The Ghost Machine imprint at Image Comics has launched a variety of titles, ranging from the antiheroic in Geiger and Redcoat to the dystopic in Rook: Exodus. Now it takes a full running sprint into horror with Hyde Street #1. Hyde Street #1 takes place on the titular street, which is hiding a collection of characters with their own macabre secrets. Pranky is a seemingly regular Boy Scout whose cherubic face hides a well of malevolence. Dr. Ego performs gruesome experiments on anyone who enters his clinic. And then there’s the mysterious Mr. X-Ray, known for his signature X-Ray glasses….who wants a way off Hyde Street, but might have to throw a few innocent souls into the darkness to do it.
If you’ve read that and thought “Wait, this sounds like The Twilight Zone“, or “Wait this sounds like a modern day update of EC Comics”, then you’re spot on. Ghost Machine architect Geoff Johns is clearly drawing from a wide range of influences in shaping Hyde Street, but the Zone looms above it all. A demonic child who’s more than they seem? A place where the laws of reality are upended? It was all depicted in the Twilight Zone. Even Mr. X-Ray bears a striking resemblance to Rod Stewart.
While I don’t mind this, as Twilight Zone is arguably one of the greatest TV shows of all time, there’s very little that’s scary about Hyde Street #1. Most of its pages are dedicated to Mr. X-Ray’s past as a novelty salesman, hinting at the terrible fate that landed him on Hyde Street but never outright confirming it. More issues will probably dig deeper into the mysteries, but unlike previous Ghost Machine titles Hyde Street is missing a hook to keep me coming back. Part of this may be that Johns is spreading himself a bit too thin with four seperate titles, and part of it may be other horror comics that managed to thrill and chill in their debut issues (particularly fellow Image horror title Killadelphia).
Image Comics
The real horror comes from Ivan Reis and Danny Miki. While the duo dabbled in horror elements before with Aquaman and Blackest Night, their work Hyde Street #1 is nothing but horror. Take the opening pages, which start off innocently enough with Pranky offering to help an old lady cross the street. But there’s a moment where his face morphs from an innocent child to a demonic visage; his eyes become pools of inky black and his smile serpentine.
Another trippy image features Mr. X-Ray taking off his glasses. True to form, his eyes are never ending spirals – which colorist Brad Anderson makes a bloody red – but panel after panel pushes in, until a full page spread is nothing but swirls of blood red and pure white. It creates a, for lack of a better term, hypnotic effect that draws the reader in.
Hyde Street #1 is a fairly solid debut, trading in horrifying imagery while its story takes a while to get going. Maybe future issues, including the upcoming Devour one-shot, will dive further into the mysteries of this world, but Hyde Street is going to have to work on its stories if it wants to build a new base of readers.
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