The second issue of the inverted vampire story, Mortal Terror, reveals more of this strange and twisted world as the vampire nation prepares to end the threat of the human terrorists as quickly as they can; and a shadowy figure visits Mina Murray in the middle of the night, preparing her for a transformation.
The first chapter of this story had a lot of promise, and it was the world that the two writers, Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon, had created that really drew me to this tale, and the second chapter continues to layer in more and more interesting pieces of lore and world building that makes me really want to read the next issue as soon as possible.
Last time I theorised as to who the vampire king character could be, thinking that it was going to either be Dracula, or Van Helsing, but both of those guesses were fairly simple ones, quick and easy go-tos thanks to them being characters from the original Dracula novel. And whilst I was kind of expecting them I was hoping that the book would give me something a bit more interesting than that; and it certainly delivers. It turns out the fabled vampire king is Rollo, the ancient Viking ruler. This just raises so many more questions for me. What does the history of this world look like with Rollo being a vampire? I feel that this reveal just throws up even more possibilities than either of my guesses, and I can't help but want an entire mini-series depicting the thousand years of vampire Rollo's un-life that led up to this point.
Whilst searching for clues Lucy and Jonathan come across a map that reveals a possible location for the terrorists, and they gather up the rest of Lucy's team, including a freshly healed Quincy, who's looking to get some revenge for almost being killed. As the team head towards the location of the rebels, so does Renfield, who's been spying on the activities of Doctor Seward, who's been experimenting on humans in his asylum. It seems like he's been trying to find some kind of viral weapon that can be used to wipe out the living whilst not affecting vampires. The issue ends with Renfield reaching the humans, ready to give them the information, just as the vampire team is about to launch their attack.
During all of this we also have Mina Murray, who is visited in the night by her 'dark man', a human lover who has promised to some day turn her into a human too. It's revealed here that as humanity was hunted to near extinction by the vampires some force in nature inverted their roles, and now if a human bites a vampire it will turn them into a human. Once again, this raises so many interesting questions that I really hope that this series has time to go into.
Peter Bergting's art really fits the tone and feel of the book well, and Chris O'Halloran's colours add to this. The book is dark and gloomy, with a feel of oppressiveness whenever we're in the London Bellow; appropriate to both the location and the tone of these scenes. However, when we go above ground things change considerably. The book gets brighter, with splashes of almost golden light, and the first panel of the surface world, seen as the sunlock doors open and bathe Lucy and Jonathan in daylight is so well constructed. The light is blinding, almost washing everything out before they get used to seeing the daylight world.
Mortal Terror continues to be a really interesting and expanding world, one that I'm very much enjoying and want to spend more time in. However, with us now being at the halfway point in this four issue mini-series I'm beginning to wonder that all of these questions the book raises won't be answered, and that there just won't be enough room to see everything I want to see by the time it comes to a close. Hopefully, if that is the case, this is just the beginning of a number of stories set in this universe, and this creative team can continue to play around in this toybox.
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