Big Trouble in Little China: Volume 5 (2017)

Big Trouble in Little Heaven (2017)

Author: Fred Van Lente |  Illustrator: Dan McDaid |  Page Count: 112

"Not in the face!! That's the money-maker!!!"

I felt that Volume 4 had reignited the BTiLC series, but I feel also that Volume 5 pisses on it again, even though both collections are written by the same author.

It places Jack in a peculiar environment that's chock-full of supernatural beings, namely the Kunlun Casino as it hosts Source Con, a sorcerers convention, most of whom are egotistical a-holes. But Jack's not braving it alone, he has Wang's daughter Winona to aid him. Oh, and Wang's there, too, but he's currently an emotional mess and seemingly about as useless as tits on a bull.

Much of the book is taken up by a lengthy poker game, and if you don't know how to play poker (specifically Texas Hold 'Em) it teaches you. As a fan of the game I enjoyed the setting, but a lot of the dialogue therein seems like little more than word-count boosting filler.

Big Trouble in Little China: Volume 4 (2016)

I Hate the '80s! (2016)

Author: Fred Van Lente |  Illustrator: Joe Eisma |  Page Count: 112

"Stop me if you've heard this one before, but I wouldn't mind just getting my truck and getting out of here..."

I don't know how much input creator John Carpenter actually had to the comic book continuation of his film, but his name is absent from the credits of I Hate the '80s!, so perhaps his involvement ended with Volume 3? Time will tell. What's certain is that regulars Eric Powell (author) and Brian Churilla (illustrator) are both gone.

That means it's a new creative team at the helm for Volume 4. I was hopeful that they could rescue it from its Volume 3 slump, return it to the standard set by the first book, and, by Jove, they almost did! BTiLC is good again. Thank you, Mssrs Van Lente and Eisma.

The new setting is kind of crazy, but, in my view, it's a good kind of crazy and, more importantly, it once more recaptures the feeling of fun that the movie had.

Big Trouble in Little China: Volume 3 (2016)

Jack Burton in the Hell of No Return (2016)

Authors: John Carpenter / Eric Powell  |  Illustrator: Brian Churilla  |  Page Count: 112

"It's all trouble from here."

Volume 3 is functional and purposeful, but not what I'd class as memorable and a lot of the time it even felt like the BTiLC spark of fun was missing from it.

With regards what I mean by the functional side of things, it's constructed precisely so that it takes four issues, (i.e. the TPB page count) for Jack to advance to the next part of his adventure, like a successful step in an ongoing narrative ought to do. In that respect it's kind of like a self-contained short story, but it also feels like a stop gap for the series, slowing it down too much.

With regards the purposeful side, the most successful aspect is in how it subverts expectations for comedic effect. much like it does with the hero genre, having Jack be a hapless fool but remain unaware of it. The Chinese Hells are at times the direct opposite of what most readers will be accustomed to from other media.

Big Trouble in Little China: Volume 2 (2016)

The Return of Lo Pan and How Jack Burton Became King of the Lords of Death (2016)

Authors: John Carpenter / Eric Powell  |  Illustrator: Brian Churilla  |  Page Count: 112

"It's like I always say, you can never really go home! Especially when there's a restraining order involved!"

NOTE: the following text contains spoilers for the Big Trouble in Little China (1986) movie AND for Volume 1 of its comic book sequel. Proceed at your discretion.

If you've read Volume 1 of the series, then you'll know that Jack Burton's antics while travelling the Midnight Road weren't without consequence - he pissed off some powerful individuals, some of whom want payback.

As if that wasn't bad enough, the recently resurrected supernatural entity Lo Pan, butt-hurt and angry due to his marriage plans going tits-up and subsequently being sent by Jack to The Hell of Those Killed by Idiots, is itching for some mystical-style vengeance. Jack's best option is to go on the run with his friend Wang.

Clive Barker's Nightbreed: Complete Collection (2015-17)

Clive Barker's Nightbreed: Vol 01 (2015)

Authors: Clive Barker / Marc Andreyko | Illustrator: Piotr Kowalski | Page Count: 112

"Midian calls to all of her children."

Given the choice, I'd rather have had a sequel novel than a prequel comic book, but a comic version of Nightbreed that's canon is better than nothing at all, I guess.

It's a story set in the present, broken periodically with flashbacks to years before. To confuse matters, the 'present' is the year the film is set (so, yes, you'll need to have viewed the film prior to reading) and the flashbacks are from a number of different perspectives, each one telling the story of how a particular member of the collective lived prior to finding the safety of Midian.

I had a secret hope that the short series would do what the film itself failed to do: flesh out the inner-workings of Midian and deepen the concerns of the creatures, warts and all, beyond just 'we may be ugly on the outside, but humans are morally uglier on the inside'.

Escape from New York: Volume 1 (2015)

Escape from Florida (2015)

Author: Christopher Sebela  |  Illustrator: Diego Barreto  |  Page Count: 112

Comics publisher BOOM! Studios are doing good work carving a niche in the market for people who enjoy seeing cult movies from yesteryear get more love.

They have at least half a dozen collected editions currently available that I'm interested in, but the money-tree the pikey sold me failed to grow and the golden goose turned out to be male, so I need to be selective with purchases. However, Escape from New York was one that I definitely couldn't pass up.

Like the continuation of their other Carpenter and Russell pairing, Big Trouble in Little China (2015), it picks up the story just after the film ends. It's not as good as Big Trouble, but it's still better than Carpenter's own sequel to his cult classic, namely the Escape from L.A. (1996) movie, and for that I'm at least thankful.

Big Trouble in Little China: Volume 1 (2015)

The Hell of a Midnight Road

and The Ghosts of Storms (2015)

Authors: John Carpenter / Eric Powell  |  Illustrator: Brian Churilla  |  Page Count: 128

I always wanted more Jack Burton adventures but never actually expected it to happen. Okay, it's not a film, obviously, but it's unmistakably Big Trouble to its very core. If you know the film well you'll be able to fit each character's personality to their respective hand-drawn counterpart. The illustrations are somewhere between caricature and likeness, but everything about the things they say and do feels authentic, even down to the individual rhythms used. Thank the gods of faithful continuations for an adherence to the source.

It picks up the story mere minutes after the 1986 film ends. If you remember, Jack and his more competent pals kicked some ass and shook the Pillars of Heaven from somewhere underneath San Francisco's Chinatown. Jack may have left Chinatown behind, but the denizens that gather there aren't finished with him yet.