Hidden Gems – The Last Christmas

With so many big names and big events plastered across the shelves of your LCS, sometimes great comics get left behind – buried in longboxes until someone comes along to find these Hidden Gems.

Collects issues #1-5
Written by Brian Posehn and Gerry Duggan
Art by Rick Remender
Published by Image Comics (2006)

Was Santa Claus’s wish too much? He just wanted to be left alone, forgotten and be granted what every mortal is capable of – end their life in dignity. Okay, dignity was far from being involved at that point, but death was what Santa longed for. “Why would Santa want to off himself?”, you may ask.

The violence nature of humanity eventually got to a peak and zombies plagued the earth. For years, Santa kept his jolly habits and caring for the good children, more than ever. Then, one day, villainy reached the North Pole and resulted in the massacre of several Elves by marauders, but among all – the death of Mrs. Claus. Although left with a bullet in his head, Santa couldn’t die. It didn’t matter, because Santa decided Christmas was no more and succumbed to years of self abuse and suicide attempts. While letters from children stopped arriving with time, one little kid kept his faith, probably the last kid on Earth. So with that strong belief in him, Santa could not die. When the Elves finally succeeded in bringing Santa back on his feet and use his last chance in keeping the North Pole standing – i.e. giving the last good boy his wish – Santa’s distorted mind instead decided to murder the kid and ensure his own death. However, when Santa faced the creatures chewing over the world’s remains and the kid keeping the Christmas spirit alive, even this alcoholic fat bastard in a dirty red costume couldn’t stay calmed down. Thus, begins the quest to save Christmas.

Posehn and Duggan do a good job with this violent, horrific version of a Christmas tale. Don’t think I’ve heard about Duggan before, but from what I gather he’s mostly a screenwriter. Posehn is more famous (to me, at least) thanks to his years of working in comedy, acting career and writing gigs. He’s known for being a geek and a comic book fan (I remember Posehn and Patton Oswalt writing the letters column for a Powers issue couple of years ago), but to my knowledge this is his first and only comic book writing gig to this day. While it sometimes carries too many jokes and references that take from the main story, I wouldn’t mind seeing Posehn and Duggan writing some more comic books.

Until revisiting this book for the review, I completely forgot who the artist was. Remender is mostly known nowadays for his writing works, such as the creator-owned Fear Agent (first published by Dark Horse and later by Image), The All New Atom for DC Comics and currently under an exclusive contract with Marvel Comics, writing Punisher and Thunderbolts. For this kind of story, Remender’s art style fits greatly. It works perfectly both for the horror and humorous natures of the book. I’d like to see him penciling his own story for Marvel one day, although from knowing the publisher it’ll be done only with a low profile book. I’ll take anything.

The Last Christmas gets 4 out of 5 bald talk show psychologists with a mustache and boobs.

Filed Under: Columns • Hidden Gems

Tags: Brian Posehn, Christmas, Gerry Duggan, Holidays, horror, Image Comics, Rick Remender, Santa Claus, zombies