Things begin to… change.
Creative Staff:
Story: Cullen Bunn
Art: Mirko Colak
Colors: Maria Santaolalla
Letterer: Simon Bowland
What They Say:
Discover the sorrow-filled truth of Vlad’s descent to the role of the Impaler! Vlad and his brother Radu have excelled in the art of vampire-slaying. But the vampires have a few tricks of their own. Some of those tricks may shatter Vlad’s sanity.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Brothers Dracul has been delivering some very good material in its first couple of issues that it’s already left me wary about how quickly it might come to a close. Sometimes you want a good thing to end on a high note but other times you want to keep exploring a particular world with its characters in this particular iteration. Cullen Bunn now has a second series that has fallen into the latter for me and I’m hopeful that there’s a lot more to explore. Particularly with Mirko Colak working on the project as the pairing of his excellent and detailed pages with Maria Santaolalla’s artwork really hits well with what they’re trying to convey. It’s a strong looking book from start to finish once again.
With the setup in place as we have Radu and Vlad serving as the shields for Mehmed, the group that’s handling the vampir scourge are ranging further and further to deal with it. The book spends its first half showcasing a remote home where a small family finds itself under attack, with the father being broken first before it goes after his wife and then ready to devour the baby. It plays well as a horror piece and shifts into the action side with Vlad, Radu, and Mehmed barging in to destroy the numerous vampir. The fight is pretty standard fare in some ways as we see the brothers fight well and even Mehmed showing a little ability and minor bravery getting into it. But when Radu is nearly killed after being trapped by one, he doesn’t step in to help, which gets him the ire of Vlad.
There’s truth to what Mehmed says about how they’re his shield men and it’s not his duty to protect them, but it’s the kind of attitude that creates warriors that won’t be loyal in the long run and will cause more trouble for Mehmed than anything else. It was the perfect opportunity to start bonding the brothers to him more. What complicates matters even more is that we get Radu wanting to protect the baby while Vlad says it’s best to just kill it now instead of becoming vampir food later. There’s some good dialogue about this and some moments of humanity that connect. Vlad’s deep in the woods here with what he’s becoming and we see some of that with Ermine back at the castle later. I’m still wary about what she really is and her intent but I love the mystery of it and how they end the book here.
In Summary:
There are a lot of works related to Dracula across the span of the life of the character and each of them offers different things to explore. It’s the kind of property that can be endlessly mined and re-imagined but doing it well is hard. Cullen and Colak make it look easy, which is all the more frustrating. It’s a strong installment here in showing the dynamic that the brothers are operating under, the stresses, and the differences. It moves well with some solid action to be had, some good moments of humanity, and plenty of hints at a lot of ways it can go south. I can’t wait for more.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: AfterShock Comics
Release Date: June 27th, 2018
MSRP: $3.99
