Writer Charles Soule and artist Steve McNiven apparently killed off the most popular X-Man in Marvel’s four-issue mini-series Death of Wolverine.
As part of a special Halloween ComicFest promotion, Batman and Robin joined the Scooby gang to track down Man-Bat in DC Comics’ Scooby Doo! Team-Up, while in DC’s Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, a decidedly darker Batman celebrated his 75th Anniversary year by battling the Scarecrow. The story was continued in the graphic novel Batman: The Long Halloween from the Eisner Award-winning team of writer Jeph Loeb and artist Tim Sale.
Viz Media participated in the Halloween promotion with a “sneak peek” issue of Resident Eviclass="underline" The Marhawa Desire, written and illustrated by Naoki Serizawa.
It wasn’t a good year for Riverdale’s perennial teenager Archie Andrews. In the penultimate issue of Life with Archie, published in July, an adult Archie was shot to death while protecting an openly-gay friend, and in an alternate timeline in the decidedly adult Afterlife with Archie, the all-American town was overrun with zombies, thanks to Sabrina the Teenage Witch and a stolen copy of the Necronomicon. Sabrina Spellman also got her own supernatural spin-off title, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, set in the 1960s.
The big movie tie-ins of the year included Godzilla by Greg Cox, Interstellar by Greg Keyes and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes by Alex Irvine.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: Firestorm was a prequel to the movie by Greg Keyes. The Woman in Black: Angel of Death by Martyn Waites was a sequel to the Susan Hill novel and Hammer film, while Dan Abnett’s Guardians of the Galaxy: Rocket Racoon & Groot—Steal the Galaxy! was a spin-off from the Marvel comic book and movies series.
Credited to director Greg McLean and Australian horror writers Aaron Sterns and Brett McBean, respectively, Wolf Creek: Origins and Wolf Creek: Desolation Game were prequel novels to the movies.
Alien: Out of the Shadows by Tim Lebbon and Alien: Sea of Sorrows by James A. Moore were both based on an older movie franchise.
Grimm: The Chopping Block by John Passarella and Grimm: The Killing Time by Tim Waggoner were based on the NBC-TV series, while Sleepy Hollow: Children of the Revolution by Keith R.A. DeCandido took its inspiration from the Fox Network show.
Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead: Descent was the fifth tie-in to the AMC series by Jay Bonansinga (who received a solo by-line for the first time), and Seth Patrick’s The Returned was based on the French zombie TV series Les Revenants.
Nancy Holder’s Beauty & the Beast: Vendetta and Kass Morgan’s The 100: Day 21 were both based on The CW teen series, while Christa Faust’s Fringe: Sins of the Father was a belated tie-in to the cancelled Fox show.
Titan Books’ hardcover “Penny Dreadful Collection” reprinted Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Bram Stoker’s Dracula and The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde as tie-ins to the HBO series. Each volume had coloured page edges and a matching bookmark ribbon.
Doctor Who: The Crawling Terror by Mike Tucker, Doctor Who: Silhouette by Justin Richards and Doctor Who: Blood Cell by James Goss all featured Peter Capaldi’s twelfth Doctor, while the War Doctor was the focus of Doctor Who: Engines of War by George Mann.
12 Stories 12 Authors was a reprint of the Doctor Who anthology that added a new story by Holly Black featuring the twelfth incarnation of the Time Lord.
Tomb Raider: The Ten Thousand Immortals by the industrious Dan Abnett and Nik Vincent was a tie-in to the video game, while Halo: Mortal Dictata by Karen Traviss was the third volume in the gaming series, followed by Halo: Broken Circle by John Shirley.
David J. Williams and Mark S. Williams’ Transformers: Retribution was a prequel to the cartoon series based on the Hasbro toys.
Gitty Daneshvari’s Monster High: Ghoulfriends to the End was the fourth volume based on Mattel’s range of “Ghoulfriends” dolls. It was illustrated by Darko Dordevic and Chuck Gonzales.
Iron Man: Extremis by Marie Javins was a novelisation of a Marvel graphic novel, as was New Avengers: Breakout by Alisa Kwitney.
To tie in with the British Film Institute’s “Sci-Fi: Days of Fear and Wonder” season, Kim Newman’s in-depth study of Hammer’s Quatermass and the Pit (and the BBC-TV original) was published by BFI Film Classics/Palgrave Macmillan in a handsome softcover edition featuring numerous photographs from the film, plus cover art by Nathanael Marsh. Also published in the same series were books about Brazil by Paul McAuley, Alien by Peter Luckhurst, War of the Worlds (1953) by Barry Forshaw, Solaris by Mark Bould and Silent Running by Mark Kermode.
Film historian Gregory William Mank explored obscure horror history in The Very Witching Time of Night: Dark Alleys of Classic Cinema from McFarland, which included a look at the tragic life of actress Helen Chandler through the reminiscences of her sister-in-law and a candid interview with the son of actor Lionel Atwill, amongst other fascinating pieces.
Tom Weaver, David Schecter and Steve Kronenberg did just what the title of McFarland’s The Creature Chronicles: Exploring the Black Lagoon Trilogy promised. It came with an Introduction by actress Julie Adams. From the same imprint, Weaver also published paperback editions of Attack of the Monster Movie Makers: Interviews with 20 Genre Giants (with a little help from research associates Michael Brunas and John Brunas), They Fought in the Creature Features: Interviews with 23 Classic Horror, Science Fiction and Serial Stars and I Talked to a Zombie: Interviews with 23 Veterans of Horror and Sci-Fi Films and Television.
William Schoell wasn’t quite sure about his theme in Creature Features: Nature Turned Nasty in Movies, while Psycho, The Birds and Halloween: The Intimacy of Terror in Three Classic Films by Randy Rasmussen and Subversive Horror Cinema: Countercultural Messages of Films from Frankenstein to the Present by Jon Towlson were both decidedly more focussed in their scope.
Also from McFarland, Alexandra Heller-Nichols explored the subculture of Found Footage Horror Films: Fear and the Appearance of Reality, while Unraveling Resident Eviclass="underline" Essays on the Complex Universe of the Games and Films edited by Nadine Farghaly tried to put the popular zombie series into perspective.
From BearManor Media, Joseph Maddrey’s Beyond Fear: Reflections on Stephen King, Wes Craven, and George Romero’s Living Dead drew upon decades of interviews with its subjects.
From the same imprint, Joe Jordan’s biography Showmanship: The Cinema of William Castle came with a Foreword by Bela G. Lugosi and an Introduction by Thomas Page. Brian Taves’ Robert Florey, The French Expressionist was a biography of the director who was originally scheduled to direct Frankenstein (1931).