The stage begins to be set.
Creative Staff:
Story: Joseph Michael Linsner
Art: Joseph Michael Linsner
What They Say:
Dawn, self-proclaimed Goddess of birth and rebirth, conspires with her fellow captive Vampirella to find a way to escape their imprisonment at the hands of the nefarious demon Masodik. They trade tales of life and death, of being and nothingness, detailing an endless cycle of death and rebirth. The cosmic rose opens and closes, opens and closes. Dawn is prepared for her next rebirth… and all Vampirella wants is her next death (which will hopefully be Masodik’s).
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With several months between this release and the prior, it’s not that hard to get back into the fourth installment of the Dawn/Vampirella series. Mostly because a lot of it has just been the telling of standalone stories with our two leads brought into it in different ways. This one starts to do that but shifts gears, thankfully, but it’s also wrapped around with a story from the human world where a young woman, pregnant and alone, races off into the night after realizing she won’t get help from her stepfather after her own mother’s passing. That provides a little drama, but with her seeming death at the end as the closer here, you know it’ll factor into the larger story next time around.
For Vampirella, the book starts off difficult enough for her as she’s having terrible dreams while getting some sleep at Masodik’s contained location, but it turns darker when one of the demons that he has there has overstepped her bounds and is trying to devour Vampirella. That makes for a fun little power play, showing what Masodik has to deal with as well to maintain his position, but also just to see the general dynamic of the place. It doesn’t take long to start telling stories again though, and Dawn kicks one off about a king with three very different sons, working through the familiar concept easily enough. Thankfully, Masodik calls her out on it being so predictable and instead retires for the night, leaving Dawn and Vampirella to themselves.
What dominates the book is Dawn opening up about her past, being the goddess that she is, and her connection to Darrian, who is the spirit of a flavor of Death that she’s drawn and bonded to. It’s a tale that’s certainly familiar, and getting to see Darrian again here is great, particularly as she goes into the ways that she’s guided him over the years and lives to try and get him to who he needs to become. It covers a lot of ground, but it also has Vampirella realizing that Dawn has an out here through her connection to Death that will allow them to be freed. Her frustration over why she’s not doing it does get the best of her, understandably so considering the situation, but there’s something to be said for Dawn’s approach in finding the right way to bring things to a proper close with Masodik rather than blunt force.
In Summary:
while the book is still faltering in a few ways, this installment works better as it’s more about Dawn than the telling of stories to please Masodik. What we get here allows us to delve more into Dawn as a character, one that may be quite unfamiliar for Vampirella or Dynamite fans, and it comes across well here to draw interest to the larger story that exists for the character. Giving Darrian a chance to be involved as well was a welcome little treat. There’s a few different things going on here and I can’t help but to feel that this miniseries is a couple of issues too long in getting things done, but it feels like events are going to start picking up for several reasons. I’m cautiously optimistic about where it can go, but mostly I’m just glad to get a story that involves Dawn and Darrian rather than some fictional piece like we got the last few installments.
Grade: B-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: June 24th, 2015
MSRP: $3.99
