Predator stories are kind of the easiest slashers you can tell. You’ve got this super strong alien monster, throw in some strapping lads and lasses, and have the alien monster wreck them until the last one standing mercks him in a cool way. Rinse and repeat.
Now, does that mean every Predator story is good? No, but it does mean they’re simple. They’re straightforward. Which is fine with me, because I don’t go out of my way to consume so much Predator content that I get sick of it. Predator by Ed Brisson Vol 1: Day of the Hunter is certainly another Predator story, and good news! It’s pretty good! Enjoyable enough. Fun read.
Now, I do think this book is fighting a bit of an uphill battle coming so soon after Prey. That film was incredibly cool, and presented a new (to me, at least) context for a Predator to be fighting in, and pulled it off well. It’s hard to follow up on that! I think Predator by Ed Brisson Vol 1: Day of the Hunter did fairly well in that regard, though, particularly where the art is concerned.
Kev Walker is one of those artists that is consistently on books that fly under-the-radar, to the point that I almost always miss when he’s on something, but I’ve loved his art since Avengers Academy, and his skill of showing brutality is on full display here. It’s over-the-top in the exact kind of slasher way that Predator stories should be. Pages like the one above are heavy on the mood, and the colors enhance the sick spookiness of the image. Walker’s cartoony style contrasts in a fun way that he’s great at making work at this point in his career.
On the other hand, the color are is something that works great in some places, but on the whole tends to be somewhat boring. It maybe makes sense because so much of the book is about and takes place in either corporate settings or a frozen wasteland, but it’s tough when the comparison is the image above, dripping with spookiness.
The writing itself is simple, as stated before, which honestly lends itself well to the property, but also leaves something to be desired. The nice thing is that this isn’t a retread of previous Predator stories, and it does feel fresh in that vein. Being a far-flung future with a young lady hunting the universe’s greatest hunters is a fun spin, and is used well throughout the book.
The problem is that it feels—at best—like a generic superhero origin, complete with a hook for a continuation. Orphaned girl, uniquely competent, gifted a fantastic ship that helped raise her, it feels like a bunch of origin tropes stapled together. It’s still a cool story, but it has all the beats of an “All-New Rebirth #1” or whatever.
Predator by Ed Brisson Vol 1: Day of the Hunter is mostly a totally fine comic, with the caveat that Kev Walker drew the hell out of it. It’s a fun, relatively unique (to my knowledge) take on the property, and, again, is great to look at. Would that be enough for me to grab it off the shelf? I dunno, but it wasn’t a waste of my time either. It’s a fun time with some alien murder monsters, it’s cool, it’s fine, it’s good.
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