Okay, let's see here...
Ancient times: Abdul Alhazred writes his poetry, menaced by demons. He finds himself in the Dreamlands. Then he is taken to the Nameless City and fed to lizard-things. Nyarlathotep shows up, punishes the cultists who tortured Alhazred, and takes his body, to be "mended".
Modern times: Nyarlathotep, now calling himself Mr. Arkham and living with a pencilneck creep named Connor, are on a raft in a swamp. They pull Alhazred's bod out of the water, and Nyarlathotep magically revives it. It seems he wants Alhazred to write a new chapter for the Necronomicon.
Cy Morgan is a grad student at Miskatonic U and a total weenie. He also has a bitchy prima donna fiancee named Jordan. One day while they're being "witty" at an outdoor cafe, Cy's Uncle Walt, who raised him (and his sister), toddles up, sits down, rambles about a coming threat and then pulls out a gun and blows his own head off. Lunch, needless to say, is a bust.
Back home, Cy and Jordan go through Uncle Walt's bag (which the coppers clumsily hand off to them), wherein they find an ornamental dagger. Cy finds Walt's apartment empty and dusty, containing only some papers and a thumb drive. The drive contains articles on paranormal events, and a thesis entitled: "The Call: Polytheistic Ritual and Primitive Cult Worship in the Modern Age". Parts of it are in language like none Cy has ever seen.
That night, while Cy is pissing, Uncle Walt's ghost shows up, quoting "ph'nglui" etc. Cy follows him into the Dreamlands where a giant entity that looks like the offspring of Freddie the Frog and Little Richard (we learn that this entity is named The Harlot) gives him some cryptic warnings. Cy smarts off to The Harlot and runs away.
An envelope address leads Cy to a boarding house where Uncle Walt was apparently living. It's run by Mr. Arkham, who just happens to be Nyarlathotep in case you weren't paying attention. The place is filthy and largely empty. Cy he finds a weird statue of Cthulhu there.
Jordan the Prima Donna meanwhile is not liking Cy's deepening involvement in the mystery. When Cy returns to Uncle's boarding room, he finds the priest who performed Unc's funeral service there: naked, covered in symbols and babbling more Cthuloid stuff. In one of the most hilarious moments in all of comic-dom, Cy threatens him with an "epic ass beating". The priest kills himself, saving Cy the effort.
Things go from bad to worse for poor l'il Cy. He asks a fellow student to translate the Arabic from Walt's files, but finds the guy with his jaw cut off. Some students at the college hold a ritual on the quad - apparently not even realizing they're doing it. Someone breaks into Cy/Jordan's home. They take the hard drive, Uncle's bag, but leave the ceremonial dagger (said dagger is starting to give Jordan the heebie-jeebies - she says it's watching her).
More mysteries: the priest wasn't from the church that gave Unc's services. Cy never hears from his sister despite multiple efforts to reach her. Jordan is threatening to leave. In exchange for a wisdom tooth, The Harlot tells him something of a vast series of connected rituals meant to call the Old Ones back. Apparently, this was what Unc was warning about and trying to stop.
Cy's investigations lead to him being literally hunted by a bow-and-arrow wielding pack of Nodens-worshipping fratboys. He escapes. Deciding that the whole thing has gotten too crazy, he plans to cease his investigations - but returns home to find Jordan dead and mutilated, by someone using the ornamental dagger!
Cy drinks himself into a stupor while Nyarlathotep has Connor steal the dagger from police evidence. Cy, remembering enough, confronts Nyarlathotep with a gun, but ends up being used in a ritual by the mummified Alhazred. When Cy comes to, he finds his sisters remains inside a sarcophagus. This leaves him catatonic, and he ends up in a mental institution. In The Dreamlands, The Harlot tells him that Nodens is hunting Nyarlathotep (now why Cy doesn't just say "well, gee - you can find him at the Arkham Boarding House!" is not clear).
Meanwhile, Connor is off in the arctic with a hired expedition, looking for the remains of a ship that was grounded there in 1907. They find it, and retrieve from it a chained trunk. Back in Arkham, Connor picks up a chick at a bar, brings her back to the boarding house, and has her open it. A spined, fangy thing leaps out, kills her, and assumes her form. This thing is called Sysyphyx, and is an old buddy of Nyarlathotep. She and the Big N go off to do evil stuff.
Among such evil stuff is taking a job at a comic book store. As if that isn't evil enough, she gives a kid an ornamental box. The kid turns into a cruel, sadistic fuck before being eaten by a gloopy monster. Sys kills his mother, and somehow out of all this a nasty-looking thingie called Vol'kunast is born.
Connor takes drugs and enters the Dreamlands. There a priest of somesuch causes him to vomit out his soul (which looks like a sea-worm). The Harlot shows up. She Shows him the Mask of Kundai, and helps him become the Vessel of the Gith, an Anubis-like beastie.
Meanwhile, a little girl in a series of weird masks skips around The Dreamlands and then enters Arkham.
