Hook Jaw #1 - Titan Comics

HOOK JAW No. 1, January 2017

Based upon the giant shark who first appeared inside the “controversial weekly British anthology comic” “Action” and apparently “had no problem tearing women and child apart… in graphic detail”, Simon Spurrier’s script for Issue One of “Hook Jaw” probably came as something of a disappointment to its 4,249 readers, with its particularly bizarre tale of a scientific research vessel being raided by Somali pirates and subsequently rescued by a team of United States Navy S.E.A.L.S. In fact, it is arguably rather hard to see many similarities at all between this twenty-two page periodical and the ‘environmentally edgy' “Jaws” cash-in which eventually lead to the titular character’s magazine being ‘pulped’ by the “International Publishing Corporation” in October 1976.

True, the British novelist’s narrative does consistently present the menace of a female Great White shark suddenly attacking one of the ship’s crewmembers, courtesy of “the world-famous virgin brides” Agatha, Carmel and Big Bertha. But such a sense of pervading peril, occasionally heightened by a dorsal fin or two breaking the water’s surface, is hardly the sort of vivid mutilation anticipated by a franchise infamous for its stories being literally “drenched in blood and gore”.

Mercifully though, Hook Jaw is not entirely absent from this mini-series’ opening instalment, and when Captain Klay’s United States Special Operations team does encounter the formidably-sized Carcharodon carcharias, the sense of horror is still incredibly palpable even though the gaff-hooked monster tears his prey to pieces ‘off-screen’. Indeed, in many ways the fate of the two scuba-divers is made all the more unpleasant as a result of their piteous pleas resonating across their underwater equipment’s audio feed; “Ohhh no more please no more please no more pluh-hee-heeese. Nnnno Mommy pleeheeeeease go away get away not like this I don’t wanna daa aaa aaa…”

Sadly, Conor Boyle’s breakdowns for the majority of this comic are not a patch on the original series’ artwork by Seventies sketching ‘superstar’, and Hook Jaw’s co-creator, Ramon Sola, with the illustrator’s somewhat quirky, stiff-looking figures proving a particular disappointment. Having said that however, the freelancer’s incredible ability to draw anatomically correct sharks and imbue their gliding forms full of spine-tingling danger, makes it abundantly clear just why “Titan Comics” hired him to contribute to this publication.

The regular cover art of "HOOK JAW" No. 1 by Conor Boyle & Luis Gurrero