Miguel O'Hara continues to deal with the spooky side of the 2099 universe as he's called to the moon to help the Egyptian god Khonshu, the alter ego of the hero Moon Knight. However, whilst exploring Moon Knights tomb on the moon Miguel learns that there is another who has called that tomb home before, and he's out for blood.
Donning some armour to give him some space protection, Miguel gets teleported to the surface of the moon, where he finds the body of the mummy Khonshu, near death (of their equivalent), who warns Miguel that the person who attacked them is still around. This leads to the reveal that Dracula is on the moon, and the ancient vampire quickly attacks Miguel, trying to get Spider-Man to transport him back to Earth so that he can feed; and so that he can begin his campaign of revenge.
Whilst the two of them are fighting we learn that decades before the vampire nation of Terra Rubra was attacked by a weapon that fired a gigantic beam of sunlight into the heart of the vampire city. Dracula watched as thousands of his people were obliterated, and he himself was left close to death with burns so intense that they scarred his undead soul. Placed into a special coffin by some of the survivors, he was fired at the moon, where his coffin buried beneath the surface, and he spent the decades between then and now healing.
Whilst Steve Orlando continues on from the last issue in the writers role, the art team is different this time round, with Michael Dowling and Jim Campbell taking over the art and colouring duties respectively. The art on this issue is good, and isn't too tonally different from what we had in the first issue. This helps to maintain the general feel and tone of the series, and it means that when the series is eventually collected into graphic novel form it shouldn't be too jarring moving from the first issue to this one. There are some great visual moments in the issue too, such as the times that Dracula suddenly appear behind Miguel, his arms raised as he looms over our hero (it's Dracula, so he can get away with doing it multiple times an issue), and there's a a very cool panel of a throat being bitten out during the fight that's super well done. But for me it's the page that deals with the destruction of Terra Rubra that's my favourite visual in the book; one that my mind keeps coming back to.
There's a definite difference in tone between the two issues of the series that we've had so far, and whilst they both try different things I found them being stronger in different areas. The zombie hordes of the first issue were enjoyable to see Miguel deal with, whilst it was the world building of the second issue that took top spot for me. The series seems to be having a lot of fun exploring different kinds of horror stories, and different parts of the 2099 world, and going along for the ride has been a lot of fun too. Looks like next up we're getting werewolves!
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