Nerds That Geek Comic Book Review – ‘The Wraith: Welcome to Christmasland’ – Volume 4 – ‘Chapter 3: Fastball’

Written by Juanita ‘Obi-Juan’ Bonner

If you know absolutely nothing about NOS4A2 in print, comics or television, know this… Christmasland is SCARY!! And last we saw our ragtag group of guards and prisoners – having just arrived in the snowy, Holiday light laden realm – they are only just starting to understand how frightening Christmasland truly is. So, before you can say “Mother Mary in the Manger” (LOL), join me on a drive through Volume 4 – Chapter 3: Fastball… won’t you?

Picking up where Volume 3 left off, the first panel shows Charlie Manx kneeling down with open arms to receive love from his children – or from where we sit, what’s left of them – Lorrie and Millie Manx. Transformed in Volume 1, like all the children who arrive in Christmasland, Lorrie and Mille are now sharp teethed vampiric creatures, blood thirsty for prey. And their father is all too happy to comply by bringing them five new human presents to unwrap. YIKES!!

As each new arrival takes stock of their surroundings, reality starts to sink in. The prison guard Agnes, who rode the entire way drugged and in the trunk, turns to Chess (our main protagonist) and says: ”My God. What is this, Llewellyn? Where are all the grown-ups? It can’t be just kids.” Silly Agnes… they’re not really just kids… LOL!! Chess discusses how he’s just as nervous standing there surrounded by “Twelve-year-olds dressed for a costume party,” as he was in the yard at the county lock-up. Trust me Chess, Christmasland is MUCH WORSE… LOL! At the same time, convicts Dewey and Sykes, as depraved as they are (which is A LOT!!), are also starting to realize the weight of their situation. Dewey in particular remarks that he recognizes some of the children as ones he gave to Charlie years ago, yet they haven’t aged. YEP… that sounds about right!! Let me just say, at this point, we’re still only on page ONE and I’m already salivating with fear and excitement… SERIOUSLY – PAGE ONE!! We then see a full-page panel of our group standing outside the Wraith surrounded by spiked teeth children in dirty blood-soaked clothes, all wearing different types of costumes as they close in, with most carrying some sort of weapon. A baseball player with the name WRAITHS (DUH… LOL!!) on his shirt, carries a bat while a surgeon has a bone saw (WTF!!!) and a fireman with an ax. Others have sticks, knives, clubs, cleavers and even a chainsaw sported by a deranged Davey Crocket looking child… complete with the raccoon hat. HOLY COW!!

Kevin, the other prison guard, who actually rode in the front seat, but was drugged and incapacitated the entire time, groggily emerges from the Wraith saying, “Hey… I think I had a dream about this place. That’s weird.” HAHAHA, everyone had that dream Kev… WEIRD is putting it mildly! His injury from the van rollover in Volume 2 is noticed right away by one of the children as they call for the doctor and say, “It’s a Christmasland emergency!” Um… yeah, no one wants this doctor making house calls, that’s for damn sure!! Falling against a lamp pole wrapped in Christmas lights, Kevin is reassured by another child that help is on the way. “Stand clear,” the bone saw toting doctor shouts. Kevin, still a bit groggy, is thankful at first. But as the children gather round and begin to paw at him, he says: “Girls… girls… no stop… look, this is a serious injury, not a game. You understand?” HAHAHA, no Kev… no they don’t!! Things start to move pretty fast at this point. The doctor shouts, “We’re losing him! There’s no time to waste! We have to amputate!” WHOA!!

As you would imagine, chaos ensues. Agnes tries to intervene and is stopped by a Mad Hatteresque (Disney, 1951) child who throws his top hat on her head. “Alley-kazow, alley-oop! Say good-bye, you ugly old poop!” Agnes is then engulfed by the hat until she’s gone. WHAT!! Kevin, with the bone saw still in his bloody leg, lies glassy eyed at the bottom of the street light. Creepy is putting this full-page sequence mildly in my opinion... LOL!! Next, Dewey tries to tell Manx to stop what’s happening and in the process Millie slices off his hand with her sword!! HAHAHA, I knew Charlie’s remarks in Volume 2 about lending a hand would come full circle and naturally Charlie comments as such here… LOL! Dewey fires his sawed-off shotgun sending Millie flying through the air, though she springs up a short time later, unscathed. As Manx grabs Dewey by the throat, Chess intervenes throwing the only weapon he has – a snowball – directly at Charlie. Sykes shoots one of the children (who’s wielding two axes by the way – YIKES!!) in the eye then takes the kid’s scarf and wraps the wound where Dewey’s hand once was. Chess then grabs the bone saw from Kevin’s leg (who we never see again by the way) and saws the top off the hat that… um… swallowed(??) Agnes. A white rabbit comes out. I mean…YEAH, OF COURSE IT DOES!!! Chess angrily shakes the hat. As Agnes starts to come out all she can say is: “S-s-stuh-STATIC….” HOLY COW this Inscape is just nuts!! Sykes open fires on Manx. Millie steps in, but once the smoke clears, emerges unharmed AGAIN! In the meantime, Chess is trying to assess Agnes but is knocked clean out with a spring-loaded boxing glove (SURE… why not?!? LOL!!) by a child cop sporting a patch that says CPD. Christmasland Police Department, I assume… LOL!!! Geez, the chills, laughs and WTFs are constant now!!

