Review: Vampirella: The God You Know

A story arc spanning 5 books wraps in issue 11 of Vampirella Volume 4.Â The arc begins with Vampirella confronted, in her mind mind you, by dozens of manifestations of her own character.Â What follows is a surreal and eventually violent therapy session in the most meta way possible.Â Eventually Vampirella works out her problems with herself, is comforted by what can best be described as the furry representation of her actual cat, and eventually wakes from what we find is a weeks old slumber.Â Prior to slumbering Vampirella had thwarted the plans of Lucifer Morningstar.Â Waking she is greeted by her sidekick Vicki who she eventually takes a romantic interest in.Â After bacon and a few months of cohabitation this domestic bliss is shattered as you knew it had to be.Â Attacked by a roving gang of motorcycle cultists, chanting in Latin no less, Vampirella with Vicki in tow embarks on a trek to find who is out to kill her and why exactly no one can die.

All of this finally leads us to issue #11.Â Vampirella finds herself drained of blood and straining against the bonds of her own morality as her vampiric nature seeks to assert itself and slaughter the children who have been locked in a room with her.Â Meanwhile, Vicki finds herself trapped and on the run from cannibals in a digital facsimile of heaven.Â As the book winds down Vicki manages to free God from the bonds that have ensnared her and the two of them rescue Vampirella who has managed to restrain herself.Â The rest as they say is history as the book signs off with the two women hand in hand and the words “The end for now”.

The entire arc can be irreverent, self referential, comedic and at times incredibly graphic and I enjoyed it immensely.Â This iteration of the character is Vampirella meets Mad Max and it provides some incredible action and laugh out loud one liners to go along with the violence.Â Â However the final issue seems to bring an end to the arc rather abruptly even losing some of the comedic tone which provided an entertaining counterpoint to the gruesome nature of the story.Â Additionally, it feels like the arc ended one book early.Â It left me feeling like I missed something in much the same way one could walk out of a movie and wonder how much good footage had been left on the cutting room floor.

[yasr_overall_rating size=”medium”]

Cover:Â Andy Belanger
Writer:Â Jeremy Whitley, Paul Cornell
Art:Â Andy Belanger, Creees Lee, Paulo Barrios, Rapha Lobosco

Author Profile

Nemesis

Nemesis is a poet, writer and author of the upcoming novel The Long Game. He is a writer of science fiction and supernatural thrillers. Besides novels and short stories he writes for UK based ASAP Comics developing new stories for Level 8 and OPSEC. Nem is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and tries to bring those experiences into his writing.

He lives and works out of his home in Riverside, California with his wife and three children. When not writing he enjoys reviewing comic books and graphic novels for ComicCrusaders.com and living the Southern California life with his family.