CBR A Nightmare on Elm Street (WildStorm)

 

One, two... Freddy's coming for you...

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Comic title: A Nightmare on Elm Street 
Art by Kevin West & Bob Almond
Written by Chuck Dixon

Published by WildStorm Productions
From 2007
Lineup Elm Street series
Format: Trade Paperback collecting the on-going series A Nightmare on Elm Street issues #1-3 and #5-7.

In the wake of a return of the horror genre both in films and later in comics mostly thanks to Tim Seeley's Hack/Slash series, New Line Cinema decided to create the New Line Horror line brand first through Avatar Press and later through DC Comics' WildStorm.


Shortly after acquiring the rights to the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, WildStorm Productions launched an on-going series in 2006.

Scripted by veteran writer Chuck Dixon no less!

This trade paperback only collects the two big 3-issue long story arcs, and is only missing two issues, both "filler" one shots.

The book was canceled shortly after due to the very low sales of the title.

The first tale is called "Freddy's War". It was originally the opening first arc of the book.

It opens with a new family that has just moved to Elm Street, Springwood.

Jade is an army brat. Her father's a former US Army soldier. Due to that they've moved several times all over the country in the past.

But it appears they will finally settle down. In Freddy Krueger's home!

Which results in exactly what you are thinking.... Things turn out for the worst.

On the first night her brother Brad is killed, on fire. The police puts it as another suicide attempt.

Jade discovers the terrible secret the town of Springwood is trying to hide, she learns about the legend of Freddy Krueger. Starts taking a lot of coffee, barely escapes another nightmare.

But wait! This is still only the first issue!

The story moves way too quickly, maybe too fast. There's barely any time spent on character development.

I've always been a huge fan of Chuck Dixon, but here he's barely doing the minimum required. Also there's an awful lot of grammatical errors and awful dialogue lines. I mean, really bad.

Things move fast in the first issue, then it gets a bit better paced.

Another death, her father ends up helping her (a twist on the usual Freddy formula, parents usually distrust their kids in the films). There's a mysterious little girl that keeps popping up in her dreams. And it all ends in an epic unexpected climatic battle like you've never seen before in a slasher!

Then there's "Demon of Sleep".

A group of geeks and nerds - social outcasts - are being killed one by one, picked personally by Freddy Krueger for no apparent reason.

They're the usual movie cliché clique. There's the usual Asian geek, a geek girl, a skater-slacker type, etc. One of them come up with a plan.

They will summon an Aztec sleep demon God (!) to fight Freddy for them! But it turns out this deity Nahuaquez requires a sacrifice...

It seems a bit far fetched even by slasher film standards. Perhaps it's because of the strange mix of background between Freddy and this Nahuaquez guy.

Anyways, the kid that summoned the Aztec wants to take this occasion to take care of his very own demons, namely the bully that tormented him daily. The others are starting to doubt this entire plan.

It's kinda silly, but better than the first opening arc.

The art is provided by Kevin J. West with inks from Bob Almond. It's pretty simple but works okay on this book. Worth noticing, the series also got covers by none other than Tony Harris of Ex Machina fame.

Overall, it's pretty decent A Nightmare on Elm Street stories that at the end of the day are kinda forgettable.

At least they tried having original new settings to set those apart from the movies.

But it really feels quite lackluster and not really worthy of horror icon Freddy Krueger!

I'm also kinda bummed that DC/Wildstorm decided to skip entirely two issues. The first one closing loose ends from the first story which was well received and a fan favorite. And the on-going series would go on one more issue, not collected here either. Couldn't those be included?

I mean, it's too bad, they really screwed up on this...-  serious would go on some more issues not collected here either

I give it:

1.5 / 3 ManThings!