V-Wars #4 - IDW Publishing

V-WARS No. 4, July 2014

Firmly focusing upon the tragic events at Pepper Grove, where scores of Beats and Bloods massacred one another with stakes and teeth, Jonathan Maberry’s disturbingly thoughtful plot for Issue Five of “V-Wars” may genuinely have rattled some of its readers’ faith in Mankind’s decency towards those who look or believe differently to them. For whilst the American suspense author’s twenty-page periodical undeniably deals with the prejudices of humans, vampires and blood-drinking extremists, these people’s immoderate views towards one another’s right to life, freedom and basic dignity, are clearly simple replications of modern-day society’s bigotry, religious intolerance and inequality.

Fortunately however, “Red State” isn’t simply a piece exploited by the “New York Times bestselling author” to vilify any number of civil unrest cases across the world over the past fifty or so years, and is instead additionally used to shift this comic’s focus upon the leader of Victor Eight, Big Dog, and his highly unpalatable, intemperate views. Indeed, besides this book’s particularly unlikeable Army of the Vampire Nation, a gang of shade-wearing hoodlums who fervently believe that vampires “living in sin with Beats” are like shepherds “fornicating… with their sheep”, the story’s actual ‘villain’ is arguably the Vampire Counterinsurgency and Counterterrorism Field Team’s commander himself; “Okay. You want the truth? Here it is. These Bloods -- These vampires – I think they’re evil. Actual evil. Like from Hell evil. I think they’re the Legions of the Beast. I think this is the Apocalypse and I’m scared the Devil’s going to win.”

Of course, that doesn’t mean Professor Swann’s ‘comrade-in-arms’ isn’t without his merits, as the foul-mouthed soldier proves when an elderly, unarmed female vampire is struck in the head by a rock, and he instantly orders his team to leap to her defence in the face of numerous “villagers with actual pitchforks and torches.” But the “American and a marine”, emotionally imbued by artist Alan Robinson's highly detailed pencilling, only seems to have been galvanised into action by his overriding sense of duty rather than any modicum of morality, and shockingly goes on to show he most certainly isn’t “one of the good guys” when towards the end of this book he’s offered a daisy by an infant vampire girl in thanks for stopping “the bad men” and, having venomously sworn at the child, angrily tells her to stay “away from me, you little parasite.”

Written by: Jonathan Maberry, Art by: Alan Robinson, and Colors by: Jay Fotos