The truth of the family lineage.
Creative Staff:
Story: Frank Tieri, Michael Moreci
Art: Audrey Mok, Joe Eisma
Colors: Matt Herms, Ryan Jampole
Letterer: Jack Morelli
What They Say:
The clock is ticking on Veronica Lodge as she learns the terrible secrets hidden deep in her family’s history—and comes to understand that her horrifying past isn’t as distant as she’d like. Now, if she wants to keeps her family and friends safe, Veronica will face her most chilling challenge yet.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The Vampironica series was a lot of fun and I’ve enjoyed this New Blood edition that has brought us more stories of Veronica as a vampire. Frank Tieri and Michael Moreci sought to bring a lot more backstory with this installment and that’s fine but I wish we had a couple of miniseries without this expansive backstory just to enjoy time with Veronica in this form and discovering a range of things. Audrey Mok returns on the art duties but just for the first half or so with Joe Eisma finishing it out, which works well as the two have similar styles in producing this book so there isn’t a huge disparity or something too noticeable for most readers. It’s a good looking book once again and I really like that it doesn’t focus on oversexualizing any of the cast and instead keeps it pretty clean in that regard.
A lot of the initial tension that we get here between Veronica and Fangs and his group comes down to the fact that she’s working without all the fact. There’s plenty of teenage jockeying going on here but Fangs doesn’t want to fight and he knows that she has to get the answers from her father about what’s really going on. Thankfully, Hiram isn’t holding out any longer and we discover the extra twist about the family in that Francis Lodge is actually an apex vampire, one that comes along only once in a great while. They’ve got some extra abilities, such as controlling other vampires, but someone in Francis’ position needs a new apex vampire to come along in order to feed on and regain his youth and vitality since he’s getting up there in the years. That’s not in Veronica’s gameplan but it at least makes it clear why he’s hunting her and using Fangs and his group to get what he needs.
But she’s also not going to let her friends sacrifice themselves for this battle that she has to face with Francis himself. Amusingly, it all comes to a head at a school dance as Francis is reaching the position of needing her blood sooner rather than later. There’s a lot to like in this final installment with the fight that gets underway, the bodies that fall, and how Veronica really has to accept her place in all of this and the sacrifices that others make for her. The tension with Fangs plays well too but I like that there are real stakes here with what Veronica is doing and that she has to be very careful with her powers as she can easily fall down the rabbit hole that Francis did in abusing it. She’s also paying a price for everything with her father’s death and that’s going to have her playing in a very different way as revenge is first and foremost on her mind.
In Summary:
While this is the end of this series I’m hopeful that there’s more Vampironica in our future. The Archie Horror line is not one that gets used heavily or regularly, which makes sense but at times disappoints me because it’s such a fun line. And it lets different talents play within it to come up with some neat things. I like the whole vampire Veronica thing and how it ties into other properties. This one plays well in giving us more of her evolution as this character and form as it really expands on the family history in some big ways. It reads well, looks great, and is a lot of fun from start to finish. Definitely one worth picking up as a single or waiting for the collection in September 2020.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: Archie Comics
Release Date: April 15th, 2020
MSRP: $3.99
