John Carpenter’s Asylum 6 (June 2014)

John Carpenter's Asylum #6Oh, no, Asylum isn't over yet. I had thought this issue, which awkwardly ends with the heroes driving off into the sunset to hunt down Lucifer and his minions as they wreck havoc on the world of man, was the last one.

Too bad. With Bruce Jones completely off the book, the dialogue and plotting takes a couple more hits. Sandy King and Trent Olsen's dialogue is real bad, though given the subject matter, no one could make it much better.

The writers get way too confrontational about validating the religiousness of the concept and skip over all character development. The lengthy final montage, with the guys reviewing their mission, doesn't offer any new content.

The Manco art helps considerably but even he's rushing to get done with this comic (this issue is his last). The double page spreads unfortunately get some of the least detail.

Asylum is pretty bad.

D+ 

CREDITS

Writers, Sandy King and Trent Olsen; artist, Leonardo Manco; colorist, Kinsun Loh; letterer, Janice Chiang; editor, King; publisher, Storm King Comics.

John Carpenter’s Asylum 5 (April 2014)

John Carpenter's Asylum #5It isn’t enough for there to be one exorcism this issue, Jones has to flashback to a previous exorcism. The flashback does get some of the back story between the priests out of the way, which is good, but it’s a whole lot of demonic art. Manco has almost nothing to draw except demons in various stages of upset this issue.

As for Jones, for the most part he’s just got to write priests saying lines out of Exorcist movies. Not particularly heavy lifting for him. Manco at least has a lot to do. There’s a double-page spread of angels and demons–it’s totally useless as far as narrative value, but it’s very detailed work from Manco.

There are some big plot developments and big things for cast members. Unfortunately, there’s so little concern for the cast it doesn’t really matter who’s in danger.

Besides Manco, Asylum’s running near on empty.

C- 

CREDITS

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