Time is a flat circle, or something.
Creative Staff:
Story: Amy Chu
Art: Dan Parent
Letterer: Taylor Esposito, Rieanna Bates
What They Say:
You’re traveling to another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a land whose boundaries are that of imagination. Your next stop, Vampirella and Red Sonja in Riverdale… 1973!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Though some aspects of this series were a little drawn out at times, I’ve enjoyed it overall with what Amy Chu has done. It’s not the easiest batch of characters to pull together but she did it well and had a lot of fun and seriousness along the way that felt natural and clicked right. With this issue, we get a kind of one-off story that brings in Dan Parent to do the artwork on. That means we get classic-style Archie and gang for a bit, which is definitely culture shock if you’ve just been reading the newer stuff and haven’t dealt much with the older material. I grew up reading the older stuff so it’s still very familiar but it’s also not what I look for these days. But as a one-off blast to the past? That works fine.
With Vampirella and Red Sonja having gone through the portal to Drakulon, the whole thing didn’t go as planned and they now find themselves someplace else on Earth. And somewhen. They basically showed up just a bit outside of Riverdale in 1973 during the Nixon impeachment. And, as mentioned, done up in the style of the Archie books of the era. It’s cute and silly blending it together and we have them heading into town where they discover a vampire of the time there, Vodosky, and the other Vampirella-type that I’m guessing is Vampirella’s sister, though she’s largely unacknowledged here. The use of it all is to get Betty and Veronica to realize these two aren’t just your average folks and that they need to be helped. And with Dilton getting the story a bit later, they’re all filled in on how they’re from the future and worked with versions of themselves from then as well.
Comically, that has Dilton doing his best to build a time machine while the girls take some time off to relax as he does that. For Vampirella, that’s just a good nap for a bit. For Sonja? She heads off to Vietnam in order to find a border area where she can set up her own empire, apparently, as she’s dealing with all forces that come at her and has a blast in being able to just fight against so many. It’s all weird and unusual and yet fits the larger feeling of this series. It’s just made all the more surreal by the art style itself, which was part of the point. This all comes down to what feels like a standalone issue since I think we’re back to the usual style with the next issue but it’s definitely a fun way to shake things up just a bit without having to actually change anything.
In Summary:
As much fun as I had with this issue overall I kind wish they had just done a skip month instead since it takes us out of the overall path and progress – and design – of the series so far. It’s not bad at all, it’s just not something that adds much to what’s going on here and is a chance to play fast and loose with some silliness. Which we all need, thus not really coming down hard on it because I did enjoy it. But it’ll be mostly forgettable outside of that moment where you see Sonja prepping to go up against American soldiers in Vietnam.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: February 26th, 2020
MSRP: $3.99
