Marvel and Disney have teamed up to bring fans a brand new comic book series based on the classic Disneyland theme park attraction, The Haunted Mansion. The first issue does a great job in mixing the classic iconic scenes from the attraction like the Stretching Portraits, the creepy wallpaper, the clock plus the key locations and characters like Madame Leota. It does feel very familiar and truthful to the attraction, it certainly feels like the writers and artists have done their homework and created a very appealing art style that suits the attraction.

Storywise, the first issue is mainly about introducing the lead character, a teenage boy called Danny, who is called by Madam Leota to the Haunted Mansion to help his grandfather. It does a great job in introducing the lead character and his motivation, plus set up the “villains” of the story. There are still plenty of characters from the ride that will probably turn up later in the story, but for the first issue, I’m glad they didn’t try to include too many characters or ghosts at once.

There is also a great nod to another major Disneyland attraction, the Matterhorn, which was a nice surprise and didn’t feel out of place as it fitted the story line very well.

For the collectors, there are also a few different variant covers for this issue including a action figure version and one featuring the hitchhiking ghosts. I personally prefer the main cover as the artwork on the Haunted Mansion looks incredible, it looks so scary and spooky. The artwork throughout the comic book fits the story so well, it feels unlike other Disney comic books I usually read, its colourful, but with a dark side to it, that I felt worked perfectly.

The moment I reached the end of the story, I just wanted to know more and can’t wait for the next issue to find out where the story is going. I found the pages just flew by as I was thoroughly enjoying every bit of this story and would happily recommend this comic book to fans of the attraction, but also to Marvel fans who want a totally different story, that isn’t connected to superheroes.

The Haunted Mansion #1 is something I would recommend any Disney fan picking up or downloading.