Originally published on Patreon
The DC vs Vampires event expands with a new companion series that's going to be running for six issues. The events of this series have already been referenced in issue seven of the main series, and as such we kind of already know how things are going to go here; not very well.
The book opens with Deathstroke leading a small team of heroes into a remote location to find the last Lazarus Pit, the only one that the vampires haven't fully destroyed. We discover that the vampires have been ruling Earth for the last year, and that humanity is down to the last few hundred survivors.
With things this dire the survivors are going to need a pretty good plan, and Slade thinks he has it; the resurrection of Batman. Not only is Batman a hero that people would rally behind, but he's also a tactical genius, and was the mentor and father figure to the vampire king, Dick Grayson. Bringing him back makes a lot of sense. Unfortunately, some vampires are waiting for them at the Lazarus Pit.
The vamps are being lead by Azrael, who gets knocked into the pit during the fight, and is reverted back into a human. Forced to run for their lives, Slade and Azrael are the only survivors, and head to one of the few human strongholds left. Whilst Azrael gets to see how the place runs, and Slade gets a dressing down from those in charge for his rogue actions, one of his team who was turned into a vampire gets into the compound and launches an attack.
We know from the other book that this place is going to fall, and that pretty much everyone there is going to die. This isn't a big shock, and even if we didn't know this it's probably something that we'd have expected from the series anyway as its just so, so grim. However, the fun comes from finding out how it happens, to see how the characters we have here eventually meet their ends.
And there is an interesting mixture of characters here, and if any of them survived Captain Atom exploding it'll be interesting to see them fight some vampires. I imagine it's going to take a lot of them to take Bane down, and I'd love to see Booster Gold fighting some monsters.
The artwork on the book, provided by Pasqual Qualano, reminds me of the art on Future State: Gotham, because it's presented in very simple black and white form. There are times when this does hinder the book slightly, and it sometimes feels like it's hard to see exactly what's going on or who background characters are supposed to be. Colour can be an important thing in comics, even just to tell characters apart at times, especially when they're fighting in close quarters. But when it's all colourless it can feel chaotic at times.
The book has a back-up feature, starring Batgirl as she takes on a group of GCPD officers, and Commissioner Gordon, who have been turned into vampires and set a trap for her. I guess we know what happened to Gordon after DC vs Vampires: Killers now. It's not absolutely clear which Batgirl this is, as she's never named, but we know it's not Barbara based on what she says here, and the fact that she's got other things going on. It could be Cass, though she feels too talkative for that. I think it's Steph, based on her behaviour and the long, light coloured ponytail, and I don't remember really seeing her in the series so far, so it feels like this is her. It's a decent story, and it shows the ultimate sad end to another beloved character.
DC vs Vampires continues to be one of the darkest, most depressing and shocking things DC has done, and it's pretty great.
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