Sys and Mask Girl poke around Miskatonic U, and together with Nyarlathotep they kill a prof. Connor's in a biker bar, so they go there and kill everyone, finally torching the place. Connor undergoes a particularly gross surgery as part of his "vessel"-ing. I'm completely unclear as to what happens to him after that, since the story takes off on another thread...
Back in Arkham, the cops arrest a young hispanic girl named "Lucifer". She's apparently a thief and a drifter, but had a connection to Uncle Walt. When told that he's been murdered, she weirds out and draws a magic circle around herself. "The Gray Man" turns up and kills everyone except the Sheriff and Luci (its seems the magic circle makes her invisible to him). Luci manages to save the sheriff and sends him to The Dreamlands, where we're subjected to another dose of The Harlot. Having sacrificed to The Harlot the memories of his wife, the sheriff returns and together with Luci, hunts The Gray Man. They manage to capture him and turn him over to The Harlot.
Luci is sent by The Harlot to break Cy out of the mental hospital. Meanwhile, flaming amphibians and other monsters fall from the sky over Arkham, while weird and horrific events occur worldwide. Cy, Luci, and the Sheriff head from Miskatonic U, and the Necronomicon. They find that a new chapter has mysteriously appeared in the book. They are taken prisoner. Cy goes off with Sysyphyx, who has taken Jordan's form, and Luci fights with a marionette. Luci and sheriff head for R'lyeh, which they reach with remarkable ease. During their escape, Nyarlathotep erases the sheriff's mouth for no particular reason. Luci cuts him a new one (after that, however, his mouth is drawn as normal - also without explanation).
At R'lyeh, a ceremony to raise Cthulhu is underway. Nodens shows up and slugs it out with Nyarlathotep. Sheriff takes out Sysyphyx and confronts The Harlot. Luci grabs the Necronomonicon from Alhazred, who is torn apart by monsters ("not again!" he wails). Mask Girl and Luci have a confrontation. The Harlot reveals that she has taught Cy how to undo Nyarlathotep's work. Nyarlathotep slugs her. She releases and army of captured souls to take him out. Luci uses the Necronomicon to cast a spell to sink R'lyeh. She and sheriff escape on a life raft. Later, The Harlot meets with Luci again, and Luci learns (apparently) that she is to be the new Harlot.
Luci returns to Arkham, and with her newfound power, gives the sheriff back his memories of his wife.
An interesting epilogue tells us about Mr. Arkham aka Nyarlathotep's cat, who was once a high priest in Atlantis.
This relatively acclaimed graphic novel, or comic book, if you prefer (I'm personally just fine with "comic book"), is one of the first major Lovecraft-inspired comics. Which is part of the reason for its acclaim, I suppose. Cuz in truth - it's not very good.
Look, comics need good artwork, and good stories. Good artwork alone might get them by. Fall of Cthulhu has mostly poor artwork, and a mediocre story.
Let's start with the artwork. Jean-Jacques Dzialowski is responsible for the first five issues. His work is scratchy, sketchy and crude-looking, despite a good sense of layout. Things improve a bit when Greg Scott takes over with issue 6. But when Marc Rueda takes over on the next ish, the art, though more polished, starts to look like Satuday morning cartoon cels. This title really called for a Berni Wrightson or Mike Ploog or Ghastly Graham Ingles-type. In general, despite the occasional effective panel, the artwork is subpar throughout the series.
Then there's the story. While Nelson clearly knows his Lovecraft, the tone of the tale overall recalls not Lovecraft but the splatter-surrealism of Clive Barker. I'm not saying this is bad, per se, but, (allow me to point out I like Barker's early stuff quite a bit), it's not what I look for in an HPL story. And frankly the endless gore, torture, mass murder and such palled on me very fast.
Nelson is good on dialog, but there again the art fails him, as his fairly naturalistic dialog rings false when combined with the poor, scratchy art. He's also good on characterization, but he throws in his worst ideas along with his best. More than the first third is taken up by the thoroughly unlikeable Cy and Jordan. Luci is fine and compelling and well-drawn character - but we don't even encounter her till more than a third of the way in. And naming her "Lucifer" is about as dumb as you can get. The sheriff is your basic Mr. Buzzcut, but he's depicted as a good man who's very prosaic groundedness is what helps him survive. Mr. Arkham aka Nyarlathotep is your basic Sinister Dude and not at all interesting. And then there's The Harlot. What the hell Nelson was thinking with this character, I'll never know. She's both repulsive and obnoxious - and though those both appear to be intentional, I groaned inwardly every time she showed up. I wish he'd come up with something better here.
In the end, despite an interesting idea and image or two, Fall of Cthulhu didn't do much for me. I first encountered it several years ago and never purused it past the first six issues, and never would have bothered with it again if I hadn't decided to cover it for this blog. And I don't think I was missing anything. The definitive Cthulhu graphic novel still waits, dreaming....
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