REVIEW: See You in Hell #1 Turns War, Betrayal and Damnation Into One Twisted Ride

WEPAAAA! See You in Hell #1 kicks the damn door open looking like an old-school war comic crawled out of a haunted trench, stole somebody’s whiskey, picked a fight in a dive bar, and said, “Yeah, let’s make this everybody’s problem.” Erik Warfield’s debut throws WWII guilt, superhero mythology, occult horror, and pitch-black comedy into the same dirty blender, and somehow the mess works. Better than that, the grime is the point. This book does not want to look clean, safe, or respectable. It wants scars, bad memories, questionable choices, and a little brimstone under the fingernails.

At the center of all this madness is Reginald Mountcastle, a former member of the Battle Brigade whose name got absolutely cooked by betrayal. Decades later, the man is living under another identity, carrying old war ghosts on his back while trying to fake something close to a normal life. Warfield makes the smart move and does not sprint straight toward demons screaming “LOOK, HELL!” He lets us sit with Reginald first. We meet the damage before the supernatural insanity arrives, so when the story starts dragging him toward darker territory, it actually means something.

The WWII flashbacks slap because they never turn into shiny “remember when heroes were heroes?” nostalgia. Nah, this stuff is messy. Tense. Morally sideways. Steven De Waele’s artwork fits that mood like a bloodstained glove. His linework has this worn, hand-drawn texture that feels lived in, like the pages survived something before they even reached you. Faces have attitude, body language tells its own story, and the action feels physical instead of choreographed to death. You can definitely feel some old EC war-comic blood pumping through the visuals, but it never comes off like cosplay. The roughness gives the book personality. Polish this too much and you might accidentally scrub the soul off it.

Brad Simpson’s colors know exactly when to chill and when to get loud. The present-day material stays colder and more restrained, while the war scenes and hellish moments start bringing in nastier reds, sickly greens, and bruised purples. Once the demonic stuff starts creeping into frame, the colors are already whispering, “Yo, something ain’t right here,” before anybody needs to explain it. The palette gets aggressive when the story calls for it, but never so aggressive that De Waele’s linework gets buried underneath a nightclub light show.

Andriy Lukin’s lettering and design deserve props too because this is the kind of work people do not notice until it sucks. Here, it does not. Dialogue stays readable even when the panels get crowded, and the sound effects have enough flavor to hit hard without taking over the page. The EC-inspired presentation up front is also a slick move. It lets you know exactly which comic-book ghosts this creative team is talking to, then spends the rest of the issue remixing that language instead of just copying it.

Warfield also understands one very important thing: this premise could get miserable real fast if everybody talked like they were giving a funeral speech in the rain. The humor keeps the thing alive. Reginald’s interactions, the ridiculousness sitting right next to real trauma, and the arrival of his very, very unusual supernatural companion give the book this warped buddy-comedy rhythm that keeps it from drowning in its own misery. Do all the jokes hit? Nah. A couple bounce off the rim, and there are stretches where the dialogue gets a little heavy and could use a trim. But the character work is strong enough that you stay locked in.

The real win here is the tone. See You in Hell knows what the hell it is. War story? Yup. Superhero deconstruction? Absolutely. Occult mystery? We got you. Twisted buddy comedy straight from the wrong side of the afterlife? Oh, now we’re cooking. On paper, those ingredients sound like they should be throwing chairs at each other, but Reginald’s regret keeps the whole thing stitched together. His pain is the spine of the book, and all the crazier elements orbit around that instead of pulling the story apart.

By the time the final pages hit, the bigger mystery is only starting to crack open, and thankfully Warfield does not stop everything to hand us the supernatural employee manual. We get enough to care, enough to wonder what comes next, and enough payoff that issue one does not feel like a twenty-something-page commercial for issue two. The world is set. The emotional stakes are real. Hell is waiting. And instead of feeling like some cheap gimmick, that descent feels like the next ugly step Reginald was probably always heading toward anyway.

CRUSADERS SCORE:
4/5

Writer: Erik Warfield
Artist: Steven De Waele
Colorist: Brad Simpson
Letterer/Designer: Andriy Lukin

Issue #3 launches on Kickstarter on October 6th, 2026