DRACULINA #5, from Dynamite Comics on August 10th, 2022, mixes realities together as adult Draculina, now a human, teams up with little Draculina, now a vampire, to stop Belial before he makes a bigger mess.
The Details
- Written by: Christopher Priest
- Art by: Michael Sta. Maria
- Colors by: Ivan Nunes
- Letters by: Willie Schubert
- Cover art by: Collette Turner (cover A)
- Cover price: $3.99
- Release date: August 10, 2022
Is It Good?
After reading DRACULINA #5, I need an aspirin. Before this issue, Priest admirably kept the time-warping, reality-bending concepts spelled out, albeit not straight, enough for you to track what’s going on. Now, this issue ties right back to the spaghetti-knot narrative of Priest’s Vampirella run, and it’s every bit as complicated and confusing. Priest gets bonus points for creativity, but you may need a marker board, graph paper, and a scientific calculator to track what’s happening.
The high point of the issue is the art, particularly Nunes’s stupendous coloring. In this issue, the characters start to merge, overlap, bend, and twist into amalgam versions of themselves to give you something new to drink in on every page. Nunes’s colors are rich, detailed, nuanced, and simply gorgeous. Come for the fantastic linework by Sta. Maria, but stay for the rich coloring by Nunes.
As a positive, Priest’s writing is certainly imaginative. The dialog is snappy, the twists and turns are wholly unguessable, and the pacing is brisk. Everything related to the writing execution outside of the actual plot is well done.
However, the plot is a near-nightmare to follow. Our big gripe with Priest’s Vampirella run was the extreme lengths Priest went to make the history of Vampirella’s first trip to Earth as confusing and complicated as possible. Here, Priest takes the extra step of replicating that confusing complication in this title, and it’s a chore to follow. Creativity without clarity is chaos, and this issue embodies chaos.
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What’s It About?
[SPOILERS AHEAD – Click here if you just want the score without spoilers]
Catch up on the reality-bending events that led up to this mess in our DRACULINA #4 review.
We begin with adult Draculina robbing a museum to collect the necessary artifacts for Zylaven to stop Belial and restore the natural-ish order. She feels human empathy over killing a guard and laments her lack of blood lust over the wasted guard’s blood.
Young Draculina, aka Katie, learns firsthand the burden of the blood lust and flies off to find Zylaven for a new black candle to get her body back into its previous state. She finds Zylaven meeting with Hesiod, the faerie responsible for warping reality and Draculina’s betrothed, and adult Draculina gathered together. They plan to combine their forces and stop Belial.
Meanwhile, Belial finds Lilith on Arcadia, the alternate reality Earth from a different timeline, and offers her a deal. We conclude the issue with a homecoming, bloodletting, and more body mixing.
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Final Thoughts
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DRACULINA #5 represents the very essence of conflict by delivering sensationally stimulating art with a plot that’s as complicated to follow as a herd of kittens in a ball pit. In fairness, the story certainly isn’t boring, but good luck trying to describe it in two sentences or less.
Related Information
What is a Draculina?
In comics, Drcualina is the half-sister of Vampirella and an alien from the planet Drakulon. In the popular video game Castlevania and the anime of the same name, a Draculina is a female vampire spawned from the Dracula bloodline.
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