Refrigerator Full of Heads – 2021-2022 (DC Comics – Black Label) – Horror, Mystery
Author: Rio Youers
Art: Tom Fowler
Series Contents: Refrigerator Full of Heads #1-6
As we saw with Basketful, heads can get crammed into pretty much any tight space, and still remain quite chatty in the right circumstances. As the Yggdrasil axe holds special powers with how it kills, what about other ancient artifacts? June Branch survived our last story, but what else will happen this time around?
Story:
Our tale begins in November 1983 in California with an artifact heist digging deep into related piece questions immediately and getting bloody, before jumping back to Brody Island, Maine and 1984. We meet new characters Mr. and Mrs. Marshall who are looking for a quiet getaway. Arlene is a writer, and Cal is acting as her cheerleader husband for now, but there may be more to this couple than meets the eye.
As they begin to snoop around the small town, they immediately get into trouble, yet this leads to Cal discovering the glowing axe of Yggdrasil. As the ancient axe enters the scene again, trouble comes with it as undead heads begin to pile up, and this time some are larger than expected.
It is chaotic and frenetic and mostly in good ways story wise, making it hard to anticipate, and full of action. It brings back some of the surviving characters from the first swing of the ol’ axe, while developing some new ones. Mostly it retains the same atmosphere of dark morbid fun as the original series, but it is not as memorable with its writing or plotting.
The story moves pretty quickly and has no pacing issues though does not really have much time to breathe or appreciate its ideas. It does dip into even more supernatural concepts and is one issue shorter than Basketful. It feels slightly less developed overall as a result.
Art:
The art style remains fitting and does elicit a nice 80s backdrop as well as gory fights and bloody deaths, however I also found it a touch less compelling than Basketful of Heads. It is a bit more design-y than the first series, but overall, still worked fine. The blood and guts flow aplenty, while action weaves itself across the page with ease.
Reasons to Read:
This continues the story of Basketful of Heads, so if you liked that and just couldn’t get enough, then do check this out. It is not quite as strong, but does have some fun concepts and does some decent continuations for some of the characters.
Similar Titles:
Basketful of Heads; Severed; Nailbiter; Locke & Key; Something is Killing the Children; Harrow County; The Department of Truth