My Rating
“The Headless Horseman Rides Again”
Was the Headless Horseman real?
That is the question Matt Carter’s children ask Duke Durbano after he finishes telling them Washington Irving’s classic tale of Sleepy Hollow. Considering their father was found decapitated near the famous township only days earlier, Duke chooses his words carefully.
“It’s only a story.”
Their mother sends the children off to bed, but the question remains hanging in the room.
Matt Carter was a New York City police detective investigating a racketeering case upstate near Sleepy Hollow. His headless body was later discovered in the area, but as far as Duke is concerned, that is where the similarities to Irving’s tale end. No ghosts, goblins, or Hessian soldier riding through the night looking for his missing head.
But what really happened to Ichabod Crane? Matt’s widow wonders aloud. Washington Irving must have based at least some of his famous story on actual events. Duke is a private investigator by trade. Surely the possibility has crossed his mind?
Duke frowns at the suggestion.
Matt had spent years investigating one of New York’s most corrupt attorneys, Bones Bullinger. Duke has no doubt that Bullinger or one of his hired goons murdered his best friend. Men kill men. Ghost stories are for children.
Then tires squeal outside the Carter home.
A heavy object crashes through the front bay window and lands on the living-room floor. Duke immediately screams for everyone to get down.
A bomb!
The private investigator grabs the device and hurls it back through the shattered window. He dives behind the couch just as a massive explosion rocks the house.
Duke yells for Matt’s widow to call the police, then charges through the front door, jumps into his Triumph, and guns the engine. The killers couldn’t have gotten far!
Within seconds, Duke is racing after the hitmen in a high-speed pursuit that will eventually take him away from New York City and north toward the Hudson River.
Toward Sleepy Hollow.
What evidence brought Detective Matt Carter to the infamous town? Does Duke Durbano really believe a corrupt New York attorney arranged his friend’s decapitation? What connection does Bones Bullinger have to the murder? Could Washington Irving’s Headless Horseman still haunt the dark backroads near the Hudson River?
Collect the series to find out!
Reviewer Notes
Where do I begin with this one? If you bought Supernatural Thrillers #6 expecting a straight adaptation of Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, this is not the book you are looking for. Instead, Gary Friedrich takes the Headless Horseman and drops him into the modern world of 1973 New York City. What begins as a hard-boiled crime story involving the murder of Detective Matt Carter eventually heads north toward Sleepy Hollow and crashes straight into the supernatural.
On paper, I actually like the concept. A private investigator refuses to believe anything supernatural killed his friend, so he follows a group of hitmen into the very territory associated with one of America’s most famous ghost stories. Duke Durbano believes guns, money, racketeering, and Bones Bullinger can explain everything. Then the Headless Horseman enters the picture. There is plenty of potential there for a great horror/crime mash-up.
Unfortunately, the execution never quite worked for me.
As the plot progresses, Duke chases a car full of hitmen north toward Sleepy Hollow, where everyone eventually encounters supernatural forces leading into the final twist. The whole thing feels less like Washington Irving and more like one of those low-budget Syfy Channel knockoff movies that borrows the name of a famous story, moves it into the modern world, and hopes the title alone will get you through the door. I’m not against updating a classic. Hell, sometimes that is half the fun. I just don’t think Friedrich develops the idea enough to make this version particularly memorable.
I also caught one pretty obvious writing or lettering flub. The murdered police detective is named Matt Carter, but during one scene Bones Bullinger refers to him as Matt Slater. Unless Sleepy Hollow has another decapitated police detective wandering around that nobody bothered to mention, somebody screwed up. Roy Thomas should have caught that one during the editing stage.
As a reviewer, I also try to add a little extra value to my posts by pulling as much interesting metadata from these stories as possible. One of the things I enjoy documenting is the make and model of recognizable cars, motorcycles, aircraft, weapons, and other real-world objects appearing in the artwork. So far, I’ve been pretty lucky identifying the vehicles used throughout these older comics.
Then George Tuska handed me Supernatural Thrillers #6.
Three notable cars appear in this story. Duke’s roadster was easy enough for me to identify with confidence. The hitmen’s car appears to be some type of Mercury, although the front end looks strange enough that I’m hesitant to nail down a specific model. Then we have Duke’s replacement vehicle. Good luck with that one! The damn car seems to morph from panel to panel. The body lines change, the proportions shift, and by the end I had no idea what automobile Tuska intended it to be.
That isn’t to say Tuska’s artwork is bad overall. His characters and action sequences move the story along nicely, especially during the chase scenes. Vehicles just don’t appear to be his strongest subject in this particular issue. For someone like me who enjoys identifying that background material, the constantly changing cars become surprisingly noticeable.
Overall
Overall, “The Headless Horseman Rides Again” feels a little thrown together. A 1970s private investigator chasing mobsters into Sleepy Hollow only to encounter the legendary Headless Horseman is a genuinely fun idea. I just don’t think Gary Friedrich pulls all the pieces together. The crime story, supernatural elements, and Washington Irving connection never completely gel into the story they could have been.
I’m giving Supernatural Thrillers #6 three out of five stars. There is enough weird 1970s Marvel horror here to keep me entertained, but if you came looking for Ichabod Crane, Brom Bones, and a faithful return to Washington Irving’s Sleepy Hollow, you may want to keep riding.