TITLE: Ghost – In the Smoke and Din – TPB
YEAR: July 2013
COMPANY: Dark Horse Comics
STORY: Kelly Sue Deconnick
ART: Phil Noto
LETTERS: Richard Starkings & Comicraft
COVER: Alex Ross
I’ve written about Ghost before, about Elisa Cameron who is in search of the truth surrounding her death and going after the bad guys.
The thing about Ghost is while a very awesome character, the storyline seemed to be rebooted from its beginning in 1993, reboot in 1998 and again in 2012.
I finished reading the 2013 TPB “In the Smoke and Din” which is part of Ghost being revived as part of Dark Horse Comics’ “Project Black Sky” and a series featured in “Dark Horse Presents”.
The first TPB features issue 0 and issues 1-4 and continued in two more TPB’s. The TPB also features artwork featuring Ghost.
In this storyline, you have two Ghost Hunters ala paranormal investigators Tommy Byers and Vaughn Barnes who were trying to investigate stories about “Resurrection Mary”, a woman in white.
Tommy wants to unveil a paranormal technology to the world but it didn’t work and the two end up having a bit of a spat.
That is until one day, while Vaughn was tinkering with the device, a woman in white appears. As Vaughn tries to communicate with the ghost and have her old objects, two gunmen with Tommy arrived and tell them that Tommy bought an item that was not meant to be sold and the owner wants it back.
One of the gunmen tries to shoot and kill the ghost, and she goes in and puts her hands through his body and rips out his heart.
And as the two men and the Ghost bury the dead body of one of the gunmen, they decide to help the ghost find out who she is.
The story also introduces us to a sadistic woman who experiments with men and the man she serves, a demon.
The story also explores Vaughn, his past life and the relationship he had and why he became the man he is today.
While I’m not going to spoil the story, I will say that it’s different from the style of storytelling of the original series and it’s expected from 1993 to 2012, with the style of comic books being more dark and violent, the storyline featured in “Ghost: In the Smoke and Din” reflect that.
It’s a very good story, quite dark and definitely more violent, but I think audiences will enjoy that. But aside from the character of a woman in white and the title and that the ghost is trying to search for her past and why she is a ghost (and who killed her), there is no other correlation to the original storyline in terms of Ghost and her sister and all that was featured back in the ’90s. This is a whole new storyline. And it’s worth checking out!