Wherein Elvira turns balls white instead of the usual blue.
Creative Staff:
Story: David Avallone
Art: Dave Acosta
Colors: Walter Pereyra
Letterer: Taylor Esposito
What They Say:
Elvira has had it up to here (well, you can guess where) with this coven cult nonsense, and she’s bringing the fight to their home base. She’ll show them what’s what, and which is witch, in the wickedest way possible. Writer David Avallone (Bettie Page) and artist Dave Acosta (Twelve Devils Dancing) bring you the chills, the thrills and the terrible puns, in the eleventh issue of ELVIRA: MISTRESS OF THE DARK!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Elvira has been running all over the place and experiencing a lot of different things that it can be a bit hard to keep track of. Thankfully, David Avallone handles the inside-cover recap that I wish more books had – especially when there are gaps between releases – and Elvira herself hates doing the recap. Which, amusingly, she does anyway, just wearing white for a rare moment in time. This installment has Dave Acosta handling the art duties once again and combined with Walter Pereyra’s color design we get something that really shines. It’s really different bringing Elvira out in white and that does change a lot of things.
With Elvira’s darkness (mostly) taken from her, she’s naturally intent on getting it back as well as Soul Survivor since he’s been taken. That has her heading to where they’re located, the dinner mansion thing, and the exposition is pretty ongoing. It’s a little surprising as the first seven pages are just Elvira and her talking about what’s going on and handling her change/white dress by just talking constantly as she makes her way into the place, trying to figure out where to go. Of course, a couple of the low level guys are watching her and plotting their move to take her down, which naturally doesn’t go anywhere near as they wanted it to go. But it is amusing since she takes hold a sword that’s not exactly a play sword and manages to hold them hostage, giving her some leverage against everyone else when she gets to finding Soul Survivor in the main dining hall.
While this battle isn’t finished here, we do get the start of a good fight as Elvira stakes out her ground and gets cozy with Soul Survivor as she needs to get him freed as well. The banter is fun and I like how well Elvira is holding up while all in white and swinging her sword. But the demon summoning spell is what gets underway and we end up with Vlad of all people back, which is both good and bad. But what makes the whole thing so worthwhile is that we see how the summoning works on the other side with Mephistoles’ surprise to see it after so long while also lamenting his name becoming famous. When he sees who is in the arena and latches onto Elvira, well, it’s no surprise that he can’t help but to toss old Vlad up there for a new round of fun.
In Summary:
Elvira continues to be fun for a lot of reasons. The character herself, Avallone’s dialogue feeling as natural as it does from her, and the artwork. Combine that with silly stories that are played kind of straight and allow for all the weirdness and you get something delightful and fun. This installment gives us some good time with just Elvira at first and I love the white dress for a change of pace. The rest of it is just lots of action and silliness that delivers on all the right points. I can’t wait to see how things go upside down even quicker now that the demon has been summoned.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: January 8th, 2020
MSRP: $3.99
