Let Me In: Crossroads
Let Me In: Crossroads is a limited comic book series created by Hammer Films and Dark Horse Comics, and written by Marc Andreyko. Serving as a prequel to the 2010 film of the same name, the series focuses on Abby and her "guardian" Thomas as they face a ruthless real-estate tycoon willing to do anything to steal the property they call home, as the community is torn apart by vicious men consumed by greed, wrath, and envy.[1]
| Let Me In: Crossroads | |
|---|---|
 Cover of Let Me In: Crossroads graphic novel | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Dark Horse Comics |
| Format | Limited series |
| Genre | Tragic vampire horror |
| Publication date | 8 December 2010–6 April 2011 |
| No. of issues | 4 |
| Main character(s) | Abby Thomas |
| Creative team | |
| Created by | Mike Richardson |
| Written by | Marc Andreyko John Ajvide Lindqvist (story) |
| Artist(s) | Patric Reynolds Sean Phillips (covers) |
| Letterer(s) | Clem Robins |
| Colorist(s) | Dave Stewart |
| Editor(s) | Samantha Robertson |
The series consists of four issues. Beginning in December 2010, Dark Horse Comics published one issue per month (excluding one), ending in April. A single-volume collection of all of the issues was published on 31 August 2011. Reception of the series has been mixed; some, including the original Let the Right One In author John Ajvide Lindqvist, consider it unnecessary and poorly executed. However, the issue focused on the antagonist Wayne, a man suffering from antenatal depression, was received more positively.
Plot
Overview
Abby's life as a vampire is dangerous enough as it is, and it's about to get much, much worse - the murder rate in the sleepy little town she calls home is climbing fast... and this time she's not the one responsible! Desperate times lead to very desperate measures as Abby and her caretaker fight to protect her secret from a new monster who wants their home – and wants them dead![1]
Issue 1
In the small town of Wellsville, Indiana, in 1982, having resided there with Abby for 50 years, feeding her with drifters, Thomas sells old jewelry belonging to Abby at a pawn shop to acquire money to allow him to by food for himself to consume; the shop owner then complains to Thomas about how their "perfectly nice little farm town [is] being raped by these bloodsucking developers", who seek to build "[a] new [interstate]. New condominiums. New fast-food places", and how no-one appears to have "attachment to the old ways anymore." As Thomas leaves, he passes by Ford Realty, where-in Jamison Ford complains to his son-in-law Wayne Harold about the three remaining holdouts in the land they are attempting to purchase, one of which is Abby and Thomas, the other two being an old cat lady and a drug-addled Vietnam War veteran Billy and his young son Jon. Deriding Wayne as "the wrong man for my daughter" if he is unable to "take care of it", Wayne promises to do so.
Back at their farmhouse, Abby calls out for the absent Thomas, stating aloud that she is "hungry", as she looks down out of their window at him having a conversation with Billy and Jon over the Ford Realty's attempts to buy their land, saying that they have gotten county approval to drain the lake the following week. Disturbed, Thomas goes back inside while Abby and Jon look at each other from a distance. At a bar that night, Jamison derides Wayne over his drinking and the "teary panicked phone calls [Jamison gets] from [his] pregnant daughter [Wayne's wife]", before driving him home, passing by Thomas after he has picked up a hitchhiker, who after telling Thomas about his childhood sweetheart he is planning to meet at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio, is knocked out by a reluctant Thomas with a pipe, and then restrained in a shed for Abby to kill him and drain him of his blood. As Abby feeds, Thomas scares away a nearby Jon as he attempts to look inside the shed. Later, Abby greets Jon by an abandoned car, apologizing for Thomas having yelled at him. Jon responds by inviting her to smoke, which Abby rebuffs before vanishing back inside at speed.
The following morning, Wayne arrives at Thomas' door and offers "up [their] offer by as much as 15%". After being rejected, and noticing the outdoor clothesline indicating Abby's presence, Wayne calls Department of Social Services officer Nancy Whitcomb to report Abby as an "at-risk child", giving that she is not being sent to school as an excuse. After arriving at the house and entering through the back door, Nancy takes note of the poor state of the house and comes across a blood-stained tarp covering the bathtub in the bathroom, the window boarded over. Thomas appears behind Nancy, and noting that she wasn't invited in, formally apologizes before pushing her into the room and locking it behind her; Abby subsequently rises from the bathtub at consumes her as Thomas sits in a ball behind the door, crying.
Issue 2
Later that night, Thomas douses Nancy's body in alcohol and after placing her body in the seat of her Volkswagen van, which he leaves in front of a train track to pass off as a "tragic drunk-driving accident", only for the train to derail, horrifying Thomas. The following day, Wayne reads about the derailment in a newspaper as his wife complains to him about the smell of his coffee making her nauseous and triggering her morning sickness, sighing as he sits down in his car with their cat sitting on the windshield. At the same time, Thomas makes his way back to his and Abby's house through the rows of cornfields; upon meeting him, a passing Jon offers to get his father to help, before Thomas scares him off.
Later that evening, nearing nightfall, while he is cycling to fetch cigarettes for his father, Jon notices Thomas leaving to apparently go fishing (in actuality retrieving the bodies of the various drifters he has captured or killed for Abby over the years from the soon-to-be-drained lake), and invites a recently awoken Abby to "[c]ome on down here" to play with him. Walking through the woods, Jon tells Abby about how his mother left him and his father for a younger man, and the pair proceed to hang from the trees by their legs; Jon is also surprised to find out Abby doesn't drink or smoke, inquiring as to whether she does "any bad stuff". Elsewhere, Wayne admits to his wife that he didn't wake her when he got home because he didn't want to talk to her, and asks that she stop calling her father to complain about their marriage, lest one day he may decide not to return home at all. Stating he needs some air, Wayne goes outside and sits in his car; petting their cat. After Wayne's wife demands that he comes to bed, Wayne snaps the neck of their cat and leaves it in his car before returning inside. At the same time, when Jon offers to bring Abby to his home to listen to Led Zeppelin and "have some fun", Abby notices Thomas approaching behind him and flees.
