Vampirella: Southern Gothic #1 Review

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Vampirella: Southern Gothic #1 Review
By Andy Frisk
August 14, 2013 - 17:43

Dynamite Entertainment
Writer(s): Nate Crosby
Penciller(s): Jose Luis
Inker(s): Nelson Pereika
Colourist(s): Inlight Studio
Letterer(s): Marshall Dillon
Cover Artist(s): Johanny Desjardines

Vampirella finds herself on the short handed end of a battle against a gaggle of demons in a shoe store...seriously. She usually dispatches of such threats with relative ease, but this time the demons' "cheap magic" takes a much heavier toll on her than is usual. Wanting nothing more to get home and sleep off the wounds of battle, Vampi instead finds herself talking to an old flame from Mississippi who desperately needs her help, even if he's too much of an Old Southern Gentleman to admit it...

Writer Nate Crosby takes our titular vampiress heroine into the heat of the American Deep South to help a former lover of hers with a problem that he can't overcome on his own and might not any way, even with her help. Moving quickly and not revealing much, Crosby bestows upon the readers of this first issue of a new Vampirella mini-series little to keep them interested in the events of the next issue until the very last panel of the book. There's also little to suggest that the story is anything akin to a "southern gothic" besides the fact that it's set in Mississippi. Hopefully, the next issue will get a little more "southern" and "gothic," if not then there really isn't much incentive to finish reading the series, at least in single issue form.

Speaking of the "southern gothic," artist Jose Luis does a solid job bringing Vampirella: Southern Gothic #1 to life, but like Crosby, Luis does little to portray anything particularly southern or gothic about the look of this first issue besides the fact that Vampirella's former lover wears a white cowboy hat.

For what could be a cool concept, Vampirella Southern Gothic #1 shows plenty of potential, but little payoff.

Rating: 5/10