In VAMPIRELLA (VOL. 5) #20, available from Dynamite Comics on June 2nd, 2021, the secret of the mad astronaut’s past is revealed in bloody detail, and Lilith’s acolytes pull off a daring jailbreak.
The Details
- Written By: Christopher Priest
- Art By: Ergün Gündüz
- Letters By: Willie Schubert
- Cover Art By: Lucio Parrillo (cover A)
- Cover Price: $3.99
- Release Date: June 2, 2021
Was It Good?
It was an average for Priest’s run. Leaning into strong sci-fi suits this story well, but there’s a lot of jumping around and far too many moments where I was left wondering “What just happened? That doesn’t make any sense.”
If the goal of the series is to confuse and disorient its readers, then this series is a masterful success. If not, your reading enjoyment may vary.
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Likewise, the art is consistent for the series so far. Gündüz’s style of combining hand-drawn characters with photoshopped backgrounds gives off a plastic, surreal quality that works in some panels and not in others. It’s definitely unique.
You can see for yourself in our VAMPIRELLA (VOL. 5) #20 preview.
What’s It About?
[SPOILERS AHEAD – Click here if you just want the score without spoilers]
We get right to the meat of the big reveal with a flashback to the NASA space program on Earth circa 1969. A man named Shane, despite holding a position as a scientist and candidate astronaut, feels constantly berated by his co-workers, his superiors, and his family.
One day, Shane snaps and kills his family with a knife.
5 years later, Shane is on a space mission and lands on the moon as part of the Space Force. While he rides around the moon to investigate a specific crater, his co-pilots sabotage his buggy. They intentionally send Shane careening down to the bottom of a deep ice crater where he’s left to die. Their rationale for the sabotage is revenge for murdering his family.
At this point, I have at least 5-10 questions about this flashback and why none of it makes sense. Neil Armstrong was the first person to step on the moon, so who is this Shane guy? How did Shane get away with killing his family despite walking outside covered in blood holding a knife and getting spotted by a neighbor? Even if Shane were somehow to claim temporary insanity, why would NASA let him continue in the astronaut candidate program? How would his co-pilots be able to explain killing Shane on the moon?
None of it makes sense, so let’s just keep going.
A thousand years later, Shane is found by Dreyvant Aepostyl, Lilith’s head acolyte, frozen in ice in the catacombs beneath Drakulon. How or why this is possible is never explained. As a guess, when Shane fell down into the moon crater, he somehow dropped through an interdimensional portal… maybe.
Dreynvant thaws Shane out at a time before Vampirella first left Drakulon, before the Uprising that ousted Lilith from her throne.
Now, Vampirella is questioning Shane to find out who he is and how he survived in the catacombs for the last 50 years. Shane is enigmatic, crazy, and even mad (mad as Rasputin) so his answers sometimes make sense but sometimes not. When Shane says he was the first man on the moon, Vampirella tells him about Neil Armstrong but Shane has no idea who that it is.
At this point, you can definitely tell Shane is crazy, but is he all crazy or is there something else happening? There could be some alternate timeline, alternate dimension shenanigans happening but it’s too jumbled and confusing to tell.
Elsewhere, Dreyvant and the acolytes attack the capital with one goal in mind — free Lilith. They have fewer numbers but the offer is simple. They want Lilith in exchange for no civilian bloodshed. Elder Bryce’s first responsibility is the safety of the people, so they agree.
Back to the catacombs, Vampirella sees the exchange happen on a live monitor in Shane’s cave and realizes Lilith is telling the truth because her psychic words are being filtered through a truth distiller. Lilith’s promise to be merciful convinces Vampirella to save her mother, and she begs Shane to conjure a portal to send them back to the Senate building.
When Vampirella asks why Shane brought them here in the first place, he pulls out a picture of his family… the family he murdered… and says he wants them back. Somehow he believes Vampirella can bring them to him. How or why any of this is possible or makes sense is never explained.
Dreyvant makes it down to where Lilith is held to free her, but suddenly… DOUBLE-CROSS. Lilith made a deal with Elder Bryce to allow Dreyvant to invade the city so he could be captured. Lilith never explains what’s in it for her. Amnesty? Spared from execution?
The Senate Pages arrive when they hear Dreyvant is trying to set Lilith free, and they attack to stop him. Surprisingly, they knock Dreyvant out. While they talk about what to do next, a massive wave of water rushes into the cave and sweeps the pages and Lilith up and through an interdimensional gateway with Vampirella following close behind.
Where did the water come from? I don’t know.
Where did Vampirella come from? I don’t know.
Who conjured the gateway and why? I don’t know.
We conclude the issue with a view of everyone and everything on the other side of the gateway, and it’s not what you expect.
How Does It End?
Shane waxes poetic. Vampirella asks Shane a question that’s answered with a more confusing question. Mt. Rushmore looks different somehow.
Final Thoughts
VAMPIRELLA (VOL. 5) #20 goes time-hopping, dimension-hopping, and planet-hopping to make this a difficult comic to follow. If you like the niche art style and finishing a comic with ten times the questions than when you started, this one is for you.
Score: 6.5/10
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