Vampirella Versus the Superpowers #3 // Review
Ella and Tyro wake up in a car in 1957. (It’s okay. That’s where he’s from. She’s from some other time. It’s complicated.) Ella knows that her memory has been tampered with. Time is of the essence, so she shoots off in the car to get to her nightclub, The Red Menace. She’s got business there in Vampirella Versus the Superpowers #3. Writer Dan Abnett continues a fun retro adventure with artists Pasquale Qualano and Gerardo Gambone. Colorist Ellie Wright adds mood and depth to a respectably stylish story. Abnett is still dealing with a much bigger world than the one that makes it to the page, but he points the action in the right direction.
Ella’s first order of business is a shower. She’s got a lot of cologne to get out of her hair. It’s not exactly her club anymore, even though she’s still the face of the place. The guy who runs the place now is meta crimelord Photofit A.K.A. Facewreck. He’s a guy who has the tendency to give people amnesia simply by being in his presence, so he’s kind of formidable as a crime lord. He’s going to be hell to try to deal with...even for a powerful vampire like Ella.
Abnett set up a really cool fusion between the traditional gumshoe detective crime drama film noir thing and a very appealing and provocative superhero story. It's not an easy fusion to do perfectly. Abnett manages it with remarkable poise that positions Vampirella right in the center of the action as the hero. There isn’t a whole lot of ambiguity in the script. It’s very clear who is and isn’t heroic in a story that really COULD use a little bit more ambiguity, but the brightly-rendered good-vs-evil story is fun nonetheless.
Qualano puts just enough on the page to tell the story, allowing plenty of room for Wright to do her thing, rendering the depth and mood of each scene. There’s something strikingly empty about some of the panels, but there IS an appeal to the simplicity of what’s being presented directly on the page. Abnett’s script focuses on a lot of a vampire’s less visually dynamic powers. Qualano delivers Vampirella’s confidence with casual certainty that marks a very poised personality. Everything fits together for her because there’s no reason for it NOT to. Qualano is cleverly subtle with the dramatic dynamics of this.
Vampirella knows that Photofit isn’t at the top of the criminal food chain. She’s going to have to dive deeper, but her designs on investigation get a bit derailed when the action sets in. The story delivers smartly on some of what makes her such an appealing presence on the page. Abnett has spent some time delivering background details to the reader in the form of top-secret document pages in courier font. It’s almost as though he’s building a place designed for something more than a single plot. It could work. The 1957 part of the series has some really fun aspects to it.
