up issues of this, and then try and read a little more of Hellraiser proper.
Next Time: Sandman #8
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