Elvira in Monsterland #5 // Review
It all started when she was a kid. She loved monster movies. She would put together the big monster models that they sold in another era...only this isn’t that story. The last issue ended on a cliffhanger, and now the writer is jumping right into a flashback. She hates that enough to tear right through the page and demand something better. What she gets is something...different in Elvira in Monsterland #5. Writer David Avallone continues to work with the Mistress of the Dark in an issue drawn by Kweber Baal with colors by Walter Pereyra. Avallone and company deliver another fun chapter in an entertaining final issue to an enjoyable series.
Elvira could have had a nice little flashback to her childhood. Instead, she’s getting a villain’s monologue. (She needs to stall for backup.) The guy she’s working for is sending a team. It’s going to take a little while to get everyone together. When they arrive, they better be good: They’re up against some compelling cinematic villains, including Bela Lugosi’s Dracula, Karloff’s Frankenstein, and Lon Cheney Jr.’s Wolfman. She’s going to need an army. She’s going to get some of the biggest heroes in contemporary cinema. It will take more than that, though: it will take a squad of cinematic robot women led by Elvira herself.
Avallone throws a bit of a fight party for all of the big monsters from classic cinema history and throws a few contemporary heroic spoofs in for good measure. While the fight itself isn’t exactly riveting, more than enough jokes feel pretty clever. There are some very sharp moments. In one of the best pairings, Brigitte Helm from Metropolis (1927) and Max Schreck from Nosferatu (1922) seek each other out for combat. Both speak entirely in silent film-era German title cards. It’s clever stuff.
Once again, Pereyra does an outstanding job of capturing the likeness of some of the most recognizable faces in horror cinema history. The fact that they all come from different eras helps give the visuals a distinct look for each legend. Pereyra gives each character a slightly different color quality that seems to be based on the cinematography of the films and the era they come from. Through it all, Elvira looks stunning and heroic in a fun finale to a series that’s been much more fun than it has any right to be, given how silly the story is.
Elvira seems to have made a very successful leap from her long-running 1990s indie comics series to a very steady contemporary run with Dynamite Comics. Having survived another series, Elvira will take on the xenophobic mind of a twisted little racist guy who just happened to write some very phenomenal and hugely influential horror as Elvira meets H.P. Lovecraft. The current page-and-panel adventures of Elvira continue to feel like a natural progression for the Mistress of the Dark as she continues a longstanding relationship with the comics page.
