Anniversary specials are big business.
Creative Staff:
Story: Nancy A. Collins, Tim Seeley, Eric Trautmann, Mark Rahner, Brandon Jerwa
Art: Francesco Mann, Dave Acosta, Eman Casallos, Javier Miranda-Garcia
What They Say:
Get ready to party – Vampi style! With one hundred issues stacked high since Dynamite’s launch of Vampirella in 2010, it’s time for a giant-sized spectacular. To commemorate the occasion, we welcome the best Vampirella writers – past, present, and even future – to contribute short stories, guaranteed to send chills up your spine and quicken your pulse. Featuring Nancy A. Collins (who launched the current ongoing series with her bold new take), Eric Trautmann (who kicked off the Dynamite era), Brandon Jerwa (who expanded the mythology in over 20 issues), Mark Rahner (who spoofed pop horror culture with several one-shot specials), and Tim Seeley (the architect of Chaos who debuts his first-ever Vampi work here)!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Dynamite has used its license for Vampirella pretty well since they first acquired it back in 2010 and they’ve brought out a whole lot of material for it. This special celebrates that as it’s the 100th published work for it, which is even more impressive. Sometimes some properties work better as standalone installments and miniseries rather than an ongoing, but Vampirella seems to be able to do all of that as it’s got all of it. I’ve never been a big fan, though I’ve loved the artwork that goes back decades, but I really got into it when it all started fresh with the ongoing series that’s currently being released as written by Nancy A. Collins. In fact, she’s got her hands in almost all the Vampirella projects these days and that’s been a bit positive for me.
This book is definitely an interesting one overall as it offers up a host of stories from different writers and artists, several of which have had involvement in the previous books that Dynamite has released. New to it all is Tim Seely, who provides the first story for this special and definitely goes old school in a great way. This one goes to the science fiction origins of it all, taking us back to Drakulon – in black and white no less -where we get Vampirella struggling with being there, the need and hunger she feels and the fun of her design and weapons. Through her narration we see how the coffin pods keep coming to the world even after all these years and providing an array of people that the vampires of this world can hunt and devour. It’s almost a little Road Warrior in some ways with the designs, with a vampiric bent to it, and it works well to see how they hunt, how Vampirella stakes her own claims and does things her own way, and then deals with her own nature, both in this incarnation and who she is now. It’s one of the better sides of the character that’s not explored all that often lately.
The second story comes from Eric Trautman and Dave Acosta and goes for a different kind of horror as we see her essentially questioning a troll over things as she’s on her own investigation. While the story doesn’t grab me from the start and it’s not one that manages to draw me in throughout it, I did like how it was done from her perspective so that we only get to see her briefly at the end. It’s a far more dialogue and mood driven piece, which can work, but it wasn’t one that really compelled me to read deeply based on the first couple of pages and I just felt my interest waning as it went on.
The story I did like a lot was done by Brandon Jerwa and artist Gabriel Mayorga where we get Vampirella walking through a graveyard calling out the dead to have them tell their tales. Vampirella and the groundskeeper have some interesting bits of dialogue as it starts since they have such an odd relationship to begin with, but I really liked seeing what unfolded as she gets the stories from the various ghosts with how they died, how their spirits are angry in different ways or just resigned to things. All of it moves towards a particular grave that has a husband and wife buried together that tell their tales, which reveals a good part of why Vampirella has been working through all of this. The “gimmick” of it all is a solid one with how it unfolds and what she’s truly been investigating, but it was the way Vampirella handled the individual ghosts, especially the little girl, that gave it more impact.
With a character like Vampirella, there’s definitely an opportunity to tell stories in different ways about the character, which is what the Kovak – The Night Walker story from Mark Rahner and Javier Garcia-Miranda is all about. This one focuses on Cal, an old school hardcore reporter that we see in his “younger” days as he’s convinced that the big story of his life will be uncovering and revealing to the public the existence of Vampirella. The problem is that nobody believes him. Over the course of the story, and the years that it covers, we see the various instances of him coming across Vampirella and other dark things in the night and it has a lot of old school charm that has an almost 70’s down on his luck muckraker reporter working the job. That he’s relating the story to the FBI in his golden years in hopes that they’ll pick up where he left off is definitely nicely done, but it’s also the more human and warm element that gets revealed which really makes it work – and gets you to revisit it all to view it in the new perspective that you get.
The final story comes from the writer of the ongoing series with Nancy A. Collins and artist Francesco Manna. This one plays to her strengths as we’ve seen in that series so far as we have her investigating a problem within a jungle community where there’s been a lot of problems as of late. What we have is a young couple that gets tricked by a vampire/baby that draws them in with its cries but is essentially the lure to trick its prey into getting closer. In her ongoing series, we’ve gotten to know a lot of different varieties of vampires and this just adds to the list with the rare species that they are, and how difficult they can be to deal with. It’s a fun story once all is said and done and I liked how she worked with the locals to accomplish the goal rather than just hunting on her own. But we also get the vicious circle of life her with how things find a way…
In Summary:
We’ve got a lot of different Vampirella books out in the last few months and it does feel like a bit much, but they all work towards their own goals. This special is a good one to have as it celebrates the general volume of material produced since 2010 and it brings in some of those that helped usher it along, those who are working on it now and some first timers as well to provide their own stamp on the property. Vampirella is an odd property in general, especially since it holds onto its origins in different ways to this day, but in the end what we get is a really fun anthology book by some solid creative teams that don’t duplicate their efforts at all and instead provide a diverse look at a very fun character.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 17+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: January 21st, 2014
MSRP: $7.99
