HUMBABA #2, by Blood Moon Comics on 3/27/24, resurrects Gil and gives him a crash course on the history of the Refuge to stop the annihilation that’s coming.
The Details
- Written by: Ricky Sikes
- Art by: Ricky Sikes
- Colors by: Ricky Sikes
- Letters by: Ricky Sikes
- Cover art by: Ricky Sikes
- Comic Rating: Mature
- Cover price: $4.99
- Release date: March 27, 2024
Is HUMBABA #2 Good?
Previously, we met a Hunter named Gil. He’s out to get a legendary deer in the swamps surrounding the area known as The Refuge. While he’s at a bar, getting a little refreshment, he meets an old woman who kind of comes across as this sort of old crony witch.
She says, ‘I’ve got the perfect bait that’s going to bring that legendary Buck out. And if you want to catch him, put this feed out.’ And it’s called, you know, wrong or different, it’s called witch corn, which should have been a tip Gil should have gotten the hint. But he takes it. It’s called witch corn, and it looks like corn, but it’s kind of funky-looking.
He puts it out, the deer comes along, eats the witch corn, and it mutates and transforms and transm morphies into this sort of bestial monster that’s a combination of deer and tapeworms and bugs and the creatures of the muck and the mere of the swamp, and it starts killing people. It goes on a rampage. Gil recognizes what the heck what happened here. I can’t let this thing get loose because it’s starting to kill people. He goes after it and gives it everything he’s got. But at the end, Gil gets pummeled by the monster, henceforth known as Humbaba.
You think that’s the end, but not because this sort of weird robotic character shows up out of the blue, picks Gill up, and trudges off through the swamp with Gil’s dead body. That’s the weirdest way to end an issue, but there we are.
“In HUMBABA #2, we enter where the robot takes Gil’s body into this strange underground laboratory with this strange underground set of apparatuses and equipment. And there’s a mad scientist character there, and they put Gil back together and bring him back to life Frankenstein style.”
Gil wakes up. He’s like, ‘What am I? Where am I? What’s what’s what’s going on with my body?’ He doesn’t stop to think. He doesn’t question. He doesn’t do anything. But he says, ‘Ah, Humbaba’s out there and he’s killing people. I’ve got to warn somebody,’ and he dashes off not taking stock of the fact that now he’s in this sort of enhanced body, in this sort of cybernetic body that’s a mixture of his own parts and robotic parts and a bunch of other.
He gets back to the watering hole where he met the Witch, and she says, ‘Sit down, sonny, and I’m going to tell you a story.’ And she tells him that the Refuge is a place of supernatural magic, but it’s also a place where that supernatural magic has positive expansive effects on science. And she was part of a scientific research team that did all kinds of miraculous, some of which were beneficial to mankind, some of which were grotesque and done for the sake of doing it.
“ne day, the government or the People Who oversee the funding and the oversight of The Refuge hit the big red button and flooded the entire area, which is a part of local legend that the area was once flooded, not realizing that the flood was meant to wipe out the scientific experiments and the all the Unholy that were happening with the scientists that were there, including the old woman.
Since that time, a lot of the monsters and the beasts and the weird mutated that they had created now got loose after the flood. And they began to breed and interbreed and mutate and evolve and become all the different monsters that you can think of. And now Gil’s recognizing that this old lady who may or may not be crazy is talking about how Humbaba and everything that is all those strange monsters that have been sighted over the years as part of local legends were.
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What did we like about HUMBABA #2?
Weird concept but creative, imaginative, and therefore subsequently entertaining. This is a weird sci-fi horror story, and it—I won’t say it makes sense, but it feels—it makes sense if that makes any sense at all.
The pacing is great, the story development, the way the scenes unfold, and the way Ricky Sykes constructs the story is fantastic. The concept, the core concept, is super imaginative. And the revelations that come out of this particular issue kind of draw you into the world that CIS has created. Suspension of disbelief in the story because it is wild and weird in a wonderful sort of way and out there, but you’re drawn into the world and you can believe that it’s happening the way it’s happening and everything that Gil is going through. You want to know what happens next, what kind of powers does Gil have now that he’s in this body but hadn’t stopped long enough to think about it.
What is the Refuge all about and what kind of monsters? What is the big idea? What is the big plan? You’re drawn in, and that’s what a comic of this sort should do.
What didn’t we like about HUMBABA #2?
Not a whole lot except for small, nitpick questions. Gil doesn’t stop to think why am I in this spot? How did I come back from the dead? Why am I in this body? At least take a moment to pause and consider. How does he not realize that he’s not human anymore?
And then when he’s encountering these individuals that are these three sort of mutant individuals that attack him when he leaves the bar after talking to the old woman, why doesn’t he question the old woman some more to and find out what did she want? What were they trying to accomplish? Natural curiosity questions Gil doesn’t ask. It’s not a big deal because the story is moving fast, and you’re drawn along with it. You don’t have time to stop and reconsider every point. But some of those little nitpicky kind of would have you pause.
How’s the Art?
It’s stylistic. Ricky Sikes has his own style. It has an underground kind of vibe. But it looks interesting, it looks great. It’s sort of oil-paintery if you want to think about how does it look. The brushstrokes and the character designs have a sort of underground caricature feel, but combined with the colors, it makes it pop and stand out. Visually speaking, it’s interesting. It’s not what you would expect from the big two, but that’s not what this comic is. It suits the story. It gives you a sort of gritty, grimy mutant kind of feel if that makes sense, and I think it’s a perfect fit.
Final Thoughts
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HUMBABA #2 is super-imaginative, good technical execution on the script as far as dialogue pacing and what have you, and lots of anticipation and momentum towards wanting to know what comes next, which is always what you want coming out of a story as you have going into the next one. On the downside, there’s some little motivation questions or curiosity questions you would have expected somebody in Gil’s position to ask that he didn’t. It feels he’s taking a pause there, but minor nitpicks overall.
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