Soulfinder Tunnel Hounds: Faith on our Darkest Hours
A little over a year ago, I wrote a big overview of the Soulfinder series because they’re some of my favorite comic books. At the end of my review, I mentioned Douglas Ernst, the writer, was working on a fourth volume that was going to touch on Father Reginald Crane’s backstory. He’s the last of the main trio to get a deep dive so this was expected. Well, the fourth volume just dropped, and you know I was on it like a cat on a currently in-use keyboard. After the first reading, though, I realized I was mistaken: the book doesn’t just touch on Father Crane’s past, it’s an entire side story of his time as a soldier.
Gotta say, that was a pleasant surprise.
We’re immediately dropped in the middle of the Vietnam war where Sgt. Crane is serving as a “tunnel hound”. (Tunnel hounds/rats were soldiers who crawled through tunnels made by the Viet Cong to disable booby traps and get the drop on enemy soldiers.) When he returns to camp after a brief hospital visit, he’s greeted by a priest, Soulfinder Father Lam, and an unusual mission. Apparently, a Viet Cong general is using the tunnels and occult magic to wreak havoc, causing a lot of death and mayhem. Crane’s team and…
