I jumped shift halfway through the original Nailbiter series, so I think I missed the part about the serial killer antihero (the Nailbiter) having a daughter with the hero of the series. It’s been so long I can’t remember if the first series felt like a pitch for McFarlane Toys, but Nailbiter Returns feels it. Complete with play sets.
All of a sudden I’m reminded of that “Mentalist” quote, “If you don't get horny reading Fangoria, I'm Britney Spears.”
But Nailbiter Returns tries so hard not to just be an exploitation comic. And suffers for not just embracing it.
If it were just exploitation, writer Joshua Williamson could get away with the new lead—the Nailbiter’s teenage normal girl daughter—not being able to shut up about Argento movies and Goblin scores. After some serial killer torture violence—which is only disquieting because of how blandly the comic executes it—Williamson does some exposition to catch us up, but with a whole bunch of horror movie talk thrown in.
Scream has been old enough to drink for three years and we’re still at the Scream level of pop culture references.
Not to get into a whole thing about how pop culture references do and do not add to a narrative work but it’d almost be more interesting than talking about the comic.
Nailbiter Returns is almost middling. Williamson’s does a thorough job, albeit without any nuance. Mike Henderson’s art either feels rushed—lots of empty backgrounds, ill-defined character physiologies—or forced.
The double-sized first issue, which barely has any story and I think I’m remembering what helped me jump on the first series, doesn’t do anything to make me think jumping was the wrong choice.
To everything, turn, turn, turn, there is a season… oh, sorry. It’s just Williamson has hit the end of this season of Nailbiter. He ends on an expository note, though there is at least the nod at a subplot about some kids going to the Nailbiter’s house on Halloween.
Is the explanation for Nailbiter’s town of serial killers going to be Nazi experiments in the forties? I think Williamson is going to go for it, meaning he’s always had an explanation in mind for the comic. He’s also getting even soapier as it (presumably) winds up.
Nailbiter is such a strange book. Not so much in its actual content, but in what a wide net Williamson throws over the various genres. In some ways, it feels like a “Twin Peaks” imitator. But here Williamson introduces a bit of an “X-Files” vibe.
Some of this issue is the best Nailbiter in a long time. Some of it is not. The end of the comic is definitely not; Williamson even manages to reverse a good scene he did at the start of the issue. He’s too concerned with having a plot twist every issue. A constantly twisty plot isn’t enough to keep a comic going (definitely not at thirteen issues in). It’s like he misunderstands the principles of the Brubaker reveal.