The Grim Ghost, Published by Atlas Comics: A Review

The Grim Ghost #s 1 to 6, $2.99 US, published by Atlas Comics

Writers: Tony Isabella & Stephen Susco; Pencils: Kelley Jones; Inks: Eric Layton

Rating 4.5 out of 5 stars

"For the wrath of man works not the righteousness of God." - James 1:20

The original incarnation of Atlas Comics came about in 1974, an effort by Martin Goodman, the very first publisher of Marvel Comics, to return to the industry. Atlas was unable to match Marvel's success, and folded up its tent after only a year. Nevertheless, due to the various talented creators who worked at Atlas during its short-lived existence, the books published by the company do have something of a cult following.

In 2010, Jason Goodman, the grandson of Martin, decided to revive Atlas Comics. The titles would feature reinterpretations of the original Atlas characters. One of the three initial series released by the new Atlas is The Grim Ghost.

I picked up The Grim Ghost due to two of the creators involved, whose past work I have very much enjoyed:

Tony Isabella is the creator of Black Lightning, the first African American superhero at DC Comics. Isabella has written such diverse characters as Ghost Rider, Luke Cage, Daredevil, It the Living Colossus, Dracula, Hawkman, Satan's Six, and Star Trek. He also co-wrote with Bob Ingersoll the excellent prose novel Captain America: Liberty's Torch.

Kelley Jones has a very distinctive style to his artwork. It is suffused with eerie, macabre atmosphere. Those qualities have served him well on numerous Batman-related series, as well as illustrating Neil Gaiman's Sandman.

The Grim Ghost is set in a strange, ghostly dimension known as "the Fringe." It is, basically, Purgatory. One character describes the Fringe as "the place souls reside when they are not yet ready for Heaven or Hell." Those who have been cast into the Fringe have unresolved issues left over from their time among the living. How a soul deals with its past, and the actions it takes within the Fringe, determine whether its ultimate destination will be the Pearly Gates or the Infernal Realm.

When he was alive, the Grim Ghost was Matthew Dunsinane, a notorious highwayman from Eighteenth Century England. Dunsinane's arch-foe was the sadistic aristocrat Ethan Braddock. The hatred between these two men was made even more bitter by the fact that Braddock's wife through an arranged marriage, the gentle Lady Sarah, was Dunsinane's true love. Their feud spread from England to the Thirteen Colonies, when Dunsinane became an agent of the Revolution, and Braddock was dispatched by the Crown to personally hunt him down. Dunsinane and Sarah met a tragic end at the hangman's noose, the order for their executions given by Braddock himself.

Dunsinane had been a noble man whose hands were nevertheless stained with blood, his soul tainted by bitterness & resentment, and so the Grim Ghost found himself in the Fringe. He soon learned that Braddock had also died and been sent to the Fringe, dispatched as the Devil's agent to recruit as many unaligned souls as possible. The Grim Ghost and Dunsinane quickly resumed their heated rivalry, their struggle ranging across the whole of the Fringe for the next two centuries, with neither ever able to gain a deciding advantage over the other.

Although the Grim Ghost is the title character of this series, the true protagonist is Michael Colavito, a recent arrival in the Fringe. Michael is suffering from amnesia, not remembering how he died or much else about his former life. But he possesses tremendous powers far greater than any other denizen of the Fringe, save the Grim Ghost and Dunsinane themselves. He also has the unique ability to touch the living world. Both the Grim Ghost and Braddock hope to use Michael as a weapon to finally destroy the other. Michael is understandably more interested in recovering his memories and learning why he has been brought to the Fringe than in becoming a pawn in a two hundred year old grudge match. The series details his quest to discover his identity and purpose.

