The Approach #2: The Monster

A blizzard. A small snowed-in airport. And a monster. If that’s not a good horror setting I don’t know what is. And The Approach #2 takes good advantage of that setup by building a horror story based as much on human emotions as it is any actual creature.

The Approach #2 begins precisely where the first issue left off: Mac and his companions opening a door to find a monster biting into airport employee Rebecca (who had gone in search of the crashed plane’s dead pilot). The monster goes after the newcomers, but the confrontation ends relatively quickly as the creature is gunned down, seemingly killed. The issue is mostly familiar from this point onward. The group that confronted the monster tend to their wounds, express disbelief at what happened, and eventually go back to tend to Rebecca’s body only to discover that both it and the creature are gone.

But what is different about The Approach #2 is that Haun and Hurley’s characters don’t spend any time giving into the fear that the situation is generating. A scene featuring Abi trying to call her father and letting a few tears out conveys the fear that’s at work here. Like in the first issue, Haun and Hurley use small brief moments to communicate larger ideas, whether characterization or overall mood. Here Abi works as a stand-in for the fear that everyone must be feeling but which the issue doesn’t linger on.

What happens instead is that all those capable immediately decide to hunt the creature while those that can’t form barricades out of tables and luggage. This feels like a nice reversal of a horror/monster story because there is no hesitation nor is there anyone arguing that the best course of action is to play defense and somehow wait out the creature until they can escape or get help. They decide very quickly that the solution is to hunt it.

The Approach #2 doesn’t work quite as well when it comes to the art. There was a hard edge to everyone in the first issue. Not unlikeable or menacing but a kind of “been there done that” feel to them. This mixed well with moments where characters, especially Mac, looked somewhat weary. Here everyone looks somewhat weaker. In a way that makes sense given what they’ve just seen. But this doesn’t feel totally in sync with the story as the characters became so action oriented by the end of the issue.

The creature itself is somewhat unimpressive as well–at least its first iteration that we see here. Hervás and Caballero’s art along with Weldele’s colors create something that doesn’t feel unique or terribly distinctive. It has a quality that, with the outgrowths from its chest and its misshapen hands, feels like a less impressive, mid-transition version of the alien in John Carpenter’s The Thing. This is one of those cases where it would have been more successful to not show the creature in full.