Jumpscare #1 // Review
She’s reluctant to go into her origin story, but, y’know...this IS the first issue of her series. Who needs another origin story? She does. She comes right out and says as much just a few pages into the first issue. There needs to be an origin story...otherwise the whole thing with the chainsaw and the monster in the alley at night isn’t going to make a whole lot of sense. She’s got a lot of explaining to do in Jumpscare #1. Writer Cullen Bunn opens a fun heroic horror-action series with artist Danny Luckert. It’s an appealing opening for a promising new story.
Her name is Allie. She lives in a big city that was recently saved from certain destruction by a group of superheroes. The thing is: there are a number of Lovecraftian monsters that are still larking around the edges of the city. Allie meets one in an alley on a dark night and she is granted a rather strange relationship with reality. See: Allie is really, really REALLY into horror films. Now she can summon artifacts from any horror movies she’s ever seen. Naturally she’s going to use that power to slay monsters and act as a superhero all her own.
Bunn takes an incredibly simple wish fulfillment premise and pumps. tremendous amount of humor and wit into it. He brings it to life with an electrifying sense of fun. Allie is genuinely a really, really fun person to hang out with in the course of her first issue. The power she’s got is distinctly unlike anything else that’s ever appeared in a popular format comic book before (at least...in recent memory.) What’s more: the power is a really clever one that is impossible to stop thinking about beyond the final page of the first issue.
Luckert’s art is brilliantly atmospheric. Nowhere is this more apparent than in those moments that Allie is in front of her television. This is sort of...the nexus of her powers. It’s her Danger Room. Her gym. Her research lab. But it’s really just a cluttered, little room. So it really DOES have to have an energy all its own that goes way beyond one girl sitting down in front of her television. Luckert manages to do this in subtle, immersive and atmospheric way that still manages to feel perfectly grounded in reality. Luckert allows Allie’s face toradiate a deep emotional light that can’t help but draw-in a reader. Luckert’s colors feel brilliantly saturated in places with a clever video-like effect around certain scenes that add brilliantly to the late night horror sort of a feel for the first issue.
Jumpscare is such a clever fusion of horror, superhero, comedy and drama that all come together with a brilliant fusion that feels remarkably refreshing. What Bunn and Luckert are doing works on so many levels. It’s a really, really good first issue. If Bunn and Luckert can keep it going, it could potentially be one of the better debuts for 2025. Allie’s such a fun character to hang out with.
Grade: A+
