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| ALTERED STATES: VAMPIRELLA No. 1, March 2015 |
Advertised as a parallel reality in the vein of
“Elseworlds” by “DC Comics” and “What If?” by “Marvel Worldwide”, this line of
one-shot books promised to imbue familiar heroes with ‘new’ unknown identities
and have them explore “strange and terrifying new worlds.” Promisingly for
this particular narrative “Dynamite Entertainment” turned to Forest Ackerman
and Trina Robbins’ 1969 co-creation Vampirella, a character to which the
publisher acquired the rights in 2010, but disappointingly they have produced a somewhat garbled
reimagining of the superheroine’s origin. One which frankly appears to have far
more in common with the vampire purportedly being an alien from the planet
Drakulon, than the more biblically-inspired creation later invented by “Harris
Comics” and published in “Vampirella Lives”.
Dishearteningly, whilst the Billy Tan cover appears so
full of promise, depicting an anxiously lost-looking ‘Vampi’, donned in
space-suit, being surrounded by a coven of medieval-looking blood-drinkers,
Nancy A. Collins’ actual storyline is a massive disappointment. Indeed the
American short-story writer’s tale is best described as an abominable
amalgamation of Gene Roddenberry’s original Sixties “Star Trek” television
series with Edgar Rice Burroughs; “John Carter Of Mars” novels.
The book’s only horror being that events are solely based
upon the hapless female lieutenant crash-landing on a planet where the
inhabitants’ veins run rich with water, whilst the world’s streams, lakes and
showers freely flow blood. As a result, disorientated and parched, space
explorer Ella Normandy seeks refreshment in the only way she can by momentarily
attacking one of the local males in a half-hearted attempt to drink his…
water!?! Thus being burdened with the terrible title Vampire Ella. Such a
woefully unimaginative tale is strangely reminiscent of some of the early low
quality monster fad magazines Stan Lee and Jack Kirby would regularly ‘churn
out’ during the Fifties for “Atlas Comics”.
Depressingly, Francesco Manna’s artwork is just as easy
to criticize and dislike as Collins’ substandard writing, with the Italian’s
illustrations appearing lifelessly flat as a result of them lacking much detail.
Indeed it is almost as if the artist, perhaps best known for his run on
“Crossed: Badlands” by “Avatar Press”, was simply going through the motions of
using his drawings to tell this story, rather than actually trying to attract
the reader’s eye by providing, the characters with any dynamic vigour.
Admittedly Manna’s humanoid bat-creatures appear suitably
menacing and imposing. But even these large purple-skinned goggle-wearing
monstrosities soon become lost amongst the uninspiring and impotently coloured
twenty pages of artwork which make up this comic book.
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| Writer: Nancy A. Collins, Illustrator: Francesco Manna, and Colors: Viviane Souza |
