It had to be clowns.
Creative Staff:
Story: Paul Cornell
Art: Jimmy Broxton
Colors: Jimmy Broxton
Letterer: Travis Lanham
What They Say:
Welcome to The Clown Factory, the place where bad people go. If you’re lucky, you only have to serve hard labor there. If you’re unlucky…well, better not to get into that. And wait until you meet the Commandant! Don’t get on her bad side!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Frankly, when you get a book from Paul Cornell you know you’re going to get something that goes a bit askew. When I learned he was taking on the book and changing things up with a future flung storyline I knew we weren’t going to get something like what we had or even something like the Aliens/Vampirella miniseries. Working with Broxton, the two are going into something strange and surreal, comical in ways that may be unnerving, while also hitting up social/political aspects along the way that may feel forced but connect well in the long run. Wrapping all of that up in this time displaced and uncertain Vampirella makes for a strange series to be sure and the third issue is one where that doesn’t change, though it feels like things are slowly starting to come together a bit more.
Vampirella’s being captured the last time around with Vicki has the two of them being taken out to the Clown Factory, a place where her powers are neutralized without any clear reason why. Her time with Vicki early on is useful in that we get a few sentences to explain three thousand years of history that reveals that Canada is a wasteland, there are three cities in the US that exist, and otherwise, everyone is happy in the Great Britain or Russia, the only other places that really exist. It’s a strange piece that for people like me demands more detailed reveals that I don’t think we’ll get, which makes it a frustrating experience. But at least we got something and that helps to explore the design of the world at this stage and Vicki’s uncertainty to say the least as she’s exposed to more of what’s out there that’s not part of the official story.
The Clown Factory is just that as there are many undesirables under the world order that exists that are sent there, mirroring the view of many in the world today, and they’re worked as labor camp material to keep the factory running. A factory that builds clowns that are the authorities of the world by piecing together different bodies and brains from the undesirables. It’s unnerving for Vicki to be sure but Vampirella ends up essentially using them to try and figure out the trick of the place through various escape plans that go awry. It’s done in a very comical way with how they unfold, almost like Wile E. Coyote material, until she figures out the real trick to escaping and puts that into motion. But the cost is significant – if you care about people as individuals. Vampi’s looking at the bigger picture in trying to understand this world and people are still just tools in her view at the moment, which has been something that she’s done from time to time over the character’s history.
In Summary:
At this stage, I’m still pretty unsure of where Paul Cornell wants to go with Vampirella and I’m more than fine with that. I’m sure there are obvious story structure points and all that, but the not knowing of where it’ll go or what it is they want to do is still appealing at this stage, especially for a character with the history that she has and all the stories that have been told. Broxton is a certainly having fun with the design of the series throughout and in giving us some non-standard visuals for our title character. But it all fits in within the context of this strange world where we went from an underground tomb to a plastic city before ending up in this labor camp. Her look has changed with each area and they’re all interesting and really well done, especially with the color design and the overall flow of the panels to keep things moving in creative and fun fashions – particularly the escape pages.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: May 31st, 2017
MSRP: $3.99
