A truly chilling re-imagining.
Creative Staff:
Story: Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa
Art: Robert Hack
What They Say:
Terror is born anew in this dark re-imagining of Sabrina the Teenage Witch’s origin. On the eve of her sixteenth birthday, the young sorceress finds herself at a crossroads, having to choose between an unearthly destiny and her mortal boyfriend, Harvey. But a foe from her family’s past has arrived in Greendale, Madame Satan, and she has her own deadly agenda. Archie Comic’s latest horror sensation starts here!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With the success of the Afterlife with Archie series, it was no surprise that the company would try to get lightning to strike twice. With a character like Sabrina the Teenage Witch at hand, it doesn’t take much in a certain sense to work her into this angle. The question is just how far do you want to go in establishing it. With this double sized first issue, writer Robertro Aguirre-Sacasa and artist Robert Hack essentially figure it out by doing something somewhat similar in a sense to the Afterlife series, but not replicating it. Which is key, because even though fans want more of the same, they want different as well and for it to stand on its own. With this taking place in its own time period, we also get a classic horror series, which adds to it because the fashion sense of the time with the theme here just brings it all together beautifully.
While we get a touch of Riverdale and some familiar characters from there, this series initially starts us in the early 1950’s with the birth of Sabrina to her warlock father and mortal mother. With big plans in store for her, since she’s part of a forbidden union, it goes bad quickly for most involved as her mother tries to spirit her away to give her a normal life only to end up being lobotomized after Sabrina’s father commits her mother. Her father only lasts a few years longer himself overall as his sisters Hilda and Zelda have their own plans for Sabrina and have set things in motion so that he’s stuck inside a tree in Westbridge, Massachusetts. With Sabrina not fitting in at the magic school she attends because of her mixed heritage, it’s the perfect time to move someplace else, such as Glendale, where they buy a perfect funeral home across the street from a cemetery. And to complicate things more, in addition to previously getting a familiar in the form of Salem the cat, Sabrina’s cousin Ambrose moves in since he’s had schooling trouble himself.
The first thirteen years of Sabrina’s life are intriguing to watch as she starts to understand and use her powers and to see how her family end up protecting her in different ways, leaving her with just her two aunts to care for her while being very protective of their investment. As it moves forward with her as a thirteen year old young woman in 1964, we see the dating scene starting to enter the picture with a guy she likes and that gets her to start exploring her magic more. The dangers involved start to surface, the conversations with Ambrose and Salem add to it overall and the threat of reprimand from her aunts is ever present. But seeing Sabrina, a woman of two worlds, trying to fit into one while having the abilities of the other, is definitely intriguing.
The book works a very old school kind of horror style here with what it wants to do, playing with dark magic, making some snide comments about types of magic and going with the obvious threats such as getting even with a troublesome girl by having a giant spider appear to torment her. There’s a pervasive undertone of threat and creepiness about the whole book, a lot of it coming from the aunts, but also because of the time period and how it’s portrayed. It’s kept largely on target in appearance, but with the illustration style they use with its rougher cut and doing a lot of of Halloween themed colors and a ton of orange – softer, unlike Afterlife with Archie – it just builds to this work that draws you further and further in. And with a double sized issue to do it all, it works its pacing well enough to really give you a strong story that provides an origin and begins to show just how badly things will likely eventually go.
In Summary:
The opening issue of this series is an impressive work with what it wants to do in taking a familiar character with a lengthy history and going back to square one. Turning it towards a serious approach with a classic horror style about it is definitely the way to go here and what we get is a beautifully creepy work tied to adolescence going forward and ones place in the world. The writing is spot on, the artwork is beautiful and it’s perfectly paced to really draw you into everything. This installment also gives us a bit of a behind the scenes look at the project and a fun reprint story of Sabrina from 1962 that shows us how she was back in the day and her more mischievous side. Overall, a strong work, very engaging and definitely leaves you wanting more.
Grade: A-
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Archie Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: October 8th, 2014
MSRP: $3.99
