In an interesting introduction just before Halloween, DC Comics is releasing the first issue of a twelve-issue series: DC VS Vampires.
A bandaged man comes bumping and falling along the street, looking for the Justice League. When Green Lantern tries to help him, things really get interesting, with overtones of Mary, Queen of Blood, from The Cult Of The Blood Red Moon. It’s DC versus Vampires, alright!
The all-star team behind this one is James Tynion IV (Nice House On The Lake, Something Is Killing The Children, etc) with Matthew Rosenberg (The Joker Presents: A Puzzlebox, 4 Kids Walk Into A Bank, Hawkeye, etc) cowrite the story and Otto Schmidt (Hawkeye, Green Arrow, etc) on art. Lettering by Tom Napolitano.
The story is convoluted but ultra-dramatic, with wild twists and turns. Tynion and Rosenberg turn up the volume with moments of drawn-out vaudeville dialogue, perhaps in order to contrast with the nastiness of the vampire elements, but it all seems to work… with pages of colour bathed in blood-red colour producing a staggering counterpoint to Green Lantern’s hues and cries.
It’s gothic in tone, its comedy and stage acting punctuated with the teeth of attack, the agony of defeat, and the thumping of the rhythm of betrayal.
Schmidt contributes wonderful gestures, intimate closeup expressions, and colourfully violent vistas, with shadowed undead spread as far as the eye can see.
Nicely paced and a really strong first issue of what can become a well-managed series.
DC Comics, DC VS Vampires #1, $3.99 for 24 pages of Teen content
Newsdesk