Creative Staff:
Story: Paul Cornell
Art: Andy Belanger
Colors: Lee Roughridge
Letterer: Travis Lanham
What They Say:
Gothic, Part 1: A new storyline begins! Vampirella is fresh off a mind-blowing discovery—or at least it should have been. Coming to terms with what she’s learned about herself and her past means a journey to a place far scarier than the twisted future she’s living in…her twisted mind! Prepare yourself for a Vampirella like you’ve NEVER seen before!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
While there were many points along the way that I enjoyed with the first five issues of this new Vampirella incarnation, especially the zero issue, I struggled more with it because it just didn’t feel like it was coming together well as it went too far off the deep end. I’m used to that with a number of Paul Cornell’s stories but this one just didn’t click. With the start of this next piece here with new artist Andy Belanger, however, the series feels like it’s far more accessible and grounded, which is an incredibly strange thing to say considering where it takes place. Belanger brings a really good sense of style to it here with the characters that I’m instantly enjoying and some of that comes through thanks to Lee Roughridge’s color work because I know they’ve done some fantastic things over the years and are a welcome addition to this title.
Still taking place in the 30th century, Vampirella’s now dealing with the events of rescuing the people from Lucifer’s trap. With that exhausting her in navigating them, she and Vicki along with Grit end up crashing to get some rest. Which feels like it could be a little dangerous for Vampi as she wonders if she might fall into a deep centuries long sleep again. But instead we get her essentially traveling within her mind to start understanding more of herself after the last long sleep. She’s lost a lot of her memories over the course of it and that’s made for her to have trouble understanding a lot of what’s been going on and some of the foundational aspects of her own personality. Thankfully for her, Vicki’s in the shared dream – working as a maid – and Grit the cat takes on a humanoid appearance as an eager servant for her within the castle of her own mind.
A lot of what we get here is very straightforward, especially for Cornell, as the trio make their way through and she tries to understand what she’s seeing and dealing with the “guests” that serve as functionaries that are engaged in an old style party. What becomes amusing is when the male side of her personality shows up as Vampirello and she has to contend with him and some of his musings. There are some great little nods and jokes throughout this but mostly we get him explaining the layout of the castle, how she may find some important memories along the way, and the reveal of a forbidden room at the top of the castle. You know that’s where she’ll head first but it’s just so beautifully tantalizing with what we get there in that room that it makes everything that I struggled with in the previous issues worthwhile if Cornell can pull this off.
In Summary:
Vampirella feels like it’s on a good path to work some character material that could also explain any number of events from her past coming up. Paul Cornell has his work cut out for him as there were definitely rough spots for even the most diehard fans in the last few years but there’s a good reason to be optimistic here. The addition of Andy Belanger is definitely welcome as he has a great take on things here with some neat designs, great layouts with rich backgrounds, and some fun moments just in working the various versions of Vampirella we’ve seen over the years. I’m far more optimistic than I’ve been for several months with this series.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: August 30th, 2017
MSRP: $3.99