Vampiverse #02

Vampiverse #02

Dynamite Entertainment 2021

Written by Tom Sniegoski & Jeannine Acheson

Illustrated by Daniel Maine

Coloured by Francesca Cittarelli

Lettered by Tllyor Esposito of Ghost Glyph Studios

The mysterious and deadly Bloodwing is killing all the Vampirellas throughout the fabric of reality—but who is he, and why is he doing this? It’s up to Vampirella to learn the secrets of Bloodwing and stop him.

Half the fun of this story is that we get to see alternate timelines of Vampirella. Those whose lives have taken a decidedly different turn than what we’ve been used to seeing and these infinite possibilities are what is so much fun to explore as we traverse from reality to reality. We also get to see the birth of Bloodwing which is something I am surprised we get to see so early but then again it’s nice to see and learn what it is that this slowly growing team is really up against. As Bloodwing absorbs more and more of her own essence the stronger she becomes and at this rate if they aren’t careful she’ll be too powerful to be stopped by one Vampirella and a bunch of sidekicks. I kind of think this is half the fun, however, part of me is reminded of The Menagerie series which I wish we’d see more novels about, it won’t be fun if they won’t be able to stop her.

I am a huge fan of the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. The character development that we see through the narration, the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter which continues to bring their personalities to the forefront. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages revealing more and more of the pages the more we want to see and know.

I love the way we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to emerge, grow, evolve and strengthen. These layers open up new avenues to be explored and each new world opens up new avenues and these add such delicious depth, dimension and complexity to the story. How we see everything work together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is impeccably achieved.

I am absolutely in love with the way that we see the interiors. The linework is exquisite and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create this level & quality of detail we see within the work is astounding. Oh how we see backgrounds being utilised to enhance and expand the moments as well as how we see the composition within the panels to bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story. The creativity and imagination that we see throughout is stunning and that moment we see the zombies and the train gave me shivers of pure delight. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the layouts and perspective in the panels show a masterful eye for storytelling. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows a brilliant eye for how colour works.

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I’m loving this series already. I want to see this continue on for a while because let’s face it there really are an infinite world of possibilities for the sheer amount of stories, both one and done as well as multi-issue arcs, to be explored. Plus Tom and Vampirella go together like strawberries and cream so there’s that. This is extraordinarily well written with dynamic characterisation along with these brilliant interiors make for some stellar reading.