Clive Barker’s Hellraiser Issue 2 Retro Review

The year was 1990. After a long wait, Barker fans were finally treated the second issue of Clive Barker’s Hellraiser. This issue contained five stories, including one that actually had Pinhead and the Female Cenobite in it! Once again, several industry greats were used to put together this masterpiece of the macabre.

The introductory story is titled “The Vault” by Mark McLaurin, and Jorge Zaffino. McLaurin was a Managing Editor at Marvel at the time.  He worked on the Razorline!!  Jorge Zaffino (Punisher, Batman : Black & White).   This tale takes place an an unsavory South American Prison known only as “La Enfermidad” (The Disease). One of the prisoners, Garcia, solves the Box and disappears. Of course, the Warden, Velez, thinks he has escaped and that the box was how he did it. At the same time, one of the head revolutionaries, Diaz, is also imprisoned. Even though Velez’ primary job is supposed to be to get Diaz to reveal names and locations of other revolutionaries, he becomes obsessed with the box and how to solve it and how that led to an escape from his prison. He starts to have other prisoners try to solve it. Some won’t touch it and get executed for it, others can’t solve it, and still get executed. Knowing his replacement is on his way, Velez tries one last, desperate act. Get Diaz to solve the box. When Diaz refuses, Velez starts hitting him with the box, which somehow summons a Cenobite that takes Velez to Hell.

This was a clever story that never showed the Cenobite that takes Velez. He does, however, reveal to Velez that Leviathan has been watching Velez closely for awhile now. Pleased with how Velez has brought structure and order to La Enfirmidad, yet displeased with how he lost his sense of order when he became obsessed with the box.

Our next story is called “Divers Hands” Written by James Robert Smith (Taboo) with art by Mike Hoffman (Hellblazer).  It involves a Leper Colony/Hospital where Mary, a Nurse has just started working. She quickly befriends and becomes obsessed with one patient in particular, Vincent. Vincent has a Lament Configuration. He tells her that he found it shortly after contracting the disease, and he believes it is the key to his recovery. He tells her it summons Cenobites that can give him a new body. However, due to the disease, he has neither the fingers, nor the sense of touch needed to solve the puzzle. Mary decides to help him, even though she doesn’t believe him. She solves the puzzle and the Cenobites come…for Mary. Vincent had made a deal with them a while ago. Bring them bodies, and eventually, he will be made a Cenobite. The box goes missing during the following struggle, which claims Mary. Vincent wonders the facility looking for his Box. When he finds it, the Cenobites reappear, for him. It turns out the facility itself was a configuration of sorts, and he found the right path through it.

I wasn’t too happy with this story. Parts of it seemed forced, with little to no explanation. Lemarchand is mentioned, but not in a way that fits previously established mythology. Apparently he also built the facility as well. That is a big task for a toy maker, if you ask me.

Next up is a short little story, and my favorite of the issue, called “Writer’s Lament” written by someone who is very well known in the Industry, Dwayne McDuffie. Not only did he have an amazing career with DC Comics, but he started his own comic company, Milestone Comics. That company was later absorbed by DC and gave us such characters as Static Shock and Icon. The Artist, Kevin O’Neill, was the artist and co-

creator of Marshal Law. This is about a writer, who is already in Hell, that writes stories for Hell. He finishes a story and it manifests as a baby. We are definitely in Metaphor Country here. The Editor then proceeds to make changes to the baby/story. He begins Ripping out  an eye, an arm, and the testicles. The writer complains, and the editor puts the pieces back, and then rips out the heart of the baby/story. The Writer is mad, but is eager to do more work in the future, this time leaving the heart out. This story seems to be McDuffie venting about Editorial Control over a writer’s work. It is a very effective story/baby with a lot of heart.

Scott Hampton, whose work we saw in “Pig’s Blood Blues” brings in co-writer Mark Kneece, who done work for Batman comics, and The Twilight Zone, for our next story, “The Threshold.” This was a weird story. It involves what is basically a Virtual Reality company that can not not only simulate a visual world, but the senses as well. No big surprise that most of their clientele use it for “Celebrity Sex,” but there is a secret. Down in the basement is somebody who was supposed to be surfing in Hawaii, but ended up surfing in Lava. Due to ineptitude, this poor sap was left hooked up to the machine, “floating in Lava” all weekend. This shut his brain down, and now the techs have fun with him. Sadistic fun. They like to how much pain they can simulate with this poor guy. One tech thinks he is about to go down in history and win a Nobel prize by programming an increasing pain loop. How much pain can a person endure, and what happens next? That is the experiment. As the pain increases, suddenly a Cenobite appears, shakes the hand of the Tech and says a sadist such as he will be a welcome addition to the fold. A weird story, Interesting, but weird. But it does illustrate the variety of stories we can expect from this title.

Finally, we have “The Pleasures of Deception” Written by Philip Nutman, who has contributed to Fangoria Magazine, and artist Bill Koeb, who we will see more of in the future.   This is one of those cases where the artwork really took me out of the story.

The story itself relies heavily on the visual, but the visual doesn’t do a good job of conveying the story. Does that make any sense? Anyways, this is a story about a struggling artist who finds inspiration through a puzzle box. He gets visited by Pinhead and the Female Cenobite from the first two movies. I think that they get Davis (the artist) to find victims that they tear apart, and he makes paintings based on what he witnesses? Or maybe the paintings ARE the victims? It really isn’t clear, which is a shame, because I know people were waiting for Pinhead’s debut in the comic, and this story really isn’t worth it.

This issue provides a few stumbles, but mostly a solid entry. The release schedule was a lot more solid after this, getting on track with a quarterly release schedule.

I will see you next time when I review Clive Barker’s Hellraiser #3!