Marvel Comics
He was frequently involved in horror throughout his life. Before Marvel existed, its predecessor company, Atlas Comics, was known for publishing hundreds of serialized horror stories that could be compared to silver screen monster movies and disturbingly eerie situational horror. When Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, and Steve Ditko embraced superheroes, Marvel brought many of Atlas’ pop horror series, but ended up disrupting the genre in the 1980s.
However, in recent decades, and especially in recent years, Marvel has once again embraced its horror roots. Thanks to the disgustingly grotesque and disturbing talents of comics’ best writers and artists, Marvel has successfully introduced what used to be a very controlled image to the unnatural and terrifying perversions that the horror genre offers. Fortunately for horror fans, there are many series that could have been included on this list, but these comics feature the most. terrifying art styles in the history of Marvel Comics.
1
Immortal Hulk
The Hulk’s savage brutality
is nothing new, but before Al Ewing, Joe Bennett and Paul Mounts Immortal Hulk series, the true face of Gamma Goliath’s violent horror has never been fully explored. Bennett’s art is a disgusting nightmare of Cronenburg’s monstrosities. As the series explores the immortality of gamma mutants and the cosmic Satan they are related to, the horrors only become more abstract.
Although Marvel has allowed artists to step outside of traditional PG-13 guidelines, Bennett’s direction It completely broke modern standards. THE Immortal Hulk it’s sick and disturbing, perfect for a Hulk story. Throughout the story, as Bruce Banner’s psyche fully reveals its true nature, the series’ art reflects this journey. Bruce is a broken man, struggling to find harmony in his dissociations. Al Ewing did a fantastic job of detailing Banner’s struggles, but Joe Bennett fully articulated the scientist’s active trauma through the inhuman forms of flesh writhing and changing the series presents.
2
Dead of Night with Man-Thing
This limited series from MAX Comics is one of the few modern comic book series that expresses the horrific
Man-Thing’s monstrous nature
. Although the character has been transformed into something of a semi-comic puppy, its origins are significantly more petrifying. Written by Robert Aguirre-Sacasa with art by many talented artists such as Brian Denham, Nick Percival, June Chung and Nic Klein, Dead of the Night fully explores the monstrosity that Ted Sallis has become. The creature’s mindless, empathetic cruelty and terror are built by the sporadic pauses of tension before delivering a climactic and disgusting viewing experience.
Man-Thing is not a friend, he is a force of nature relieved by human understanding of morality. He acts without malice unless he acts first. He waits and processes his victims’ actions before confronting them with his own violent nature. Each of the limited series’ many authors created a unified vision that adequately portrays Man-Thing as an imposing beast of nature whose supernatural powers feel like an inevitably gruesome and prolonged death sentence before the creature approaches its victims.
3
Marvel Zombies (2005)
The first Marvel Zombies series that would later result in multiple sequels, spin-offs and a Disney+ animated series,
Marvel’s original zombies
it was part of a wave of greater interest in the mid-2000s in undead horror. Robert Kirkman, Sean Phillips and June Chung’s zombified miniseries showed that Marvel Comics was ready to move forward venture into modern dark tones which had struggled to gain a foothold in the mainstream since the mid-1990s. In this series, the heroes are not surviving the horror of the plot, they are the horror.
The series’ art has a fairly consistent unity that remains recognizable despite the obvious representations of decay and rot. Naturally, and for lack of better terms, this miniseries killed it. With the popular emergence of AMC’s Undeadinspired by the comic book series also written by Robert Kirkman, Marvel Zombies felt like another chapter in that era’s obsession with zombies rather than just another way to make money off topic popularity.
4
Dark X-Men
Although the X-Men occasionally dabble in the mystical arts, no character leads these adventures better than Madelyne Pryor. This miniseries from Steve Foxe, Jonas Scharf and Frank Martin takes readers a significantly darker direction than the Krakoa Era traditionally offered. The art itself is clean and polished, but its violent subject it’s what totally delivers the visual horror.
Jonas Scharf and Frank Martin employ a wide variety of gruesome subject matter that is sure to appeal to almost every horror fan’s favorite medium. Of waves of blood and gore, for meinfectious masses of fungi and insectsFor matters of religious horror, this series has it all. The general tone of the miniseries is so well done that at the time
the most common X-Men
appear, they almost feel out of place after all the brutality.
5
Ghost Rider (2022)
Ghost Rider has always been an easy subject to turn terrifying. Demons, brimstone, and hellfire are obvious focal points of horror. However, the year 2022 Ghost Rider series, by Benjamin Percy, Cory Smith and Bryan Valenza, really cemented how Agonizingly hellish is the life of Johnny Blaze. Blaze’s daily existence is more than Mephisto and his barely there leotard; that’s it a hellish landscape of mutilated corpses and ruthless demonic killers.
