NIGHT OF THE GHOUL - The Horrific Harrowing Tale of Scott Snyder

Night of the Ghoul mercifully came to an end after three issues drained my comic book budget of 15 bux. There’s something yucky about turning the last page of something that brought you no joy whatsoever other than the intrigue of something great. One would think I would have learned my lesson with all the eye candy flopping about Los Angeles but I guess I still have much to learn when it comes to trusting comic book creators to come with the booyaka shot of comic book goodness. I have to say, I’m completely befuddled by this poop fest. Scott Snyder has become that Rookie Phenom who had a blistering do-no-wrong first season (Batman; Court of Owls) but has barely gotten the ball out of the infield since. I’m looking at you ‘We Have Demons’ and all that “Dark Metal DC Crossover Omnibust Madness’.  He did have ‘Wytches’ which was a horror genre shot to the bleachers, which is why I thought this would be another wallop.

 

I get that he was doing an homage to all the great Horror Movies of yesteryear with his back and forth between current day burnt face director in an old folks home and crinkly grainy footage of a lost cinematic masterpiece. It just all felt so…goofy? I didn’t once feel like I cared for any of the characters. The Dad was like a whiny entitled film executive type from Calabasas who was pestering some old relic for footage like he was at Gelson’s badgering the deli counter guy to find another piece of Teriyaki Salmon in the back or go fishing for one. The kid was a mealy mouthed cardboard cut out of a character who you wanted to see eaten by a bunch of old lanky purple zombie yuckmouths. Who was I supposed to be rooting for in this mish mosh?

 

Not only that, but I can’t for the life of me understand why the artist Frankie Francavilla kept putting his insignia on a bunch of the pages he drew. Have you ever seen that??? Like, the cover, fine, maybe the final splash page but on random pages right in the middle of the story? WTF? It totally takes you out of the narrative and makes you think ‘oh yeah some egotistical doofus drew this it’s not real’. Please tell me it’s the editors fault and not Frankie’s as I happen to really enjoy his work a lot. Okay, then I had an epiphany…

 

It finally hit me, I realized what was going on here. This wasn’t Scott Snyder writing a horror story/homage to classic monster movies. This was Scott Snyder’s way of writing a plea to the masses. It was his way of revealing what happened at the very end of his initial Batman run where his Mr. Bloom story line abruptly came to a quizzical end. It’s become pretty clear to me that Synder and Capullo were summoned to the depths underneath the Getty Center to a meeting where the Lords of Comic Book Entertainment were to give them an initiation into the high order while giving them their marching orders. To his credit, Snyder refused and what you see in The Ghoul is his reenactment of his escape with Capullo from the gruesome clutches of the Marvel and DC Minions. 

 

So first we have Scott Snyder seeing his demonic masters gathered for the first time here:

 

That’s him in the circle at the top. Imagine how shocked he was when he saw this. First the burning skeletons. The one on the left staring blankly ahead is Walt Disney while the one at the head of the table is Bob Hope. Notice how Bob is enjoying himself while Walty is a bit verklempt, probably because he wants to eat the Brian Wood Pie sitting on the table but can’t. Yes, that is a pie made from our long lost disappeared Brian Wood. You know how they say if you go woke you go broke. Well, if you don’t go woke you get smoked, as in they put you in a BBQ smoker for a few days before deciding what to do with you. Most get turned into sausages but some get pastries or pasta; Wood became a pie. Finally, the burning skeleton waaay in the back is Jack Kirby, poor guy, even in eternity he’s still not getting his proper payback.

 

Look at all those Marvel Execs in the background hobknobbing with each other while they drink Beelzebub’s Brew. That’s where they get the gumption and inspiration to ruin all of your favorite comic book series. Right now they’re discussing how to totally destroy the Daredevil brand. They probably met again about a month or so ago because it’s already happened in Issue #6; a complete Double D Disaster of an issue. That gruesome red skull spider blob thing is actually Stan Lee, can you believe it? All he wanted was to make great comic books for the world and this is what they did to him. I heard that if you put your ear to that gaping mouth of his you’ll hear the squeaky refrain of ‘Make Mine Marvel’. Will somebody please save his eternal Spidey Soul!!!

 

Lastly there’s Jamie Lee Curtis in the bottom left corner asking around for another kid in a suitcase to take home with her, what a total witch. The dialogue you see in the black word bubbles isn’t dialogue at all. It’s everyone repeating the same phrase in Aramaic ‘5.99 a book. 5.99 a book’ over and over because that’s what they want to charge by the end of 2023, $5.99 for each and every comic on the stands. Oh and look at the back of the chair at the bottom of the page, there’s Frankie F’s Effin Insignia Brand, what the fookity fook??? Anyway, let’s move on, it gets worse for Scott:

 

So the dude with the glasses, beard and red skull on his head with the pot belly is George Lucas. All the skeletons you see underneath him were random writers in Hollywood who were given the opportunity to suck on his belly ball sack. When you suck on that belly ball sack you get ideas for Star Wars Spinoffs; that’s where the idea from the Mandolorian came from. Unfortunately, his belly ball sack is so rancid and toxic that if you take too much of a sip you incinerate into flames; hence the mound of skeletons. One of my old writing partners is probably on that hill of death. The two old dudes are Bob Iger and Joe Biden talking about how to make a villain out of a Gas Stove. All those gross Purple Things are DC Executives, yeah, they’re not that high up on the Luciferian Ladder. They’re kinda like the Arby’s in a world of McDonalds. Next…

 

So in this panel we see George Lucas ordering for the sacrifice of Greg Capullo. This is how it works, in order to advance up the ranks of Marvel now you have to let someone close to you who’s a real amazing creative being get eaten by George which in turn makes his belly ball sack of ideas grow. I’m not sure why Scott Snyder had to include another panel of Walt Disney whining about not being able to eat any of the Brian Wood pie, maybe he and Brian were friends. Oh, and there’s Jamie Lee toasting the Marvel Execs since they just promised her a dozen kids in a dozen suitcases that will be delivered to her Comet Pictures office. That’s Meryl Streep on the outside looking in, if you listen closely you can hear her say ‘Kids in suitcases? Yum?’

 

So Greg is about to eaten by the living wall made up of all the great Marvel comics that were cancelled. I’m pretty sure Frank Miller lives in that wall, yeesh, what a gruesome old demonic fucktwit he’s become. So Scott is telling us how he wouldn’t let Greg be sacrificed to George’s belly ball sack and as he freed him when he looked back he saw this:

 

Which were all the DC Executives running after him to grind him into pie paste. I’m pretty sure that while all this was happening DC was finishing up the final issues for Synder’s initial Batman run which is why the books were so abruptly completed.

Wow. What a story. Thank you Scott for your courage. I’m not sure if you had to sign an NDA and vow to release nothing but complete and utter drivel for the rest of your career but at least you and Greg are safe.

 

Night of the Ghoul: A True Hollywood Comic Book Tale.

 

I’ll be starting a GoFundMe to retrieve the remains of Brian Wood in the near future, stay tuned.

 

Rating: All Heil George

Verdict: No Brian Wood Pie for Me.