Hammer Head #1: Mysteries

Hammer Head #1 opens on a burning house.  But for most of the issue, Hammer Head #1 is more a mystery story than a horror story. Brisson follows Jules, a drug addicted survivor of a murder spree in the town of Spence’s Bridge. Jules is arrested in a drug bust early in the issue, and that’s where the story begins.

Much of the time spent with Jules is watching her detox after her arrest. At first it all seems perfectly normal. During the experience, Jules flashes back to events in Spence’s Bridge, depicted on a single page. This is the second clue that something horrible happened in her past, and the first that indicates a killer was behind it. Jules is clearly a character living with a major trauma, but just what that trauma is is only hinted at. Trying to understand Jules drives Hammer Head #1’s story through most of the issue.

Brisson’s story puts Jules through the ringer, and Couceiro’s art realizes her struggle in excellent fashion. Couceiro brings a good amount of detail for characters’ facial expressions without going overboard. Smaller lines around characters’ mouths, on their foreheads, and along cheekbones do a good job delineating features from the start. Lines get a little thicker and longer for moments of heightened stress and emphasis. But for the most part Couceiro doesn’t employ heavy shading or thick dark lines which might subtract from any visual nuance. Jules is the greatest beneficiary of this.

A second mystery in Hammer Head #1 comes when Jules is released into the general population. The prison she’s in only houses seven people, and none of them have been allowed to contact lawyers or anyone else on the outside. This curiosity adds a bit of misdirection to the issue. At first it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Jules directly. Ultimately, though, it’s this strange circumstance that feeds into the issue’s transformation to a horror story in the final pages.

There isn’t much horror imagery and straight up gore in Hammer Head #1, but when it finally arrives, Couceiro delivers. Hammer Head’s hammer (it flies out of the darkness before the character himself is fully seen) makes a big entrance, delivering the issue’s most shocking visual. If this is an example of what is coming, there will be very good horror visuals in future issues.

Hammer Head’s character design is immediately gripping, and the variant covers that show Hammer Head don’t do him justice. His clothing is torn in places and looks like ruined hand me downs. The covering on the top half of Hammer Head’s face is less a mask and more a torn piece of fabric. Though there’s no evidence that Hammer Head is supernatural in any way, his visual design feels like it’s in the vein of Jason or Michael Myers.

Cunniffe’s scheme is soft even as he picks brighter hues of the colors he chooses. Early in the issue there is very strong contrast between the characters and their surroundings as Cunniffe puts a variety of colors against a very cold looking blue background for the prison. This is a good setup for the issue’s final scene that takes place outdoors at night. Cunniffe bathes everything in a dark blue. Nothing stands out in this sequence until the issue’s final pages where the red of puddles of gore and pools of blood jumps off the page.

Brosseau does a good job keeping dialogue bubbles well organized and out of the way of the issue’s art. There aren’t a lot of changes to font in the dialogue. Emphasized dialogue is bolded. The one major style adjustment Brosseau makes is late in the issue when Jules is shocked by the surroundings she finds herself in. Brosseau shrinks the font inside her dialogue bubbles considerably in a series of panels. It very effectively communicates the emotional power of the moment.