Caring for kids traumatized by monsters is a big job, but what can Jace do when Sunny stumbles upon White Masks from the Butcher Shop? Find out in House of Slaughter #2 from BOOM! Studios.

HOUSE OF SLAUGHTER #12

Writer: Tate Brombal
Artist: Antonio Fuso
Colorist: Miquel Muerto
Letterer: Andworld Design
Editor: Eric Harburn
Publisher: BOOM! Studios
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: February 15, 2023

Previously in House of Slaughter: Jace Boucher works on his own to protect kids from monsters. One of the kids in his group, Sunny, idolizes him. The young boy cannot help himself from retelling the story about how Jace rescued him. But the problem with scaring the other kids is that it could generate more monsters. Jace has two totems who help him be aware of nearby monsters, and they warn him that he is getting close to Butcher territory. He remembers his childhood when he and other kids from his House were sent out on the streets to find and rescue other kids, like the red-haired girl named Jolie. Later, Sunny awakens Jace from a nightmare. Jace yells at him, and he runs off and encounters a monster – and a different monster hunter!

THE OUTSIDERS

As House of Slaughter #12 opens, Sunny wakes up in a car. Jolie, red-haired and with different colored eyes, kindly asks him if he wants to talk. He insists that they let him out. Moving around, he works some of his new stitches loose. Jolie patches him back up and swears that, had she known his family was nearby, she would have taken him back to them. She does admit to killing the monster. Sunny is trying to follow the rules of not telling anyone about Jace, but we can see his surprise at realizing he may be with another monster hunter.

The driver stops the car. Jolie tells Sunny that they have some grown-up business to attend to. Sunny says that he is sort of grown-up. Jolie gives him a handful of crossbow bolts and tells him they are going out to hunt the monster’s babies.

Jace and the kids are on the move. Little Julio is worried about Sunny and that he might be dead. Jace reassures him that he isn’t. But he also knows there is a monster with babies out there, and that his totems, Hoot-Hoot and Sparkle, did not warn him about them.

The scene changes to another flashback or dream as Jace remembers hunting and knocking down Jolie yet again. She is getting tired of playing, but he encourages her to keep on trying so she gets better and stronger. He gives her a head start to go hide and is approached by Aaron, an adult Aaron with his chest ripped open. He reacts as though this is a nightmare, and this time in his reverie, Jolie jumps on him and punches him in the nose.

Sunny insists he is only along because he has never seen a monster hunt before, but he does sneak off long enough to mark a tree as Jace as taught the kids. Jolie tells him he is lucky to have a family, and confesses that she had lost her family when she was a kid, but found another to replace it. The talk turns to nightmares, and Jolie gets him to tell her his nightmare about the alligator monster. She tells him that it is an Animatype and how they are formed. They learn about a lot of things like that at the Butcher Shop. She gradually eases into making him feel like her group could be his family and she asks him to help them. She positions him in a clearing and asks him to keep very still.

RESCUED CHILD OR MONSTER BAIT?

One of the things that stands out to me in the art of House of Slaughter #12 is the use of interesting and creative panels in telling the story. Most of them are angled, some slightly and some more, which gives a sense of disjointedness, as though things do not fit together neatly. In the dream sequence, multiple images are used in the same large panel to provide a feeling of movement. And when Jolie and her White Masks are on the hunt deep in the woods, the gutters between the panels look like tree branches, dividing the images in an orderly fashion, but losing all sense of symmetry and constraint.

It is either night in this issue or the action is deep enough in the woods that any sunlight is muted. But when Sunny is left alone as monster bait, the lighting takes a turn for the even darker. Jolie puts on her white mask and fades into the background where all we see of her is the glow of the teeth on her mask. Sunny realizes that she has left him, and now the spaces between the trees are black, a blackness filled with the dim red reflection of the little remaining light off monster eyes.

BOTTOM LINE: DOES THE END JUSTIFY THE MEANS?

House of Slaughter #12 lets us see another interpretation of the Order of St. George and their connection to the children who survive. But as interesting as monsters are, the truly complicated conflicts are between the humans who are ostensibly all on the same side.

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