As a fan of excellent storytelling, I appreciate it no matter the genre. Who could not love the multiple storylines and endless heart tugs that can be found in Love Actually? Then there’s sprawling and tempered narrative of an All-American family but riddled with bullets and blood in The Godfather. The first Guardians Of The Galaxy was a blend of genres but told a seamless and original story.

One of the few genres that rarely gets the respect it should receive is the horror genre. Although one of its main functions is to make the audience’s collective skin crawl, it still takes readers on quite a journey. Candyman gave moviegoers a rare unseen view of the true to life terrors those who live in poverty face and just how invisible they are to the world at large. Since then, not too many movies since have struck the balance between being relatable and being entertaining, with the exceptions of recent movies Get Out and Sorry To Bother You. This same poise can be found in Abbott where we’re taken to 1972 Detroit and a mysterious series of grisly murders.

We are dropped right in the middle of one of the hottest summers in Detroit, one which sees the tension between the police and the city’s black population come to a boiling point. This is where we meet Elena Abbott, a sharp chain-smoking tabloid black female reporter, whose recent articles revolved around police brutality and  who doesn’t care for anything to do with the Boys Club or the Good Ole Boy Club, as the snide remarks and the way other reporters cut her with their eyes, doesn’t her make flinch, but what she sees at the crime scene does. We soon find out that she had lost her husband to some demonic forces, as these memories of him flood her mind at the most unexpected moments. Soon, she is called to another crime scene, one that reminds her of the evil she seen that night her husband died, something she thought she would never see again.

Overall, it’s a sobering and fresh take on the supernatural genre, that mixes horror, crime noir, period drama, and thriller into a pulse pounding story. The story by Saladin Ahmed is suspenseful, imaginative, and enigmatic. The at by Sami Kivela, Jason Wordie and Taj Tenfold feels like it jumped out of a 1970s comic but with a new school sensibility. Altogether, a book that proves Saladin Ahmed should write more comic books as he’s a voice that is more than needed now.

Story: Saladin Ahmed Art: Sami Kivela, Jason Wordie, and Taj Tenfold
Story: 10 Art: 9.0 Overall: 9.6 Recommendation: Buy

BOOM! Studios provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review