Headless Season Two #1

Headless Season Two #1

Scout Comics 2021

Written by Alexander Banchitta

Illustrated by Robert Ahmad

Lettered by Jaymes Reed

Headless is back! Cursed to live forever as the Headless Horseman, a suicidal young man named Chris, must join up with dark forces to rescue his brother Rick from the pits of Hell.

Wow I wasn’t surely expecting this to be so hard hitting and deep, it’s a pretty powerful story and that really hit me hard. More so since how it all relates to the first arc and the ramifications of what happened. The opening really sets the stage for how this arc is going to go and if you haven’t read the first arc, then I highly suggest you rectify this, don't worry because this goes over the basics and you can follow along easily enough, so yes it is new reader friendly.

I’m fascinated by the dynamic between the brothers now and this is where that power in the storytelling comes from because this hit like a gut punch when you aren’t expecting it. It is during the brothers chat that we learn a lot about what has happened to the two of them, separately, since the end of the last arc until we see them now. Yes it is real time so that we see the time pass between arcs.

I’m loving the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. The character development that we see through the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter does a magnificent job in establishing their current personalities. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages introducing us to the characters, the story and the world they live in the more we want to see because it’s presented that incredibly well.

I’m very appreciative of the way we see this being structured as well as how we see the layers within the story begin to emerge, grow and evolve. I like how we see the layers within the story open up new avenues to be explored and how this adds some nice depth, dimension and complexity to the story. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward are impeccably achieved.

The interiors here are interesting. The linework is nice to see and how the varying weights and techniques are being utilised to create the detail within the work is extremely nice to see. It does seem rather simple and does feel like it is in vein of what we might consider “indie comix” which has its appeal. The creativity and imagination that we see, mainly surrounding the demons, is fantastic stuff! I wish we’d see more backgrounds, however, with how we see the composition within the panels being utilised to bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story is superbly handled. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a remarkable eye for storytelling. Now the colour work here is really different and it’s part of the charm of this title. The pinks and blues that we see and how the hues and tones are utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is exceptionally well rendered.

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The storytelling here is superb and strong and it really does this magnificent job in bringing the mythology of the Headless Horseman to life in some really unique ways. This is so much stronger, deeper and involved than one might expect it to be and I have to say that if you haven’t been reading this then you really ought to because it will just blow you away. The writing is sensational and with such strong hard-hitting characterisation alongside these great interiors really manage to spotlight not only why Scout is home to some phenomenal storytelling but how gosh darn talented these creators are.