Written by Gordon Rennie

Drawn by Dom Reardon

Published by Rebellion

Department Q is a joke. The once mighty paranormal defence and research arm of the British Intelligence Services, Q is now little more than Jonathan Brand and Jennifer Simmons, two paranormal researchers content to sit out their careers in a forgotten backwater. But mysterious rockstar Ethan Kostabi has other plans and when a paranormal event takes place on the London Underground, it becomes clear that Department Q is not only still needed but is about to get a fairly serious injection of both cash and personnel. Whether they want either is of course, a different matter...

One of 2000AD's most successful new series, Caballistics, Inc is the latest in a long, proud tradition of English horror and science fiction. There's something uniquely compelling about the world ending here, something about England's combination of old fashioned and modern that leads our authors to continually explore the darkest aspects of our society and something else that leads us to respond to it so strongly. Doctor Who 's massive success notwithstanding, science fiction is rife with English characters and stories from William Hope Hodgson's scientific ghost finder Carnacki to Nigel Kneale's Quatermass and more recently, Nick Cutter's team on Primeval.

Veteran 2000AD writer Gordon Rennie ties his story firmly into this tradition within the first few pages, and fans will find a lot to enjoy here. The officer leading the SAS detachment sent into the Underground will be familiar to Doctor Who fans as will as the work of the British Rocket Group and the reference to the 'Carnacki-Hodgson' Scale of paranormal ability. Rennie has done his homework, is clearly a fan and the end result is something which feels intimately tied to its predecessors, but still has an identity all of its own.

Brand and Simmons' new colleagues go a long way towards demonstrating how Rennie and Reardon have put their own spin on this classic genre, with the splendid Chapter & Verse proving particularly good fun. A laconic pair of combat parapyschologists, one a lesbian ex-CIA agent, the other a defrocked Priest they're sarcastic, world weary and fiercely effective. They're joined by Howard Slater, the mysterious Ethan Kostabi's legal counsel and Solomon Ravne, a man who is clearly far less (Or worryingly, far more) than human. They don't like one another, they don't trust one another but each and every one of them has come face to face with the unknown and they know that the alternative to working together is much, much worse.

Rennie has a fantastic ear for dialogue and that, combined with the gleeful way he subverts horror cliche marks this out as something very special. Much smarter and much more character-driven than the cheap Hellboy knock-off it first seems to be, Caballistics, Inc is very modern horror based on very traditional building blocks. Rounded out by wonderfully subdued black and white art from Dom Reardon, this is a high-quality collection of a high-quality series and a book that no horror fan should be without.