Sunday Comic Digest: Sex Equals Death Equals Money
Excepted from Friday The 13th: Bloodbath #2, Dec 2024. Written by Brian Pulido, Penciled & Inked by Mike Wolfer, Colored by Andrew Dalhouse, Published by Avatar Comics.
Commentary:
It’s no surprise licensed comic books will many times take on the form of the most recent franchise film entry. Back in the post-Freddy Vs Jason days when Avatar got their hands on Friday the 13th from New Line, they must’ve looked at the movie’s for better or worse distillation of series concepts (and excess humor) as an excuse to pump out one-note stories. Witness, almost every death scene would be committed upon naked fornicators. Take these 3 sequential pages, indicative of all the other pages not shown…
…annnnd check out the “b” plot kicking in – an evil organization or corporation or whatever intent on exploiting Jason and/or Crystal Lake or something. Too often human villains are employed in the comics because the storytellers have no clue how to make Jason Voorhees compelling. They see him as a silent, brainless cipher to facilitate the red money shot and that cynical attitude leaks out onto the pages of Avatar’s mostly throwaway collector’s fodder. Okay, rant over. I rarely criticize because it’s a waste of time, but the above just leaked out of my brain and into the keyboard. Uh, what I mean is look at them pretty pictures. Blood! Lebsians!
About Sunday Comic Digest:
Sunday Comic Digest is a once-per-week feature excerpting between 1 to 3 pages of a past single Friday The 13th comic (minus the most recent series at time of posting) taken out of context from the original issue for purposes of discussion. The intent is to display them on a preview basis, never to show a complete issue or anywhere close, expose fans unfamiliar with the comics to the material and thusly encourage purchases of the full issues or trade paperbacks.
Great review. I felt exactly the same with the comic about the girl he chases to the hospital over three or six issues or so, and Jason turns out to be the result of a Native American curse. Very throw away. In fact, I did.
Seems like some very generic story telling. Seems like they just put Jason into the hands of anyone these days and it results in them trying to use only the cliche’ or controversial things that this series is known for. The whole “naked people and sex” thing has been played to death since New Line took over. The Friday the 13th series wasn’t nearly as saturated with all of this stuff that they like to make it out to be. Nudity didn’t really become too incredibly common in the series until part 4. Yeah, the others had it. Can’t forget part 2′s nude scene. But it was only overplayed in a few instances in the series. Mainly part 4 and 5 and 7. Even though it has a sex scene, if I’m not overlooking something, there was no nudity in part VI. Yet it seems that New Line and whatever outlet they choose to allow Jason to be unleashed upon only remember that and that alone.
Yea this comic lacks. Very bland story, and even the art seems blah.
Only Avatar Press comic I really liked was the Fearbook. The special, Bloodbath and Jason vs. Jason X were okay at best, while the Jason X one-shot was just weird and nonsensical.