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As a short reprieve from the madness (WHEW!!), the next couple of pages completes Chess’ backstory by taking us back to 1988 in Doublecross, CA. The medical center parking lot Chess was in with a gun is the very same one that denied his son Adam care. And the foul-mouthed corporate guy at the Christmas party and the doctor who turned Adam away are one in the same. I KNEW IT!! Chess demands the doctor hand over the golf club he got as a Secret Santa gift. Turns out, the club came from Chess as he says to the doctor: “I heard you like the game. I heard you played nine holes after you got off work… the night my Adam died.” HOLY F@$k!! At gunpoint, Chess demands the club then tells the doctor to put his hands on the hood of the car. WOW!! Now we know why Chess was sent to prison. Can you blame him though?? I mean… even though the doctor faults “the rules” (code word for money) on denying Adam care, the man took an oath… WTF!! The first and the last panel of this flashback are the same – a black yet snowy fog – acting as a fade in and out of Christmasland. Or, rather, in terms of Chess passing out and waking up, a fade out… then in. NICE!!!

When we return to the madness, the story splits in two. The first half gives us Dewey seemingly leaving Christmasland on foot through a tall set of candy cane gates flanked by equally large nutcracker men. Geez, I always liked nutcracker men… until now… LOL!! Shivering and talking to himself, Dewey reaches a large mountain wall at the end of the road and realizes he hasn’t left this nightmare at all. Surprised by a bear… or rather, a child in a bear costume (because… yes, of course… LOL!!), Dewey recognizes him as Robin Robards – one of the children Dewey gave to Charlie. Geez, this disgusting rapist and child snatcher deserves whatever he gets, right!?! Robin, the soulless thing he is, tells Dewey how he saved him from his mother… a, “Bad person,” who… ”Did all kinds of bad things,” to Robin. He then asks Dewey if he lost his gun. Turns out, Sykes only helped Dewey during all the chaos so he could steal his sawed-off shotgun and shells and disappear. From what we know about Sykes… YEP, that sounds about right… LOL!! Dewey asks if the gun would even work anyway. Um… NO Dewey… NO IT WON’T!! Apparently, all a gun would do is put holes in the bear suit… LOL!! Helping Dewey to his feet, Robin, appearing rather friendly, tells Dewey that he and some of the other children want to leave Christmasland too and maybe they could help each other. Hmmm, interesting!! I can’t imagine this is going to end well for ‘Ol Dewey Hansom, but OK!! Off they go.

The last five pages gives us our second story and features the only two somewhat normal people in this entire twisted tale – Agnes and Chess. Apparently, during all the confusion, Agnes dragged an unconscious Chess to safety in one of the Ferris wheel’s huts, which, incidentally, is still moving. Agnes frees herself from the handcuffs placed on her way back in Volume 2 with scissors she snagged from the first-aid kit in the trunk of the Wraith. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again… I like this chick!! Though, I do find if funny that Charlie would have a first-aid kit in the trunk considering he’d likely take pleasure in coming across someone wounded and in need of first-aid… LOL!!! Regardless, Agnes, a 60-year-old woman, dragged a full-grown man to safety, so yeah… she’s a badass!!

As the Ferris wheel turns and their hut reaches into the clouds, Chess spies something outside. A balloon with a note attached. Wait… huh? Like the ones he and his son let go in the baseball park? No… can’t be!! He climbs onto the Ferris wheel bars attached to their hut while Agnes pleads for him to get down for fear of being seen. I’m with Agnes here Chess… get the f@%k down!! As he grabs the balloon, one of Charlie’s scary little monsters, carrying two large kitchen knives (YIKES!!), spies him on the bars. DAMMIT!! Chess, while holding the balloon, opens and reads the note, but it slips from his hand and is picked up by a bird. The final full-page panel shows a cloud and star filled sky and the bird flying off with the note. It reads: ”Help is coming. You need a special ride to leave. Will send balloons. You were right dad, they glow!” THE END! Huh… balloons, eh!! And I thought those little pieces of the story were just character connection moments between Chess and Adam. Bravo, Joe Hill.

Well kids, another deliciously evil volume is complete!! Make sure to zoom in or get out the magnifying glass because, including the cover, the malicious details are half the fun. The whole thing is a preverbal Where’s Waldo (Little Brown & Co.; 1987) of evil. An example within consists of one child wearing a string of severed fingers around his neck. YIKES! Can you find him? And I should’ve pointed out in my recap of Volume 3 that 3-6 has a single black and white previous volume recap page at the beginning. This is not something I traditionally see when reading a comic lot which is pretty cool and sets the inner chapters apart from the prologue and epilogue of Charlie’s personal arc in Volumes 1 and 7. NEAT!! We only have two chapters left before we come back round to said arc. So far, only Kevin was lost. Who’s next? And will ANY of our crew make it out of Christmasland? You’ll just have to come back next week to find out as we go full speed ahead into Volume 5 – Chapter 4: The Rules of the Game. Until next time, ponder on what little Robin Robards said to Dewey Hansom at the mountain wall dead end: ”You can’t get out of here this way. Not without a special vehicle, like the Wraith. That’s one of the rules.” And be sure to catch up on all things Christmasland with our NOS4A2 Collection right here.

‘The Wraith: Welcome to Christmasland’ – Volume 4 – ‘Chapter 3: Fastball’
IDW Publishing; Feb 2014 – Author: Joe Hill; Illustrations: Charles Paul Wilson III; Colors: Jay Fotos; Letters: Shawn Lee and Robbie Robbins; Edits: Chris Ryall

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