GUNBREED #1, from Blood Moon Comics on 7/19/23, delivers four tales of Western terror when a good sheriff rises from the dead to defend a cursed town against assorted demons.
The Details
- Written by: Angel Fuentes
- Art by: Ivonne Falcon, Joey Rodriguez, Nahuel Sb,
- Letters by: Carlos M. Mangual
- Cover art by: Hernan Gonzalez, Juan Gutierrez
- Comic Rating: Teen+
- Cover price: $3.99
- Release date: July 19, 2023
Is It Good?
GUNBREED #1 is one of the better horror anthologies you’re likely to find from any publisher, big or small. Old West horror is popular. Old West horror is popular when the hero is just as scary as the villains. And anthologies work best when the connective tissue that strings the shorts together is just as strong as any of the individual shorts. GUNBREED #1 succeeds on all these fronts.
Read through to the next section if you want to know more about each short and the range of horrors in store, but just know that Angel Fuentes has a winning collection on his hands with a strong protagonist in the Undead Sheriff.
Keep scrolling for a closer look at the covers, or Click Here to jump right to the story description with some spoilers.
What’s It About?
[SPOILERS AHEAD – Click here if you just want the score without spoilers]
As with all our anthology reviews, we’ll describe each short in brief and highlight what worked or didn’t.
Soul Search
In the Old West, a murdered lawman dies with too much anger in his heart for the outlaw who killed his son and ravaged his town. The Black Angel of Death makes a deal with the demons of purgatory to bring the lawman back to serve her laws of vengeance… if he can survive the trek out of Purgatory first.
Soul Search is a pitch-perfect prologue/setup for an undead sheriff story. With the briefest of explanations, William (the Sheriff) gets motivation, purpose, and direction with a killer fight against the demons of Hell to earn his badge.
Night of the Breaker Boys
The Undead Sheriff investigates the town’s coal mines, where young boys were used for years as cheap labor. When strange disappearances start happening near the mine, the Undead Sheriff discovers the ‘Breaker Boys’ have returned to inflict pain on a town that ignored theirs.
As with Soul Search, this story is short, sweet, and efficient, but the big bonus is an unexpected twist ending that sets up a villain/foil for the Undead Sheriff in the future.
Wagon!
The Undead Sheriff chases down a wagon coach driven by demons when he hears a woman’s screams coming from the back. The multi-headed demon drives as well as it shoots because it’s too busy arguing with itself, but the Undead Sheriff gets more than he bargained for when he finds out what’s inside the wagon.
Who doesn’t like a little humor in their horror? This short has the weakest art, but the most bite and personality from the demonic drivers. Plus, the twist is super intriguing.
A Full House of Gods
The Undead Sheriff crashes a card game between the four gods of death. The winner gets territorial rights over the living world. The Undead Sheriff isn’t about to let that happen, so he enters the game with an ante far more valuable.
This short is all about the twist in that the game isn’t what it seems, and you won’t see the outcome coming. Fuentes does a bang-up job setting the stage for the card game, and the twist is perfectly executed.
Keep scrolling for a closer look at preview images of the internal pages, or Click Here to jump right to the score.
Final Thoughts
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GUNBREED #1 delivers four tales of Old West horror when a righteous sheriff comes back from the dead to protect his town from the monstrous evils born of a curse. Each short is well done and sets up the possibility for more stories in the future, and the art is mixed but generally good.
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