[NOTE: Potential Spoilers! Buy and read the book, then come back here for the commentary!]
This is a new series and ultimately, though complete in itself, it will be part of a bigger project (no pun intended). It’s a Vampirella story — my first time writing this classic character, but it’s also a Project Superpowers story, and in it I’ll be developing and expanding the Project concept and reveling in the classic characters it offers.
It’s also, I’m very much aware, something of a “mash-up” — the sort of genre-combining thing that shouldn’t really work, or should only be attempted as a joke. Vampirella …. And superheroes.
Really? But she isn’t that at all, right?
This isn’t a case of shoe-horning two things together for the sake of doing it: the incongruity of the combination is the whole point. I intend to play into it. And Vampirella being a misfit, a bad fit, is our basic theme.
Page One
We went for a cold open, as though this was the start of a hard-edged, etch-savvy superhero story (which it is) … and let me say that in no way is this story meant to undermine ANY Vampirella continuity. This Vampirella is, in many ways, the 1970’s, fresh-out-of-the-box (tomb?) version. This is something that may have happened to her. It’s not what is sometimes called an “elseworld” either. Nor is it an attempt to take the piss out of Vampirella. It’s a credible possibility.
Right from page one, Paul’s [Davidson] gorgeous graphic work is there to be enjoyed.
Pages Two to Nine
So determined am I to establish Vampirella’s credentials, as a serious character, I have devoted the first significant sequence to her in action, along with the start of a wry (not comedic) narrative from her that will continue throughout, so we get her mindset. I’ve worked with Paul before, and I love his approach. This extended fight is brutal, blistering and savagely choreographed. It’s everything I wanted, and more besides.
Page Ten
If this issue has any “punchline” moments, it’s this page, I suppose. The arrival of the clean-cut and noble superheroes. Their disapproval and shock is palpable. They’ve walked into horror, and also into brutal military SF, neither of which is their comfort zone…
Pages Eleven to Fourteen
Now we flash back a little, to contextualize the crunchy “pre-credit” action. We properly introduce the heroes, we showcase their attitude towards Vampirella, and we set up the nature of the threat and what they’re doing.
But more than anything, we learn about their characters. These are classic, and old, characters, the archetypes of modern superheroes. I didn’t want them to be ciphers. They all get their own “voice” and attitude, so they quickly – I hope – become identifiable and distinct. The key here is what they think about Vampi — and what she thinks about them. This is where the focus on the genre-clash, the incongruity, starts to pay off.
And yes, there are a few funny lines, but all are “in-character” and in-universe. None are there to diminish or ridicule.
I know the Project characters aren’t (yet!) as well known or beloved as Vampirella, but I want the reader to like them… Or actively dislike them, that’s fine too… or at least find them intriguing. Questions about them, and the set-up, are answered, but not all of them.
I hope the reader is now propelled by a momentum of wanting to know more. And I certainly don’t want the Project characters to be the “other” characters in this story. They’re not extras on a movie set. This is, in a way, their story, and Vampi has gate-crashed it (unwillingly). I think Paul, aided by Andrew’s [Dalhouse] gorgeous color work, really makes them pop and feel like characters we’ve known for a long time. And, of course, in our comic-reading DNA, we have.
Pages Fifteen to Nineteen
As the recriminations fly, back in the story’s “now”, we enter a sequence of body horror and nastiness that is definitely Vampirella’s milieu. Except it’s her fault, and she is horrified by it — not by the gore, but by the culpability. She wanted to do things “their” way, but it’s backfired.
Pages Twenty to Twenty Two
Gone to ground, our beleaguered heroes try to figure out their next move, and Vampirella, twisting the genres yet again, decides to make amends. She’s not right for this, it’s a bad fit, but she’s not going to leave things hanging and walk away. It’s her mess, and she’s going to fix it. Once again, with reckless determination, she sets out to put things right. And, in doing so, acts with as much courage and selfless heroism as any… superhero.
Things are just getting started, and they are going to get WILD from here.
Vampirella: The Dark Powers #1 is available from
comic stores and via digital at comiXology
