He’s back! The man behind the mask! And he’s out of control! We speak, of course, of Jason Voorhees, machete-happy antihero of the comics anthology FRIDAY THE 13TH: BOOK TWO. This collection is comprised of four stories, three of which were originally two-issue arcs, and a single one-shot; all should satisfy the F13 fan in you.
“Pamela’s Tale” is first at bat, and it serves as prequel of sorts, telling the story of Jason’s mom and his birth. Fans of the original movie will note with delight at how writer Marc Andreyko and artist Shawn Moll begin and end with recreations of scenes from that horror classic, and fills in the blanks with new material that actually makes Mrs. Voorhees sympathetic, no matter how much blood she lets (note: which is an awful lot).
In the only single-issue story, “The Abuser & the Abused,” Joshua Hale Fialkov and Andy B. adopt a refreshing Pop Art comic style to tell the tale of a high school girl who’s been smacked around one too many times by her boyfriend, so she plots a final rendezvous with him at Camp Crystal Lake.
Ron Marz and Mike Huddleston tackle “Bad Land,” which is unique in that it follows the fates of three friends who seek refuge in a cabin during a snowstorm, and find Jason instead, and juxtaposes this story with a trio of hunters taking over a teepee in a harsh winter as well. The latter group rapes and pillages before a Native American takes his revenge; the earlier group suffers at the blade of Jason.
Never do these two storylines intersect; I suspect they don’t even take place in the same period. I enjoyed reading it, but have to wonder what the point is? That white men screwed over the Indians? Tell me something I don’t know.
Finally, Jason finds a friend — no, really! — in Jason Aaron and Adam Archer’s “How I Spent My Summer Vacation.” His unwitting pal is a camper with a bone disease that deforms his face, thus saving him from the slaughter. Meanwhile, the meth-addict sheriff hunts both, hilariously thinking there are spiders crawling all over him.
None of these stories are scary — although the final one manages a pure creep-out of a panel for those with arachnophobia — but they’re fun … well, assuming you find the mass murder of sexually active teenagers by a hockey-masked hulk to be fun. I do. —Rod Lott
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS SERIES:
• CRYSTAL LAKE MEMORIES: THE COMPLETE HISTORY OF FRIDAY THE 13TH by Peter Bracke
• FREDDY VS. JASON VS. ASH by Jeff Katz and Jason Craig
• FRIDAY THE 13TH: BOOK ONE by Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray and Adam Archer
• FRIDAY THE 13TH: CARNIVAL OF MANIACS by Stephen Hand
• JASON X: TO THE THIRD POWER by Nancy Kilpatrick
• MAKING FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE LEGEND OF CAMP BLOOD by David Grove
Related posts:
- Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th
- Making Friday the 13th: The Legend of Camp Blood
- Friday the 13th: Carnival of Maniacs
- Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash
- Dark Friday
