It’s that time of year again kids and a slew of one-shot comics with a Halloween theme will be coming out in the next several weeks. Shadowman #11 is a Halloween tale that fits smack dab into the ongoing series but will there be any repercussions from this All Hallows Eve tale? Unfortunately maybe the coolest thing about this issue is the variant cover that doubles as a Shadowman Halloween mask.

Official description from VALIANT:
Halloween’s here – and it’s about to hit New Orleans like a ton of bricks. It’s All Hallow’s Eve in the Big Easy – and Shadowman’s about to find himself alone on the job, standing guard on the most dangerous night of the year. Still reeling from the fallout of his cataclysmic battle with Master Darque, can Jack go it alone and protect his city from the legion of evils that haunt the Halloween night?

Writer Jim Zub steps in this month for the writing duties on Shadowman #11. Zub is best known for his work on Skullkickers and here he tackles the tale of Jack Boniface and the aftermath of his epic encounter on the Deadside with Master Darque. This story is focused on 3 buddies who want to hang out and party on Bourbon Street during Halloween. The stereotypical meathead partiers make their way into a Voodoo shop in search of costumes and for them less like the Three Musketeers and more like the Three Stooges. Our hero meanwhile just wants to go home, relax and shower but to no avail as he laments his existence is no longer what he had hoped.

While he’s locked out and has no means of communication he wanders the streets to try and clear his head of all the voodoo and mysticism the night is bringing with it. Jack then runs into two trouble making spirit creatures from the Deadside and before he can decipher how and why they are here he must stop them from creating trouble during the Halloween parade in New Orleans. The rest involves the three lunkheads, who are ripe for possession from spirits, and keeping them from causing a real-life tragedy, using Jack’s stolen weapon, on the parade knee deep in fantasy.

Along for the ride in this issue is artist Miguel Angel Sepulveda and this is the my first exposure to his work. He does nice stuff here and he’s at his best when dealing with the strange demons form the Deadside or any uses of Jacks powers of the supernatural. His work feels like what we’ve become accustomed to but it’s not quite as polished as regular artist Roberto de la Torre but it is a nice complimentary style.

I feel like Shadowman #11 was a missed opportunity for something much darker and more directly connected to the main plot and one of the few misses from Valiant. This is a one-shot Halloween special at it’s best. It’s fine and I had fun with it but overall I felt it lacked punch and falls flat. It’s Jack fighting off some spirits from the Deadside, again fun, but does it really lead to something bigger? I hope so. If you just want a decent Halloween story then by all means Shadowman #11 will do the trick but I don’t see it as a jumping on point for new readers either. It could have been worse but it could have been a whole heck of a lot better.

2.5/5