3 out of 5

As writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa is keen to remind us in each and every letter column, Sabrina – not quite a spin-off from its Archie Horror mate Afterlife, but rather a retro-ed retake on the concept, centered around the title character – is a slow burn.  For ‘The Crucible,’ though, it’s not even that, it reads more like preamble leading up to a slow burn.  Which, when it gets here (and the arc holds promise that there will be some good payoff coming up soon), will be worth it.  Without that belief, though, this first storyline rather stalls on its own.

Transported to the 60s, ‘Chilling Adventures’ takes a much more dedicated Eerie approach to creeps than the more winky horror of the modern day Afterlife series.  Robert Hack’s faded coloring style and somewhat classical figurework certainly help bring this vibe to life, especially with the various visual and dialogue references to classic genre pieces scattered throughout, though his lack of consistency with characters and perhaps over-reliance on shading and colors to add to the mood create some funny looking faces; when the title went on a loooong break after issue 4, Hack’s work in 5 was significantly stronger – more confident – so here’s hoping that can be amended going forward.  ‘Crucible’ gives us a bit of background on Sabrina the Cross-breed, daughter of a mortal and a warlock, and sets up an adversary in Madam Satan – the spurned former lover of Sabrina’s absent father – who sets about doing the classic horror temptress move of causing havoc in others’ lives, generally using sultry wiles and demonic powers of suggestion and influence.  Hack adapts the character’s already awesome design from her 60s Pep Comics origin into something wonderfully campy, Aguirre-Sacasa’s script injecting her into Sabrina’s life as the low-cut top, up-to-no-good older woman.  And while plenty does happen in this arc, tracking Sabrina’s growth into young witchhood at the age of 18, again, it all exists somewhat as setup for putting pieces into play.  Overall, this will be a wise move: we know Sabrina, but just jumping in to the fray would feel cheap, while at the same time, Chilling Adventures takes the liberty of assuming you don’t need witches and magic justified, so it can just focus on character history.  It should payoff to have this information up front, as saving it for later would only equal extra exposition.  For now, though, we just have to settle with this taste-test of what could come.