VAN HELSING: DEADLY ALCHEMY, from Zenescope Entertainment on February 8th, 2023, takes a thoughtful trip when Liesel Van Helsing visits her father’s lab to close the book on his memory.
The Details
- Written by: Pat Shand
- Art by: Hakan Aydin
- Colors by: Grostieta
- Letters by: Taylor Esposito
- Cover art by: Igor Vitorino (cover A)
- Comic Rating: Teen+
- Cover price: $5.99
- Release date: February 8, 2023
Is It Good?
VAN HELSING: DEADLY ALCHEMY is not your everyday comic from Zenescope. At the risk of sounding like a back-handed compliment (it’s not), VAN HELSING: DEADLY ALCHEMY is an exploration of Liesel Van Helsing’s memories of her father and how those memories shaped her present circumstances. Don’t worry, there’s still a bit of monster-hunting action to keep action-oriented readers engaged, but this is largely a personal issue for Zenescope’s resident supernatural monster hunter.
If you’ve not kept up with Liesel’s recent adventures, she’s hopped from location to location to put down hybrid monsters created by her father in his early experiments. Now, Liesel returns to where it all started, hoping the last of her father’s hybrids are truly gone. However, Liesel’s homecoming is far from eventful when she finds something worse than she could have imagined waiting for her.
On the whole, it’s a sound premise, and Pat Shand breathes rich life into Liesel’s cathartic journey back home. As she travels from road tunnels to the laboratory, Liesel considers (through flashbacks) how little moments of recollection are pieces of a bigger puzzle that comprises the full picture of her father’s memory. Abraham Van Helsing was a brilliant man who made many mistakes, usually with good intentions but misguided methods. This story serves as an excellent character piece to inform readers about Liesel’s personality and past while setting up her growth for her future.
That said, more than half of this issue is focused on Liesel’s thinking, remembering, reflecting, and processing of her memories and emotions. The pacing isn’t necessarily slow because Shand works in scene transitions to maintain the illusion of movement, but if your focus is on the action, not much happens until well past the midpoint. In other words, plot development and action are traded for character development.
Still, the issue keeps you engaged with excellent art from Aydin, Grostieta, and Esposito. The Frankenstein-ish creature designs are creative, the meager action scenes are tense-yet-energetic, and the coloring is outstanding.
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What’s It About?
[SPOILERS AHEAD – Click here if you just want the score without spoilers]
We begin with Liesel narrating the last year’s journey wherein she tracked down hybrid monsters created by her father during his failed experiments to create a powerful bio-weapon. The trail of monsters ran cold, so Liesel decides to travel back to her childhood home, where her father’s lab remains.
As Liesel travels the abandoned rods, tunnels, and hidden passages, she recalls how her father always prioritized her safety by keeping her away from his lab. Now, whatever last vestiges of Abraham’s work remain, they’re buried in his old lab.
When Liesel arrives, she finds bizarre remains, booby traps, and a tragic monster only a father could love.
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Final Thoughts
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VAN HELSING: DEADLY ALCHEMY delivers a thoughtful examination of the titular character’s relationship with her long-deceased father as one of his forgotten experiments threatens Liesel’s existence. Mature writing is matched only by excellent art. However, a majority of this issue is spent on Liesel’s introspection, so readers may balk at the lack of action.
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