Throughout the series, Blaze is haunted by a demon born from his own soul. The demon known as Exhaust is a brutally cruel monster that suffocates its victims before infecting them with its demonic spawn. Instead of depending
Ghost Rider’s Traditional Religious Horror
which the series definitely makes use of, this comic series pushes the literary and visual boundaries of the true torturous nature of Hell. The hell that Ghost Rider carries with him is more than penance, it is agony.
6
Hellstrom: Son of Satan
Daimon Hellstrom has always been a difficult character to define stylistically. Almost every writer and artist has taken the character in their own direction. However, Alex Irvine, Russell Braun and Giulia Brusco Hellstorm: Son of Satan series adequately utilized the extra freedom
MAX Comics
gave the horror creators of the time. No longer subject to Marvel’s stricter standards, this miniseries was able to push the limits of “appropriate” artistic expressionmaking the overall product seem designed specifically for adults.
While Hellstorm makes use of many of the same stylistic patterns that other entries on this list use, Russell Braun and Giulia Brusco’s use of dynamic shading This is what detracts from the overall aesthetics. It’s a simple but effective tactic. In combination with the frequent use of ambient lightingThe series’ art is filled with rich visual textures, making the overall piece feel more real than the prominent flat-color comic book art of the time.
7
The Incredible Hulk (2023)
ONE spiritual successor of Immortal Hulk seriesthe Incredible Hulk, by Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Nic Klein and Matt Wilson, reintroduces the Hulk to the horror genre. However, this time Klein chose to explore a different type of horror. Incredible Hulk
Incredible Hulk is a terrifying story
is a terrifying tale that places the Hulk smack in the middle of the folk horror and cosmic horror genres. The monsters became less amorphous, instead embracing the distorted face of monsters from folk tales and urban legends.
Klein relies heavily on size as a way to demonstrate terror. Normally, the Hulk is the biggest monster in the room. However, the series’ boss-like enemies tower over the Hulk. It would be remiss to talk about this series without mentioning its colorist, Matt Wilson. Incredible Hulkmatte painting style gives the series an aged feel. Just like the horrors the Hulk is forced to face, the series’ colorfulness exudes a worn-out feeling of age and an artistic era long past.
8
The Darkhold
Whenever Marvel adopts connected anthologies, it always becomes a great opportunity to highlight multiple writers and artists while keeping the reader engaged with an overarching throughline. The Darkhold explores six stories divided between six different styles and art forms. While not all issues maintain the same level of horror as the following, the overall collective gives enough to satisfy any type of Marvel horror fan. “Tales of Suspense”, by Ryan North, Guillermo Sanna and Ian Herring, and “Tensile strength” by Alex Paknadel, Diógenes Neves and Jim Charalampidis, especially provide a disturbing horror experience.
“Tales of Suspense” makes use of a 1960s retro-futuristic art style that, while visually simple, stylistically accentuates the story’s slow build-up.before its shocking climax. About that, “Tensile strength” employs more modern takes on zombies and body horror, which immediately establish its grotesque tone. General,
the entirety of the Darkhold
provides readers with an overview of what Marvel’s horror comics are capable of and is another part of Marvel’s ongoing promise to bring more horror to its comics.
9
Ghost Rider: Road to Damnation
THE Road to damnation arc features some of the most overly saturated, headache-inducing artistic chaos that the character has already seen; but it works. Another series that relies on the use of dynamic shading and ambient light, the comics are rich in dark shadows that break up the Ghost Rider’s constant flaming aura. The images almost look 3D, making the horrors of the page seem actively present in the reader’s space.
Garth Ennis’ writing helps establish a harsher environment than is typically used in Ghost Rider stories, but Clayton Crain’s art and colors are what make the series stand out. It cannot be underestimated as realistic but terribly strange, Crain’s work makes the comics. Embracing significantly edgier adult tones in both the writing and art, the 2006 Ghost Rider the series is almost an independent work of art, separate from other Marvel works. Similar to MAX Comics,
Marvel Knights impressions
pulled many of Marvel’s heroes in darker, “edgier” directions, but this Ghost Rider series wasn’t afraid to push the boundaries of the Marvel’s permission for disturbing adult horror.
10
Submarine
One of Marvel’s most stylistically distinct series to date Submarine: The Depths, from Peter Milligan and Esad Ribić, is another addition to the Marvel Knights brands. By far, this series is Marvel’s Strangest, Most Disturbing Visual Experience Yet. Leaning exclusively in the same stylistic direction as the Foreigner franchise or 2020 Underwater, This series puts readers in a compact and isolated environment, far from any sense of humanity. Trapped under miles of water, a team of submariners fights for survival while being hunted by the demon of the deep, Namor.
Despite being the central theme of the series, this abnormally emotionless version of Namor is rarely seen. Instead, the true horror is embedded in the anxiety represented in the compact nature of the characters’ surroundings and the fear that gradually builds throughout each edition. Esad Ribić does a fantastic job of putting readers into the claustrophobic confines in which submariners are trapped, especially in its simple use of darkness as a means of perpetuating the series’ sense of panicked isolation. When
Namor finally appears
its horror is more the product of anxious tension than through total spectacle.