Tony Isabella and Stephen Susco do a superb job plotting out a story with a number of dramatic, unexpected twists. Their scripting is spot on, bringing to life characters that possess moral ambiguity and realism. Like most real people, both Dunsinane and Michael are neither all good nor all bad, but rather fall in between those two extremes. They both started out as basically decent individuals, but certain choices, which they justified to themselves for various reasons, led them astray. The road to Hell, or in this case Purgatory, was paved with good intentions, which is how the pair of them came to be in the Fringe. Both of them have a journey of self-discovery that they must make to uncover their past mistakes in order that they can move on. The question for each is whether or not they are willing to undertake that process of examination and let go of the baggage of the past that is weighing them down.

The spirituality of this story very much appealed to me. In superhero comic books, I find it both perplexing & frustrating that figures of demonic evil such as Mephisto or Lord Satanus roam about the universe unchecked, involved in all manner of diabolical schemes. Yet there is almost never any presence, much less a suggestion, of some sort of Higher Power at work. On those occasions when we do see something resembling Heaven, it is cynically depicted as a sort of corrupt, self-involved bureaucracy more interested in maintaining power than in opposing evil (I often think that certain writers are using those stories to express their frustrations with organized religions). So I really appreciated that Isabella & Susco delved into spiritual elements, examining the ideas of redemption and salvation.

I was confused, though, as to how Braddock fit into the cosmology established by Isabella & Susco in The Grim Ghost. Due to free will, Heaven can only take a limited role in the Fringe. Braddock, who when he was alive, is depicted pretty much as evil in human form. You would expect his soul to have gone straight to Hell. How did he end up in the Fringe instead? He is obviously working for the Devil. It seems strange that Hell can have an active agent in Purgatory, corrupting & claiming souls, but Heaven is required to maintain a much more passive stance. I would have liked a more solid explanation for the metaphysical mechanics behind Braddock's role. Perhaps in the next story arc?

After five issues of nicely paced build-up, the sixth issue did feel somewhat rushed in places. Too bad the writers didn't have a few extra pages to work with. Nevertheless, they did a fine job of wrapping up several character arcs, and setting the groundwork for the next storyline.

By the way, for completists, there was a zero issue of The Grim Ghost, written by Joshua Ortega & Brendan Deneen, and drawn by Qing Ping Mui. It was initially available at the 2010 New York Comic Con. I didn't have a chance to buy a copy until a year later, at the 2011 show. As a result, issue #1 of The Grim Ghost at first did seem to me to begin a bit abruptly, almost mid-story. However, as I realized later, by page eleven Isabella & Susco had summed up the key events of the prologue issue. There was a subplot set up in #0 concerning "Guides" who exist in the Fringe, but this is not picked up in the series proper. No doubt there was so much going on in the main story that there was no room to address it. Again, perhaps it is something Isabella & Susco will address in the future.

Kelley Jones artwork is the perfect fit for The Grim Ghost. It is moody and atmospheric, the perfect fit for a story set within phantom dimension of the Fringe. Jones does an excellent job depicting the character of the masked Grim Ghost. When acting dashing & heroic, the Ghost, while imposing, still has an almost romantic air about him. However, as Dunsinane's anger seizes control of him, Jones' rendition of the Ghost becomes this sinister, looming figure, the masked face twisting into a skull-like visage.

I am not familiar with Eric Layton. His inking gives Jones' pencils a different, more cartoony look than John Beatty or the late Malcolm Jones III. Nevertheless, Layton's inking works quite well. He and Jones have a good collaboration.

The one misstep on Jones' part is that Michael and the unmasked Ghost look too much alike. There were pages when the two were in a scene together, the Ghost unmasked, and it would be somewhat difficult to tell the two apart. Perhaps they could have been given different hair colors to distinguish them more.

Speaking of coloring, Chris Summers did some superb work on The Grim Ghost. His colors were versatile; extremely vivid in certain places, dark & eerie in others. A clever idea was giving the flashbacks a bit of a grainy, washed-out look, almost like an old movie film print, to have them stand apart from the scenes set in the present.

In conclusion, The Grim Ghost was a near-perfect read. I definitely look forward to future installments of the title from Atlas Comics. And I definitely wish to see Tony Isabella and Stephen Susco back in the driver's seat. They did a superb job on these six issues. I eagerly await what they have planned next.