Ghosted #2
Written by Joshua Williamson
Illustrated by Goran Sudzuka
Colored by Miroslav Mrva
Lettered by Rus Wooten
Covers by Sean Phillips
Image Comics
Release Date: August 14, 2013
Cover Price: $2.99

In several pre-release interviews, Joshua Williamson described Ghosted, his six-issue miniseries for Image Comics/Skybound, as “Oceans’ 11 in a haunted house instead of a casino.” As intriguing as that idea sounds, the first two issues haven’t delivered much on that promise. Typical for the first issue in a new series or miniseries, issue #1 was all set-up, introducing the lead character, Jackson T. Winters, a convicted felon serving a ten-year stretch, who’s broken out of an unnamed prison by Marcus Schrecken, an elderly eccentric with very specific tastes and an ample bank account to satiate those tastes. Schrecken collects paranormal objects and wants Winters to capture and bring back a ghost from a haunted house, actually a mansion.

That mansion, once owned by the long-gone Trask family, wasn’t only the site for a few mysterious deaths, but the site of brutal, vicious murders by various members of the Trask family. They used their wealth and power to evade the legal implications of hunting and murdering whatever stray homeless people crossed their paths. Schrecken believes the mansion offers the best chance at capturing a ghost. Williamson sidesteps what, if anything, Schrecken plans on doing with the ghost, but as anyone familiar with haunted house stories, specifically influences like The Haunting, The House on Haunted Hill, and The Legend of Hell House (the first and third well-regarded novels before making the jump to the big screen to equally well-regarded adaptations), will guess, Schrecken’s (probably) up to no good.