Part 1: The Chaos! Comics Run

As All Hallow’s Eve approaches us yet again, numerous horror fans will no doubt pull down the Halloween franchise from their shelves to dive in yet again. But in doing so, which route will they elect to take, so far as the series’ continuity goes? Does one simply elect to revisit Carpenter’s original? How about the original, its first sequel, and films 4-6? Or perhaps the first two films, then H20 and Resurrection? Or, maybe the original film, and the franchise retconner Halloween 2018? (…possibly just the Rob Zombie films? …guys?)

In any case, being a Michael Myers fans means that we simply have to accept the various distinct timelines that the franchise offers. While it’s fun enough to try and parse through the numerous realities presented in this cinematic franchise, it’s equally as enjoyable to seek out the scant few times The Shape has wandered off into different media. His exploits have been charted and expanded upon with novelizations, he was given further adventures in three young adult books in the late 90s, and he even popped up in an Atari video game released by Wizard Video in 1983.

However, the most interesting expansions to the Myers canon (in this writer’s opinion) came in the form of several comic books released throughout the first decade of this century. From miniseries to one-shots, completed stories to unfinished arcs, these comics expanded the Myers mythos in significant ways – with some standing as some of the best tales told about our favorite masked madman. In a series of three articles, your writer will be taking a look at these various takes told by different companies and creative teams. First up, we’ll be taking a look at the three connected one-offs released by Chaos! Comics back at the end of the millennium.

With a story penned by late Wet Work author Phil Nutman and Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers screenwriter Daniel Farrands and boasting art by David Brewer, Chaos’ Halloween #1 opens with a post-H6, adult Tommy Doyle seeking out the case files of the now-deceased Doctor Sam Loomis to use as research for a book he’s penning about Michael Myers. After procuring the collected notes from a Warren County records office employee (who is swiftly executed by the Shape just after), Tommy retires to his Haddonfield home and dives into Loomis’ accounts of his time with Michael Myers.

From here, the comic turns into a prequel, taking us back to the time when Loomis first met young Michael at Smith’s Grove Sanitarium. Covering events previously touched on in Curtis Richards’ novelization of the first movie (more on that book here), this comic charts Michael’s time behind locked doors, as he sits silently and yet somehow manages to cause the deaths of his youthful fellow patients. The effect of watching an angelic young boy bring about the bizarre fates of children in the institution is undeniably creepy, and makes one wonder how interesting a full-on prequel film might possibly be.

The comic also lets Sam Loomis shine a bit, showing us our Ahab at a time when he was a far less damaged doctor making a genuine attempt to help his young patient…before Michael’s imperceptible murder spree claims the life of someone close to Sam. By the time Tommy reaches the end of Sam’s journals, we have a better understanding of what drives Loomis to the ends he goes to in order to chase down his white (-masked) whale. Unfortunately, this newly gained knowledge nearly spells the end for Tommy, as The Shape arrives on the scene and nearly murders our hero on the spot. After a brief struggle, Tommy sets Michael’s head alight and sends him out of a second story window just before losing sight of the killer in the night – a cliffhanger ending which echoes the final moments of Carpenter’s original film.

Five months later, Chaos! released the first follow-up comic, titled Halloween II: The Blackest Eyes. Penned by Nutman and Mickey Yablans (son of Halloween producer Irwin) and penciled by Jerry Beck, this second one-shot picks up right at the tail end of the previous issue, with Tommy in hot pursuit of Michael. During his hunt, Tommy comes into contact with a few characters from the Carpenter film, including Richie Castle and Lonnie Elam (the little jerks who bullied Tommy as a kid, now fully grown and still complete assholes).

The most surprising figure Tommy runs across is an aged Leigh Brackett, who has returned to town in the hopes that he could track Michael down and kill him. However, the former Sheriff accidentally murders Richie instead, and attempts to quietly bury both his crime and the body in an empty field. When Tommy witnesses this, he uses his leverage to get information from Brackett, who fills Tommy in on Haddonfield’s dark history and the Druid cult which had long ago cursed the Myers line. This leads right into a detailed explanation of Michael’s birth, where the child was delivered stillborn in the final moments of Halloween night, before coming back to life only minutes later on November 1st – the Day of the Dead.

Tommy and Brackett are eventually jumped by members of the Thorn Cult, led by H6‘s Mrs. Blankenship. Our heroes are tied up in a Haddonfield church as their fates are weighed by the cult, just before Michael arrives and murders a cult priest and Brackett. By the end of this issue, Tommy has fallen back into the cult’s hands, for whatever dire purpose they have in store for him.

Halloween 2001 saw the release of Halloween III: The Devil’s Eyes, the conclusion to the Chaos! series. Written by Nutman, this third one-shot picks up not only two years after the events of the last issue, but after Michael’s death at the end of Halloween: H20 as well (Resurrection, which hadn’t yet been inflicted upon audiences, is not accounted for in the Chaos! Comics timeline). Tommy, sporting a shaved head/goatee combo that has him looking like a young Loomis, has been imprisoned within Smith’s Grove by the Thorn Cult (which is still presided over by the villainous Doctor Wynn). Having been blamed for Brackett’s death in the previous issue, Tommy finds himself deemed no longer useful to the Thorn cult in the wake of Michael’s apparent death. When they attempt to kill him in his cell, Tommy manages to escape back to Haddonfield. It’s there that he runs into old friend Lindsey Wallace, now a Chicago-based reporter back in town to write a story on Michael Myers.

Before long, the two find themselves running afoul of The Shape yet again, leading to a confrontation in the old Myers house which finds our heroes wounding and unmasking their would-be murderer – revealing the Shape to be none other than Laurie Strode. Following the events of H20, Laurie snapped and assumed the Shape’s mantle, becoming a “textbook case of ‘psychotic personality transference'”. In killing Michael, Laurie found that she couldn’t continue on without him, so she effectively became The Shape in his stead. The conclusion to Nutman’s tale is grim, finding Tommy dead by Laurie’s hand, Laurie imprisoned within Smith’s Grove, and Wynn and his cultist cronies alive and well.

Though this trilogy of one-shots has its flaws (some dodgy art and dodgier dialogue at times), it’s still an engrossing and fascinating entry in the franchise, digging deep into the series’ mythology and spinning a new yarn which ultimately attempts to reconcile the various continuities in play by that point in Halloween history. If you can track down a set of these books (they’re a tad pricey, depending on where you find them), they’re well worth owning for even casual fans of Michael Myers. Should you get the chance to read them, check back in with us below and let us know your thoughts on this series.

In tomorrow’s article, we’ll be taking a look at two Halloween comic one-shots, each released in entirely non-traditional ways.