Route 666 #10
Review by Doc Ezra
Story:
Art:

Written by Tony Bedard
Pencils by Greg Tocchini
Inks by John Dell & Mike Perkins
Colors by Justin Ponsor
Lettered by Troy Peteri

Published by CrossGen
Price: $2.95

My Verdict: Snag it -- this one looks important.

Trapped in the bomb shelter of Sheriff Fernandez, Cassie Starkweather's situation keeps going from bad to worse. She has managed, however, to convince the compulsive NBI agent Melchior that she really is being chased by monsters, and that some of those monsters have infiltrated his precious National Bureau of Investigation. Sheriff Fernandez believes Cassie, too, and happens to have a fully stocked arsenal in his bomb shelter, complete with tommy guns and lots of ammunition. Having radioed every cop in the neighboring counties to call in assistance, Fernandez starts handing out the boomsticks for an attempted break-out. Meanwhile, the monsters are preparing for a second to try and get Starkweather for their master, The Adversary.

Despite the relative uselessness of the sheriff's deputies top-side, Cassie, Melchior, and Fernandez manage to shoot their way past the beasts in a hail of lead, and speed off to seek safer ground elsewhere. Yet, while Cassie waits patiently for the sheriff to ditch his uniform and patrol car at a busy roadside diner, her troubles compound (again). A gaudily painted taxi rolls up, disgorges a dozen sketchy looking clowns, grabs Cassie, beats the crap out of the sheriff, and speeds away. Some new player has entered the field, and Cassie is none too happy about it.

Fortunately for her, the clowns, despite their methods, are friendly. A traveling freakshow contains a pair of twins that share Cassie's gift of second sight, and the troupe has been offing whatever monsters they find as they travel from tiny little town to backwater burg all over the countryside. They merely want to offer Cassie a place in their ranks, so that she won't have to fight alone. Ever the reluctant warrior, Cassie demures, but unbeknownst to her and the others, the sheriff has just rolled up for the evening's performance, and promises a rollicking evening come next issue.

Route 666 continues to impress me with its storytelling that is simultaneously very inventive and oddly familiar. Bedard's ability to convey the boiled-down essence of classic horror comics and B-movies of yesteryear, while updating the whole genre and providing a truly original story at the same time, is nothing short of amazing. The guest art team for this issue does a fantastic job of maintaining the dark and brooding colors of previous issues, as well as loading frames with detail. We even get a vague glimpse at the Adversary himself in this issue, though not enough to really nail down his appearance. It's a funny (if a touch disturbing) moment in a book loaded with action, sharp dialogue, and more twists and turns than an old country road.

Get into this title, if you're not already. Crossgen continues to present titles that challenge the stereotypes of genre and medium both, and it's one of the very few representatives of a woefully neglected horror subgenre of comics that hasn't seen its heyday since the 70s.