Image courtesy of Dark Horse Comics
In 2005, Fantasy Flight released a new edition of Richard Launius’ somewhat dated 1987 board game, offering a modern take on the cooperative, Lovecraftian horror game with gorgeous production values, including beautiful artwork throughout, and updated and modernized game mechanics. The second edition of Arkham Horror was a huge success and a popular game for many years, but it had some annoying issues (for example, the unwieldy large board was a problem for anyone with a regular-sized table) and was replaced by the third edition in 2018, which further streamlined and modernized the game with a modular board and other improvements.
The Arkham Horror branding was carried over to other games, with the same characters, settings, and monsters appearing in other titles such as Arkham Horror: The Card Game and Elder Sign, a dice game based in the Arkham Horror universe.
A number of novels have been published based on the game’s characters and lore, and fans’ appetite for Lovecraftian cosmic horror set in the 1920s seems insatiable.
And now we have the first Arkham Horror-themed comic, “The Terror at the End of Time,” written by Cullen Bunn, who is no stranger to period-set cosmic horror, having written the excellent Weird West series “The Sixth Gun.”
Socialite Jenny Barnes is searching for her sister who was kidnapped by evil cultists. The cultists have summoned very evil creatures from outside of Earth, and although Jenny is able to thwart their plans, her sister remains missing. Enlisting the help of cynical private investigator Joe Diamond, the two must work together to find Jenny’s sister, but something very evil is going on – it’s more than just evil, tentacled creatures from another world.
This is a great start. Ban writes in a fairly minimalist way, favoring presentation over story, with characters revealing themselves through snippets of dialogue and action. Andrea Mutti’s art gives the comic a proper sense of the period, adding a touch of noir and a good representation of the supernatural elements of the story. Valerio Alloro’s muted colors also accentuate the period and noir feel of the story.
The story itself is well-paced, has a surprising third act, and a great cliffhanger that invites you into volume two. Familiarity with Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos may be an advantage, but isn’t absolutely necessary. Nor is familiarity with the Arkham Horror games necessary, although several characters are directly lifted from the game. I like how, just like in the board game, Jenny Barnes is never a damsel in distress, but rather refuses to be put in a position …
Fun fact: Arkham Horror was the first board game I ever reviewed on a now-defunct website, and as I’m a fan of cosmic horror (and Lovecraft’s novels, although as the disclaimer states, I’m not a fan of the horribly racist author himself), the game has always fascinated me, and I’m really attached to the updated version.
As much as I was looking forward to seeing the game adapted into a comic, I was cautiously optimistic. I needn’t have worried, as with Bunn, Mutti, and Alloro on board as a creative team, they’re in very capable hands.
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