The past haunts Vampirella anew.
Creative Staff:
Story: Jeremy Whitley
Art: Andy Belanger, Matt Gaudio, Alex Sanchez
Colors: Lee Roughridge
Letterer: Travis Lanham
What They Say:
A thousand years in the future is a really weird place to run into someone you know. Especially when that person is now hell bent on destroying you. Which is exactly what happens when Vampirella and Vicki came face to face with their antagonist—PANTHA!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
While I am still struggling with this series in some ways because it is such a radically different place for the character and the world at hand, I’m enjoying the differences that are coming from it as well. Jeremy Whitley has really embraced everything about the relationship between Ellie and Vicki and that’s giving us something new for her to deal with and a new look inside a character on top of all the other looks we’ve gotten as of late with the myriad number of Vampi’s out there. This issue has Andy Belanger setting up lots of great stuff with detailed layouts and complex panels of events going on, this time working with Matt Gaudio and Alex Sanchez to give it all a cohesive look.
With the reveal of Pantha the last time around, a character I’m not sure I remember from just being into the Vampirella books for the past couple of years, Whitley gives us a solid look of her history, from being one of the daughters of Ra that was brutally attacked by people at the time and sentenced by her father to wander all worlds endlessly, stripped of her powers outside of becoming a panther and having the bloodlust that she does. It’s well-covered here so that you get a look at this immortal that has struggled over the ages but then found some ways to control herself when meeting Vampirella, to the point of calling her a real friend and finding love for herself in another, experiencing a normal life. But, as with just about everyone else in the world, that came to an end a thousand years ago with the angels Lucifer sent out, pushing her into darkness and eventually the warlord that she is now. Her suffering was profound before but in the time since the end times seeing her on the run for five hundred years and then serving Lucifer reinforces just how brutal it was.
That’s made her a hardened version of herself in this present and she’s got some real anger issues to work out with Vampirella, which is made worse because Vicki is reinforcing her love and relationship with Ellie and that drives Pantha even more into wanting to torment Ellie. There’s a lot of back and forth here in a slightly drawn out way but it showcases what Pantha’s mindset is and what some of her abilities are in how she’s managed to pull people together under her by using gateways to send people to the false heaven that Lucifer put together. It’s interesting enough as a kind of background piece as it begins to focus on the endless deaths that she intends to give Ellie in the arena, with Vicki tied right to her.
In Summary:
There’s lots to like here in this dense issue, from getting Pantha’s background told in a fun and engaging way to where everything settles out here in the end as it prepares to move forward. What I really liked, however, is just the reinforcement of the relationship between Ellie and Vicki. We’re getting more and more that this is something that Ellie hasn’t really felt before in the same way and she’s embracing it in a big way even as it’s being used against her in a brutal way by Pantha. It’s fun in the right sense for the reader to see this challenged but also to see just how far Ellie will go in all of this to protect Vicki – and to see if Vicki will be able to step up and stand alongside her.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: February 21st, 2018
MSRP: $3.99