Issue 3
Later that night, as Thomas hacks apart the bodies he retrieved from the lake with an ax and shovels them into his incinerator, he thinks to himself about the devotion he has shown Abby over the years and wonders whether she still cares about him, as she enters with another declaration of "I'm hungry." Thomas angrily responds that he always knows when she is hungry and questions whether she intends to replace him with Jon, which Abby denies. Not believing her, citing how she had recruited him as a child, Thomas asks that she stop seeing him, which Abby reluctantly agrees to. While Billy keeps Jon at home to watch television with him, Wayne sits silently at his office desk as his wife calls and asks him to come home. As Thomas drains the blood of a homeless man into a bucket to feed Abby with, Wayne proceeds to the house of the cat lady refusing to sell her land to Ford Realty and smothers her with a pillow, surprising himself at having "finally found something I'm good at" and hoping he might finally get respect from his father-in-law, peace and quiet from his wife, and a good night's rest for himself, deriding himself for not thinking of killing the tenents a long time ago.
Elsewhere, Abby looks at photographs of herself with a young Thomas, reminiscing on their life together. After jon once again sneaks onto their land, Abby asks that he hurry into their barn lest Thomas hear him, and attempts to tell him she is "different" (a vampire). Thomas however arrives on the scene, and ignoring Abby, savagely beats Jon with the pipe in a rage, yelling that "I will not let you take her from me!" As Abby looks on in horror, Thomas realizes what he has done and curls up in a ball outside the barn. At Jon's house, an arriving Wayne kills Billy with his own gun, framing the scene as a suicide. Hearing the gunshot, Thomas asks Abby to remain with Jon as he cleans up the bodies and prepares her dinner before anyone comes out to investigate the gunshot, including police. Closing the barn door and walking over the dying Jon, who weakly tells Abby he doesn't want to die, Abby jumps onto Jon and bits his neck, causing him to scream.
Issue 4
As Thomas frantically pushes bodies into his incinerator, Wayne proceeds towards his house intending to kill him, deciding not to use a gun in case anyone else heard the first one and called it in. Hoping "the kid" is not present so he would not have to kill her as well, Wayne is shocked upon entering the open house and proceeding to the basement to find the ground strewn with bodies before he is attacked from behind by Thomas with a glass bottle. As Thomas questions why Wayne is there and tells he has brought his fate upon himself, intending to kill him, Wayne instead easily overpowers Thomas and declaring himself not to be a "victim", repeating kicks Thomas in the chest as he lies on the ground and calls out for Abby. As Wayne taunts Thomas' call with "Who's gonna kill me, old man? You!?" after he calls out a message of "kill you", Abby pops into the basement with her fangs bared and declares "Me.", before hissing and jumping upon him hissing. As Wayne defends himself with Thomas' ax, Abby attacks him with a message of "You should not have come here.", smashing him into a pillar into the pile of corpses before roaring.
Declaring her existence not to be possible, Wayne is able to hurt Abby by kicking her against the incinerator, burning the side of her face, causing her to cry out. In the barn, Jon awakens to Abby's cries, now a vampire, and runs into the basement after her. However, having not been invited in beforehand, Jon's body begins to break apart, allowing Wayne to kick him into the incinerator, setting him and the house aflame. As Wayne cries out, Abby emerges above the flames, and holding him by the head, flies up into the moonlight in her true form. In response to his plea of "...Please... I'm gonna be a father", Abby rips Wayne's throat out, tell him she's "doing your baby a favor" before dropping him into the inferno below. After returning to the house to retrieve her things, being her jewelry and photos of herself with a younger Thomas, Abby meets with Thomas outside by their car as they prepare to go, Abby questions whether they will be alright, as Thomas assures her they always will be. Later, after picking up a hitchhiker at a gas station en route to Lose Alamos, Thomas offers him to Abby, who drinks his blood in the back of the car.
Release
In April 2010, it was announced that Hammer Films and Dark Horse Comics were producing a four-issue comic book limited series based on the film. Marc Andreyko wrote the comic.[2] The series, titled Let Me In: Crossroads, is a prequel to the film, retaining the likenesses of Chloë Grace Moretz and Richard Jenkins. Original author John Ajvide Lindqvist said "Nobody has asked me about [doing a comic] and I think that the project stinks. I am looking into this matter and hope that they have no right to do this."[3] Later, he informed fans that he had in fact unwittingly sold the rights for the comic to be made, stating that the producers had misinformed him as to the nature of the contract he had signed.[4]
Reception
The series has received mixed reviews, with original author opining that it negatively affects the film.[3] However, the issues centering on Abby and Thomas were received more positively, including from MTV and Digital Spy.[5][6]
References
- "The lil' vampire of "Let Me In" is getting a comic book prequel". Gawker Media. July 14, 2010. Retrieved April 1, 2011.
- "Hammer Films and Dark Horse Comics Forming a Partnership". DreadCentral. April 16, 2010. Retrieved April 1, 2011.
- Lindqvist, John Ajvide (April 28, 2010). "Comic book - The sequel". let-the-right-one-in.com. Retrieved April 1, 2011.
- Marshall, Rick (8 February 2010). "EXCLUSIVE: 'Let Me In' Comic Book Prequel Character Sketches". MTV. Retrieved 8 February 2010.
- Armitage, Hugh (29 July 2010). "Dark Horse details 'Let Me In' prequel". Digital Spy. Retrieved 29 July 2010.