John Carpenter's Night Terrors: Second Nature

John Carpenter’s Night Terrors: Second Nature

Storm King Comics 2021

Written & Illustrated by Dennis Calero

Colour Assists by Lisa Lubera

Lettered by Janice Chiang

When Special Agent Angela Hernandez follows the trail of a savage murder to a small town in Rhode Island, she discovers the town has many secrets. Including that most of the residents, as well as her partner, Officer Shawn Cutler, are werewolves. Convinced that one of the townspeople couldn't commit violence against a human, Cutler assists Hernandez, torn between duty to his shield and to his hometown. But as the investigation goes deeper, corruption and greed are exposed, as, all the while, they are hunted by an unknown enemy. And you don't need a silver bullet to kill a werewolf. A regular bullet will do the trick.

I have to say that this is a whole lot more exciting than I think I was prepared for. Not so much as scary however, in fact compared to other stories from Storm King this was really rather tame. I would’ve liked to see a lot more tension and possibly a really solid werewolf attack or two that was meant to scare our socks off. The story itself is really solid, interesting and full of those wow moments but the creepy or heightened scare factor wasn’t.

I am a fan of the way that this is being told. How we see the story & plot development advance through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. The character development through the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how they act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter does a phenomenal job in bringing these characters to life. The pacing is superb, granted I will say this could’ve benefitted from a few more pages to show the first murder happen and serve as the catalyst for how this all starts.

The way that this is structured and how we see the layers within the story emerge, grow and evolve is well conceived and executed. With the residents of the town, the secrets, lies and revelations alongside this calibre of characterisation adds some wonderful depth, dimension and complexity to the story. The way that we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is really rather well achieved.

The interiors here are really very solid. The linework is clean, crisp and solid and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create the details we see throughout the book are well rendered. We could use some more backgrounds here to showcase an office or an enclosed space or even the outdoors more, depending on what the situation calls for. The wolves we see however are extraordinary. How we see the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story thanks to the composition within the panels is pretty darn nice to see. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a well versed eye for storytelling. The colour work is great and how we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work are rendered exceedingly well.

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Aside from wanting to be scared a lot more than I was, this is a very solid, interesting and well executed story. Granted, a prologue would’ve worked better to bring Agent Hernandez into the picture and would’ve gone well with the second, or first as the case may be, prologue that we do see. Just something to tie the bi-coastal aspect together more. As it stands the writing is really rather exceptional and the characterisation is intelligent and interesting and together with these solid interiors we’re treated to a new kind of werewolf story that resets the mythos once again.