There’s a head in a box. There’s an intelligence that accurately identifies it as a head in a box. The intelligence itself happens to be an interdimensional craft. The ship and the head have a bit to discuss as Tenebris and his Tenebris and her monstrum close-in to a final showdown in Vampirella: Dark Reflections #5. The writing team of Tom Sniegoski and Jeannine Acheson  wrap-up their story under the power of artist Daniel Maine and colorist Francesa Cittarelli. The  complexity of the plot rests around the edges of an action in a fun conclusion to a strange series.

It’s a world of chaos and monsters. It was a fantastic and spectral horror inhabiting the world. A Vampirella from a parallel dimension went-in to try to sort things out, but things have gotten hopelessly complicated. Vampirella and her allies launched themselves right into Tenebris’ stronghold. They have everything covered, but will they find themselves in over their heads as Tenebris plays host to the Chaos Lords? The darkness and shadows are encroaching from all sides and Lilith has a choice to make...will she continue to work with Reality Corp, or fully embrace her heritage as the daughter of Vampirella?

There’s something to be said about a script that uses the word “insolence” like...four or more times. The big showdown between the heroes and the big, dark, evil magical entity is...a bit of a windbag. This is not to say that the action doesn’t have some considerable bite to it. The weirdness of some of the conflict and the elements of horror hold together quite well. There are far too many moving parts in the plot and not enough of what’s happening really engages the visual end of the comic book format all that well. There’s a lot of exposition delivered in the text that doesn’t do a lot in the presence of the moment on the page.

This is not to say that the action of the series isn’t present on the page. There are some really good moments here, including Vampirella wielding a head in a box against the forces of chaos. Some of the action glides and hammers its way through page and panel with some fairly impressive page composition. Some of the angles on some of the action look particularly impressive as well. The visuals in Dark Reflections HAVE been very well-executed throughout. It’s just too bad that the scope of the script has made them feel a bit scattered at times here and there.

Sniegoski and Acheson have put a series in motion that really would have taken a hell of a lot more than five issues to tell. The premise of the series was a bit too ambitious to be adequately covered in the course of a five issue series, though. It would be interesting to see Sniegoski and Acheson explore what the’ve established in Dark Reflections in a story that was a bit more focussed and a lot less scattered. 

Grade: B