VAMPIRELLA (VOL. 5) #17, available from Dynamite Comics on February 10th, 2021, recounts Vampirella’s first few days on Earth after being stranded by a science experiment gone wrong. With no understanding of the culture, customs, or language, Vampirella quickly adapts and fatefully forms her cadre of now-familiar friends.
The Details
- Written By: Christopher Priest
- Art By: Szymon Kudranski, Ergün Gündüz
- Colors By: Szymon Kudranski, Ergün Gündüz
- Letters By: Willie Schubert
- Cover Art By: Lucio Parrillo
- Cover Price: $3.99
- Release Date: February 10, 2021
Was It Good?
It was mediocre, both in the substance of the story and the art. On a positive note, Priest’s disjointed and erratic narrative style is less prevalent in this issue compared to the previous issues in this run (Read our VAMPIRELLA (VOL. 5) #16 review here). Priest’s smoother, calmer narrative made it easier to get into the story.
The art is a mixed bag. Most of the issue is an extended flashback to Vampirella’s early days, but there is a multi-page epilogue with a completely different artist. And the difference shows in terms of tone, mood, and quality. Sometimes it works when different artists handle different time periods in the same issue, but the results can be jarring.
What’s It About?
[SPOILERS AHEAD]
We begin in 1969 with a bank robbery in progress. Police arrive on the scene to arrest the robbers and confiscate the loot as evidence. We quickly learn the entire robbery is a setup and the “police” are part of the robber’s crew. It’s a clever tactic Priest has dreamed up because the police won’t get called if the bank owner thinks the police are already here.
During the getaway, Vampirella flies down, to disable the car, kill the robbers for a midnight snack, and take the stolen money. Here we run into a lack of clarity in the story. If Vampirella has just arrived on Earth with no sense of customs, culture, or language, how did she know the men were robbers? Was it just a happy coincidence?
Vampirella wanders the streets randomly when she’s attracted to the music of a nearby strip club. When she enters, she immediately catches the attention of one of the dancers who later learn is Pantha. The two immediately hit it off, despite Vampirella’s lack of English, and Pantha brings her home to stay.
While Vampirella quickly learns English by watching TV, Pantha’s “agent” arrives to talk about a new dancing gig. The agent is revealed to be former-wizard-turned-stage-magician Pendragon, and the two become quick friends.
Part of the flatness of the issue is Vampirella’s lack of emotion throughout. From the bank robbery to the strip club to Pantha’s apartment, Vampirella has a consistently blank expression on her face. There’s no urgency or sense of emotion that she’s stranded on a strange planet. She simply moves from one scene to the next, acting as the situation calls for it.
With her English rapidly developing, Vampirella explains Pantha is out but a strange sound interrupts her from outside and puts them on alert. Vampirella investigates and sees a large black panther attacking an abusive pimp. She can tell the animal is really Pantha. Later, Pantha explains her curse and the need to hunt, but Vampirella isn’t put off or reacts much in any way except to simply offer herself as a friend.
The next morning, Vampirella, Pantha, and Pendragon are having breakfast in a nearby deli when Stan the Demon walks in to introduce himself. He can tell Vampirella is a vampire, and they spend the rest of the meal trying to figure out a suitable name for her since her Drakulonian name is unpronounceable in English.
Toward the end of the meal, a robber steals the register money at knifepoint and takes off. Vampirella chases after him, thinking the robbery is some sort of ritual that she doesn’t understand. With Pantha’s help, she tracks down and retrieves the money.
On their way back to the deli, Vampirella sees a crowd gathered around a storefront with televisions playing the news. Passersby are watching footage of the 1969 moon landing, and Vampirella immediately recognizes space vehicles. She asks Pantha and her friends to get one for her so she can go home.
In the only real display of acting or emotion in the entire issue, Vampirella becomes distraught when her friends explain humans don’t have interstellar travel, don’t have access to spaceships, and wouldn’t know how to find Drakulon if they did. It’s not clear why Vampirella didn’t seek out the scientist who created the rift that brought her to Earth in the first place. That would have made more sense.
We switch to an epilogue in the present day where Vampirella is configuring the interstellar pod that brought her to Earth originally. It’s not clear why she didn’t try this escape decades ago or even the point of the flashback other than to show how Vampirella was introduced to her magical friends.
Does she make it back to Drakulon? We’ll leave that surprise for you to find out.
Final Thoughts
VAMPIRELLA (VOL. 5) #17, available from Dynamite Comics on February 10th, 2021, has a smoother narrative style than previous issues but with little substance and uneven art. It’s a mild origin story that’s more curiosity than must-have, and if you skipped from issue #16 to issue #18, you won’t miss much in the overall arc.
Score: 6.5/10
We hope you found this review interesting. Come back for more reviews, previews, and opinions on comics, and don’t forget to follow us on social media:
If you’re interested in this creator’s works, remember to let your Local Comic Shop know to set it aside for you. They would appreciate the call, and so would we.
Click here to find your Local Comic Shop: www.ComicShopLocator.com