I was worried I wouldn’t remember what was going on with Asylum because it’s been so long since I read the previous issue but since nothing happens in this one, there’s a lot of time to pay catchup. And Jones is good making sure there’s enough information for a casual reader to get by. There’s a cop, there’s his partner, his kid, the Church, the demons… all these things get vague enough recaps one can get by.

But for what purpose? The plotting is questionable–Jones’s hard cliffhanger raises a few of questions but the issue preceding it suggests none of them will get answered. The stuff with the cop’s kid is sad and all but the kid’s just fodder to get compassion. The hook is still the John Carpenter association. There’s been no slippage in Jones’s script.

And Manco manages to be competent but boring–the composition’s mind-numbing.

C 

CREDITS

Writer, Bruce Jones; artist, Leonardo Manco; colorist, Kinsun Loh; letterer, Janice Chiang; editor, Sandy King; publisher, Storm King Comics.

I’m not sure where Jones and company really expect Asylum to go. The issue ends on its first natural comic soft cliffhanger, but it also ends with one of the main characters becoming completely irredeemable. These aren’t great characters to beg with, so why hang around for more with the guy….

The story is a mix of End of Days and John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness and Vampires. It might have worked better if they had just done a comic spin-off of Darkness, actually, then the comparisons would be natural.

There’s a lot of demonic action this issue, which Manco does a fine enough job with. I only notice a handful of those weird low angle shots–they’re still bad, but the demonic action makes up for them.

Jones is mostly just writing action scene dialogue; I wonder if he got bored with it. Asylum’s just paced all wrong.

C- 

CREDITS

Writer, Bruce Jones; artist, Leonardo Manco; colorist, Kinsun Loh; letterer, Janice Chiang; editor, Sandy King; publisher, Storm King Comics.

Manco has all these low angle panels looking up at the detective. They’re obviously for emphasis–he uses them to establish the gun fights too–but they somehow don’t fit with the rest of the style.

If Asylum has a style, I mean; this issue is just as jumbled and packed as the first, maybe even more so.

This issue continues the chase–priest (excommunicated, it turns out) and cop after the Devil, who is jumping from person to person when the scene needs it and not when it doesn’t. Jones sort of keeps the perspective fixed as to not raise too many questions about the comic’s internal logic.

There are adaptation problems, of course. The comic doesn’t have a three act structure, since it’s in the second act of the larger one; that looseness hurts it.

There’re a couple pages of bad dialogue, but otherwise fine.

Asylum’s mediocre enough.

C 

CREDITS

Writer, Bruce Jones; artist, Leonardo Manco; colorist, Kinsun Loh; letterer, Janice Chiang; editor, Sandy King; publisher, Storm King Comics.

Asylum is kind of a strange book. First, it’s a John Carpenter movie property turned into a comic. Bruce Jones writing, Leonardo Manco illustrating, these are guys with a lot of experience doing comics. They should be able to properly break out a comic.

But they don’t. This issue is incredibly rushed. Manco’s doing something like ten panels on some pages, mixing little horizontal ones where you can’t follow the action and then tall ones where he’s showing the conversation. Jones has a lot of conversation in the issue; it feels like he’s adapting a script (the credits aren’t clear).

Even with those considerable problems–Manco’s even skipping establishing shots–the comic isn’t terrible. It’s The Exorcist with cops and naughty priests. It’s slightly scary, thanks to the art, and Jones does establish the leads well. He just doesn’t write them well together.

It’s an interesting mess of a comic.

C 

CREDITS

Writer, Bruce Jones; artist, Leonardo Manco; colorist, Kinsun Loh; letterer, Janice Chiang; editor, Sandy King; publisher, Storm King Comics.