Friday the 13th Vol. 2

by Marc Andreyko, Adam Archer, Ron Marz, et al.

Written by Marc Andreyko, Jason Aaron, Ron Marz and Joshua Hale Fialkov Art by Adam Archer, Andy B, Shawn Moll and Mike Huddleston Cover by Mike McKone A new FRIDAY THE 13TH volume collecting PAMELA'S... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1401220037
• ISBN13: 9781401220037
• Release Date: October 2008
• Publisher: Wildstorm
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.6" x 10.2"

Customer Reviews

Four F13 Tales Ranging From Good To Great

Reprinting Wildstorm's Friday The 13th stories "Pamela's Tale" (# 1 & 2), "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" (#s 1 & 2), "Bad Land" (#s 1 & 2) and "The Abuser And The Abused" (one-shot), the second F13 Trade Paperback isn't quite the essential that the first Trade was, but does present some high-quality arcs, with Bad Land especially noteworthy. Pamela's Tale is, obviously, a prequel to the movies, casting the spotlight on Jason's mother Pamela Voorhees from the early days of her pregnancy with Jason right through to her appearance in the original Friday The 13th movie. Pamela leads a terrible life, married to an abusive scumbag, but is given comfort by the fact that she's carrying a child. The child is whispering to her from the womb (and it's never specified for sure whether this is real or in Pamela's head) on potential ways to take care of the situation, which she does before moving on and eventually (and fatefully) finding work at Camp Crystal Lake. The art and the story have a nice creepy vibe to them, but it's when the tale moves on to Jason's early life that we run into trouble. Although his physical depiction is accurate with the movies, I never got the impression from the movie series that he was supposed to be a 'bad guy' from day one, which is how he's portrayed here. If Jason's a psychotic, animal-torturing monster as a child, the whole Friday The 13th mythos falls apart, in my mind. Jason's whole status as a tragic monster who didn't start out evil is erased. That's why, unlike the story in the first F13 Trade Paperback, I don't consider the Pamela's Tale segment a part of official F13 continuity. On one hand, it may have worked better as a non-F13 story, with different characters slipped into the slots Jason and Pamela occupy. On the other hand, the brief more sympathetic glimpses of Jason's young life give us a look at how powerful the story would have been if it hadn't gone with the 'bad-from-birth' angle. In "How I Spent My Summer Vacation", at the modern-day Camp Crystal Lake, a deformed little buy is being given a terrible time by the camp bullies, only to (and I know everybody can see what's coming here...) find a kindred spirit in a most deadly form, which intercedes on the child's behalf with predictably bloody results for the boy's tormeners. Jason then takes over as a surrogate protector to the child - who he's clearly relating to - and hauls the child along with him as he sets out on a killing-filled journey towards an unknown destination, pursued by police and national guardsmen who have little luck in their attempts to bring Jason down. This story is a good one, not quite as good as it Could have been, true, but the revelatory final page and the implications behind it make up for any shortcomings. Really powerful, memorable image there. "Bad Land" unfolds by flipping back and forth between past and present time frames. Both of them are winter storm settings, and I don't know what it was abou

A collection of inspired Friday-tales!

After reading Book 1, which was a much more traditional Friday the 13th story, this collection comes as a really pleasant surprise. If you're a Friday-conservatist, you might not approve as much of these, but they only give little possible twists, more like "what if"-stories or other perspectives. Most (maybe all in a sense) of the stories are about people somehow relating to Pamela or Jason Voorhees, which is an interesting way to put it. First is "Pamela's Story", told within the first Friday the 13th and using it directly, where Pamela literally tells us her past life story. Without giving too much away I can say that it keeps the key moments we know, but they are a lot more raunchier and intense. I thought the sexual nature was a little strong in comparison to the first Friday-film, but it's compelling to know more about Pamela and her firstborn son. The artwork is pretty good, even if the characters look a little overly intense at times. "Abuser And The Abused" is a very short and special story about a disturbed young woman, drawn in a unique sort of "ultra-violent Archie"-kind of style, complete with rasters and muted colors. It's almost like an intense short story from a (female?) student with a passion for horror films, at least that's the vibe I get from it. It's over in a flash, but it really sticks out, even if Jason in that "Archie"-style just doesn't look right at all. "Bad Land" interconnects two stories at the same location (guess where?), and is impressive because both stories have their seperate conflicts (before or without Jason involved), and it really involves the reader even before it gets to all the blood and guts. Finally there's "How I Spent My Summer Vacation", told from the perspective of a little boy resembling Jason in both physicality and mentality. Jason slaughters completely mercilessly in this (no barriers, and so rapidly that I didn't pick up on it at first), but the boy becomes trapped between Jason and a police officer on their trails. That sounds like a simple story, but it's a little more complicated (and a lot crazier) than that. There's extreme gore, and the same artist/s that did the entire first book, which again, I'm not extremely fond of, but the environments, the violence/gore and special story makes up for it. Overall I really liked Friday the 13th: Book 2. There's a diverse collection of stories here, and they relate and connect to the Friday the 13th-universe while keeping the unique qualities of their makers. The artwork is overall well made, usually without looking too wrong but neither jumping out of the page completely. There's also plenty of sex and gore, but it's nice to see that there's more to tell than "kids arrive at Crystal Lake and Jason slaughters them" for the ten thousandth time. I hope Wildstorm continue to make issues and volumes like these in the future.