Clive Barker's Nightbreed Comics - Issue 5

Volume 1 no. 5 “Scattering the seeds of Damnation”

This is the one I waited for- a new storyline that begins after the events in the book and movie… This is the Prelude to a series called ‘The Blasphemers’ that lasts until issue 10.

The same team put this together, with Clive Barker as consultant, so there were big hopes for it being a great storyline. In reality, It seemed to begin with three storylines…

The first scene begins in Shere Neck, quite naturally. What is less than natural is the appearance at ‘Keeter’s Diner’ of a bunch of ‘Breeders...

This ’Breed lineup includes one called Dagon (as in HP Lovecraft), an intelligent one called Oral (with a BIG mouth but no teeth) Mulciber (a gargoyle), the winged Aello (with ample womanly charms, and a very effective distraction technique!), Faecon (One-eye, one leg!) and Piglet (with a big appetite!)

Frustrated with waiting for Cabal to find and return them to their promised land, this renegade bunch have hit a local store in search of ID, although we’re not sure why.

The law soon gives chase as usual. With prompting from the gargoyle Mulciber, they all succumb to temptation, breaking Baphomet’s ‘law of meat’ and give in to the lure of the meat.

I must confess that I wasn’t ‘sold’ on this aspect of the storyline, and it is unfortunately one that persists for a few issues.

In The second scene, a farmer finds a young woman holed up in his barn. He offers her accommodation; in return she must repay him with ‘a dance…’

The farmer should have left it at that and not looked in her bag! (She is carrying Baphomet’s head!)

This again felt ‘gratuitous’ to me and unlikely that a lone ‘Breed would be given charge of Baphomet’s head… this storyline isn’t continued, and it felt very much like a ‘page-filler’.

Moving on, the third scene has Cabal and Kinski chasing some drug dealers; it turns out that they’re after an amulet, as this will lead them to the location of the woman who gave it to them, suspecting her of being a ‘Breed who chose to live in the surface world rather than Midian.

Again, little backstory to this and lots of unanswered questions came to mind while reading it...

The final scene shows the woman, who is known as ‘the witch’ or Nana Nickneven. She is assisted by a young girl, and together they are preparing a welcome for the ‘monsters’- the woman obviously has Breed powers including some kind of prophecy…