BELLE: HEADLESS HORSEMAN – Review

In BELLE: HEADLESS HORSEMAN, available from Zenescope Entertainment on October 6th, 2021, Belle is confronted by an unstoppable force controlled by a coven of witches out for revenge.

The Details

• Written By: Dave Franchini
• Art By: Julius Abrera
• Colors By: Juan Manuel Rodriguez
• Letters By: Taylor Esposito
• Cover Art By: Igor Vitorino, Ivan Nunes (cover A)
• Cover Price: $5.99
• Release Date: October 6, 2021

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Was It Good?

This is the second horror-themed comic from Zenescope out this week, and it’s just as effective as the first in terms of telling a straight-up, simple, popcorn creature feature. While the exposition gets a little wordy in the last act, there’s a lot to like in this issue.

Belle is following in the footsteps of other Zenescopes heroes by spending a percentage of her books wrestling over how to maintain a proper work/life balance. How are you supposed to work by day and hunt beasts at night without getting burned out? That aspect of each Belle story gets replayed here, but so far, Franchini wisely keeps Belle’s inner monologue from tipping too far towards whining.

Belle’s struggle is real and it makes her character that much more relatable. However, Belle’s stress over being stressed can get a bit excessive in this issue. To keep the character likable, Franchini would do well to find some way to deal with her inner conflict or risk getting repetitive in the storytelling.

Speaking of excessive, the one down point of this issue with the near-wall-of-text exposition from the ditzy coven of witches in the last act. Fortunately, the pace doesn’t slow too much, but there’s a lot of monologuing to explain where the headless horseman came from and the blobs of text hit all at once. You could argue not everyone knows the legend of the Headless Horseman, but this issue, perhaps, didn’t need to go into all the gory details at length.

The art from Abrera is excellent. The action is energetic. The design for the Horseman is the right mix of gory and intimidating. And the colorwork is outstanding.

This is a well-rounded, albeit wordy in spots, comic hitting just in time for Halloween.

What’s It About?

[SPOILERS AHEAD – Click here if you just want the score without spoilers]

Belle practices a speech she intends to deliver to her school’s 8th-grade class when Mel gets a hit on her monitoring system that someone (or something) is beheading local residents. Belle receives the message and suits up to investigate.

Belle finds a woman on the run from a sword-wielding Headless Horseman whose belt holds two heads from recent victims. The Horseman talks through the heads to warn Belle off from his next kill. Of course, Belle isn’t about to let that happen, but she finds the Horseman is unstoppable. Slowing him down enough for his victim to get away and suffering a sword wound for her trouble, the Horseman disappears and Belle heads back to Mel’s place to regroup.

The Horseman returns to his handlers, a coven of ditzy yet malicious witches who command the Horseman to kill whoever they want. When they learn Belle is interfering, they use the blood on his sword from her wound to send the Horseman after her.

Belle makes it back to Mel’s and begins to explain what happened when the Horseman arrives to capture Belle and bring her back to the coven. We conclude the third act with a lengthy recount of the Horseman’s origin, Belle using her listening skills to great effect, and the revelation that the coven reports to a higher… and more dangerous… power

Final Thoughts

BELLE: HEADLESS HORSEMAN put Belle to the test by forcing her to use her mind over her muscle. The action is power-packed and the conclusion opens the door for more conflict with a coven of ditzy witches, but the exposition gets ponderously heavy in the third act. Otherwise, this is a great treat for the Halloween season.

Score: 8/10