Something wickedly more powerful this way comes.
Creative Staff:
Story: Thomas Sniegoski
Art: Kewber Baal
Colors: Omi Remalante Jr.
Letterer: Troy Peteri
What They Say:
The mystery of Adam Van Helsing’s return intensifies, as Vampirella continues to struggle with the bestial side of her nature. Mistress Nyx realizes that Vampirella isn’t the only enemy she should be concerned about. And Lord Mazarin embraces his gift from the Lords of Chaos and the world slips that much closer towards oblivion.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The Vengeance of Vampirella series continues to deliver a lot of good material from Thomas Sniegoski that helps the character to feel like she is headlining her own book and that things actually make sense. As much as some of the trippy weird material over the years worked for me, the more traditional side with lots of creativity to work with hits home better. Kewber Baal takes on the art for the whole issue this time around and that’s never a bad thing as they’ve always had a good handle on the world, characters, and type of material. The cast looks great where it’s sexy where it needs to be and violently dangerous elsewhere for the same reasons.
Events in this issue are a bit transitional to a degree as it sets up for what’s coming down the road and checks in with the various sides. Largely, it’s all about how most of them are having premonitions or just bad feelings about what’s coming and coping with that sensation. Of course, we have to start off with something different as we get Vampirella dreaming as a way to cope with some of what her internal issues are like at the moment. That’s largely trying to contain the monstrous side of herself and having a hard time doing that as it grows in power. She’s also working through he feelings about Adam Van Helsing being back and the uncertainty of all of that there, especially as he’s not exactly right as rain himself. It puts both of them in a decent place overall to work with that makes sense and is certainly understandable.
At the same time, we see that Nyx is still going through her recovery – of sorts – as things aren’t coming together well at all that. So much so that some of her servants think that the Dark Lords have definitely abandoned her and that in turn makes one of them, Desmod, far more susceptible to them when it does call him to service. But that’s also part of a larger plan as we see Abadonn being drawn in as well as the power vacuum that he’s dealing with as the side he belongs to isn’t answering his pleas, so it’s no surprise that he’s drawn to the Dark Lords call as well. Even the surviving members of humanity are hearing and feeling bad things coming. We do get a little bit of action with this installment as some of the werewolf types looking for food stumble upon the safe house and break in, but that’s just not going their way at all when it has them running into Adam and Vampirella. Hell, the whole fight just turns on both of them after they take down the werewolves like an appetizer.
In Summary:
Though it’s not a heavy action issue or a big plot issue either, the reality is that it covers some important ground and place-setting for events that have been going on for a while. It makes it clear where things stand in a solid way and with the bigger thing coming around the corner, that’s helpful. It even takes the moment to pain both Vampirella, Adam, and even Abaddon when you get down to it as being mere pawns in something larger that isn’t clear yet. I do like seeing more of Vampirella struggling with her inner monstrous side and to get a bit more on how she’s handling everything since waking up in this particular world.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: February 24th, 2021
MSRP: $3.99
