Vampirella get her own Legenderry miniseries.
Creative Staff:
Story: David Avallone
Art: David T. Cabrera
What They Say:
A return to Bill Willingham’s fantastical steampulp world of LEGENDERRY! Vampirella comes home from the epic battle in The Principality to find that her Scarlet Club has been closed, and powerful forces within The Big City are conspiring to destroy her… but they quickly learn they’ve pissed off the wrong immortal vampire.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Connected to the larger Legenderry world that Bill Willingham created to have some fun in a steampunk location to work with, Dynamite has a five issue series that places Vampirella within the context of that world. There are several other characters from the Dynamite line that worked in the original series, but it was never something I delved into so it’s completely unfamiliar for me. What drew me to this series was simply Vampirella herself as I’ve been reading her main book and the other miniseries that have come out. So a new series certainly had me interested to see how she fits into the world. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of real context or background provided here and that makes it a book where you have to basically hit the ground running and try to figure it out and catch up along the way.
What we do know is that there was a sizable battle being fought and that Vampirella and others have now returned home and are looking to deal with the changes in the world that have happened since then. People like her are getting mixed reactions in regards to whether they should even be allowed in The Big City these days sine they’re viewed as dangerous and uncertain quantities. For Vampirella, presuming that’s her name as she doesn’t get called out formally by anyone, she’s intent on going back to running her club only to find that it’s been shut down while she was away. So now her quest to find out what happened and get it fixed through force is the focus, which in turn has her learning about something called the Council that exists which uses a whole lot of science weapons to further their grip on The Big City.
While this plays out, we get to see a man named Rupert, a military man himself, who is making introductions to a group of people that are nameless as well outside of a woman named Lady Valcallan, who is seeming in control of it and is likely this council that we hear about at times. Rupert is the rogue of old in how these things play out and it’s interesting to see the swashbuckling military type like this as he goes to impress them while also insulting them. Rupert is interested only in adventure and profit, as he says, and figures they’re the way to do it. It doesn’t take long for Vampirella’s quest for revenge over what happened to her club to come into play, but it’s all just kind of haphazard as it plays out.
In Summary:
I have no real clue what the Legenderry material is all about, but I’d for some reason figured that a new miniseries set in the world might provide a little context to introduce new readers to it, which would them potentially draw them in to read the other materials as well. While I like the designs here and the costuming as the steampunk world has some really creative aspects to it, the story is a muddled mess that doesn’t provide any context or really introduce us to anything. It’s the kind of book that expects and demands that you know what’s going on and just run right through it rather than being introduced to this particular world. I’d hoped, as a Vampirella fan, to get a look at her in a different setting, but it needed more for me to be able to make heads or tales of it. As it stands, it doesn’t really endear me to trying anything further at all in the Legenderry world with how it plays out here.
Grade: C
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: February 4th, 2015
MSRP: $3.99
