Relationship Troubles And Returning Enemies In Vampirella #5
by Josh Davison
Mild Spoilers Ahead
Vampirella continues her story to Dr. Chary. The Blood Red Queen of Hearts and Baron von Kreist resurrect Mistress Nyx in a patchwork body, and Nyx isn’t happy about this change of fortune. However, she can’t kill Kreist and resists the urge to kill the Red Queen. Meanwhile, Vampirella is having relationship troubles with Victory and their new hanger-on, Benny the witch. Things are made worse when Drake returns and asks Vampirella for help with a brewing situation. Ella also has a new job as a substitute teacher.
Vampirella #5 finds a reunion of some of Vampirella’s old enemies as well as Ella dealing with the mundane crises of mortal life. Ella is tiring of her relationship with Victory, and Benny is just making things more annoying.
This is where my lack of familiarity with Vampirella canon robs me of context of characters like Nyx, the Blood Red Queen of Hearts, and Drake. To its credit, Vampirella #5 provides some backstory and information on these returning figures so people like me aren’t left completely in the dark.
The comedy of Vampirella dealing with Victory and Benny is quite good and provides plenty of chuckles. As always, Christopher Priest is a master of dry comedy balanced with brutality.
Ergun Gunduz once again supplies excellent visual work for Vampirella. His photorealistic style makes the more surreal and macabre moments all the more unsettling, and it serves the comic well whenever it decides to get titillating. Nyx’s return is depicted in an oddly obfuscating fashion at first, but it still doesn’t look bad. Gunduz’s color art is bright and contrasts itself well, and it looks damn good too.
Vampirella #5 is a relatively low-energy installment for this series, but it still has plenty of funny moments as well as a couple of shocking moments. All in all, I enjoyed reading it and can provide the series with another recommendation. Feel free to check it out.
Vampirella #5 comes to us from writer Christopher Priest, artist Ergun Gunduz, letterer Willie Schubert, cover artist Terry Dodson, and variant cover artists Guillem March, Fay Dalton, and Ergun Gunduz.
Final Score: 7.5/10
