W0rldtr33 Vol. 1: Terminal
James Tynion IV, words; Fernando Blanco, art; Jordie Bellaire, colors; Aditya Bidikar, letters
Image Comics, 2023

This is Tynion’s most horrific series to date, full of unexpected violence and bizarre events. The story begins in 2024, with the re-emergence of the Undernet, a dark secret area below the Internet that Gabriel and his friends had discovered back in 1999. The first indication of what that means comes from a young man named Gibson Lane (with no previous history of violence) who murders over 60 of his neighbors in one day. Gabriel and the others who stopped it in the first place come together to stop it again, called together by Gabriel (who is a rich tech CEO who can afford to contact them all and pay for transportation).

There are two Special Agents who are also on the case, following a naked woman they call the “naked Grim Reaper.” Their boss is closely monitoring their progress and has a special interest in the progress of the investigation, so there are several players involved. Gabriel wants to contain the w0rldtr33 infection by tracking down all of Gibson’s online contacts, even though he doubts that it may already be too late. Sure enough, the naked woman shows up at the jail where Gibson was being held and kills him and all of the police there. Then she shows up at Gibson’s home, where Darrean and Amanda from the 1999 gang have arrived hoping to cut off possible contamination, but instead they find someone else who has been exposed to the Undernet and PH34R.

Flash-forwards show a dysfunctional 2049 world, with Ellison Lane (Gibson’s older brother) filing online stories to warn the world about what is to come. Back in 2024, Gabriel introduces the naked woman as his sister Sammi. The Underworld has spread widely, leaving mass murder in its wake. Gabriel proves just how powerful he is in the tech world by taking the whole world offline, limiting the spread of the Underworld, and setting up the conflict for the next arc. In a story so heavily centered around computers and the Internet it feels appropriate for Blanco to make frequent use of a 12-panel grid. Bellaire’s colors play a significant role in the story telling: they clearly delineate day and night, past and future, and depict Undernet-related scenes with a wild psychedelic palette.

***************************

The Sandman Universe: Dead Boy Detectives
Pornsak Pichetshote, writer; Jeff Stokely & Javier Rodríguez, pencillers; Craig Taillefer, Jeff Stokely & Javier Rodríguez, inkers; Miguel Muerto & Javier Rodríguez, colorists
DC Black Label, 2023

When last seen, the Dead Boy Detectives had a 2014 Vertigo ongoing series that ran for 12 issues. There were some new additions in that series, such as the existence of a ghost realm and the founding of the detective agency Rowland, Crystal & Paine (“No Case Too Weird”). No problem for new readers, though: this miniseries largely starts from scratch, back to original dead boys Charles Rowland and Edwin Paine; there is even a brief retelling of their origin story. The boys are in California, visiting from London.

The case is a search for a missing neighbor girl named Jai (payment is to be a rare foil Magic: The Gathering card). They immediately find her at the Thai temple she visits every weekend, only to be attacked by a serpent ghost. It turns out that the Thai kids are fellow ghosts, but Thai culture believes in hundreds of different types of ghosts. Melvin (the kid who attacked Charles) is a Snake Ghost, while Jai is a Hollow-Backed Ghost. This is all explained to them by a ghost doctor, who also says that Thai kids who die in L.A. should be coming back as Western ghosts, not Thai ghosts: so something is wrong.

There finally is a callback to the previous series: the reason the boys are in L.A. is because their old partner Crystal Palace has moved there with her parents, and she and Charles had become fond of each other. The ancient witch Thessaly is also involved, having been captured by a bunch of kumanthongs (“little golden boys”) who were created by necromancy. It turns out that the whole situation was caused by a Thai man who tried to raise his dead daughter, but summoned Thai ghosts instead. He also managed to trap Thessaly in a magic circle, so not bad for an amateur.

The boys put themselves in Thessaly’s hands and released her. She had been working on a huge spell all along, and had expected them to be sacrificed in the process, but somehow everyone survived. The final panel says that Thessaly’s trail will continue in the second Nightmare Country series, so that is something to look forward to. In the end this story did tie back to the larger Sandman Universe in surprising ways. The Thai ghosts were a new element, which provided the artists an opportunity for some really horrifying visuals. In the less intense scenes they did a good job portraying the YA ghosts as cute and innocent, despite all of the strange things they have been through.