Plunge
Joe Hill, writer; Stuart Immonen, artist; Dave Stewart, colorist
DC Black Label, 2020
Hill returns to the writer's chair for this Hill House miniseries, which he describes as "the last of the first wave Hill House books." The all-star art team includes veterans Stuart Immonen and Dave Stewart, so at the very least a good-looking comic is guaranteed. After a massive tsunami, a ghost ship begins broadcasting a distress signal from an atoll in the Bering Strait--after being lost for forty years. A salvage team headed up by the Carpenter Brothers (accompanied by a scientist and an officer of the corporation which owned the vessel), cross into Russian waters to recover the ship and the ship's dead.
When they arrive they discover that the ship's crew is not exactly dead...but saying more than that would quickly go into spoiler territory. Hill says he meant to evoke '80s horror films like John Carpenter's The Thing (signaled by the subtle naming of the salvage crew), and the finale delves into Lovecraft territory as well. So let's just say that it is full of surprise shocks, with stakes far larger than the salvage crew's survival. It makes for an exciting read--with story and art just as good as the creators' reputations--and is arguably the best of the Hill House comics so far.
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