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VAMPIRELLA Monthly - 2003
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Vampirella 16 (January 2003)Regular cover - Amanda Conner/Jimmy Palmiotti
$2.99 Writer - Jay Faerber : Art - Matthew Clarke, Ron Randall The Pack - Part Two: Vampirella's party with the bikers is interrupted as the werewolves attack. Caught on the hop Vampirella only manages to kill two of them before the rest of the pack retreat into the night. The wolf pack turns out to be a group of businessmen on their monthly "retreat". The whole upper management of the company are werewolves which gives them an edge in their business affairs. During the daylight hours Vampirella buys some guns and silver bullets but is interrupted by the police and taken in for questioning. Vampirella hypnotises the detective into letting her go, but when she tells him that she is there to stop the killers he is after he insists on tagging along.
"Big Business" requires a certain killer instinct and ruthlessness to succeed, but this is a novel and thought provoking idea - a company run by werewolves! I'm sure there are plenty of people in the cut-throat world of big business who will wryly admit that it could be so!!! The artwork of Matthew Clarke and Ron Randall continues to impress, and I am really warming to their grim, yet feisty, Vampirella. TRIVIA: If you look at the cover of the regular Conner/Palmiotti issue you will notice some reprobates accompanying her in the jail cell. This is an "in-joke" by Amanda Conner, and Vampirella's fellow cell mates are various Harris personalities. From left to right they are ... |
Vampirella 17 (February 2003)Regular cover - Amanda Conner/Jimmy Palmiotti
$2.99 Writer - Jay Faerber : Art - Matthew Clarke, Ron Randall The Pack - Part Three: In the woods, Vampirella and Detective Brewster are attacked by the werewolf pack. One by one she takes them out, but is hampered by trying to protect the detective at the same time. Sending him off on a fool's errand she takes on the remainder of the pack. Vampirella destroys the pack but finds that one has escaped and attacked Detective Brewster and injured him, but is it a bite or a scratch?
A lot of pages for a relatively short time span in the story, but every page is a gem. The werewolves are not your usual rampaging beasts but cold, calculating and, most of all, ferocious.
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Vampirella 18 (March 2003)Regular cover - Amanda Conner/Jimmy Palmiotti
$2.99 Writer - Jay Faerber : Art - Matthew Clarke, Ron Randall The Pack - Part Four: New York, and Vampirella and Detective Brewster are on the track of the remaining werewolf, who is on the track of his ex-wife. They meet on a subway train as the werewolf transforms. The fight spills out on to the track and the ex-wife is protected by a second werewolf who fights the first one. The first werewolf is destroyed and the second one escapes. Dawn, and Detective Brewster awakes and, remembering the night before, realises that he is now a werewolf. Vampirella tells him that he may be able to use his werewolf abilities for good, if not ....
Clarke and Randall certainly know how to portray action scenes, and Faerber's script gives them plenty of opportunity to do so. A great story with an opening for a future confrontation/collaboration with Detective Brewster. |
Vampirella 19 (April 2003)Regular cover - Amanda Conner/Jimmy Palmiotti
$2.99 Writer - John Smith : Art - Javier Pina, Jimmy Palmiotti Blood and Roses - Part One: At the secret FBI /World's End Circus retreat in Alaska, Vampirella learns that an old friend has died. Traveling to Mexico she meets the widow and attends the funeral. All is not as it seems, the coffin contains a pig, the pall bearers are "walking dead" and her supposedly deceased friend helps to drug her.
Back on track with the World's End Circus for a few moments and then back into a solo adventure again. This series is nothing if not surprising.
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Vampirella 20 (May 2003)Regular cover - Amanda Conner/Jimmy Palmiotti
$2.99 Writer - John Smith : Art - Javier Pina, Jimmy Palmiotti Blood and Roses - Part Two: Vampirella awakes up, drugged and bound in Dr. Kessler's lab. He intends to use her blood as a cure for many ailments, and to restore youth to his wealthy clients as an extra to his current business selling organs. Vampirella's ex-friend is a drug addict and sold her out for drugs, but is killed himself for his body parts. Using hypnosis on her zombie nurse Vampirella escapes her bonds.
An intriguing story about the trade in human organs, and the sort of people who ply that trade. John Smith certainly seems to have a mission to provide a subtle moral message along with some quite scary tales.
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Vampirella 21 (June 2003)Regular cover - Amanda Conner/Jimmy Palmiotti
$2.99 Jay Company Comics (published July 2006) Writer - John Smith : Art - Javier Pina, Jimmy Palmiotti Blood and Roses - Part Three: Vampirella sets free the zombies from the mind control of Dr. Kessler, who then track down and kill the Doctor and his cronies.
The action is similar to many zombie films from the 1970s/1980s, and the kicker is that most of the zombies regain a modicum of mental faculties and then go back to their previous homes. I'm sure their families will be very surprised to have their dead relatives return to the fold! The Jay Company cover (by Tyler Kirkham) was released three years later as a special limited edition for the Wizard World Chicago and San Diego comic conventions. Intended as a convention special, Jay Company are re-badging an old comic with a new cover and selling it for five times the original price. |
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Vampirella 22 (August 2003)Regular cover - Amanda Conner/Jimmy Palmiotti
$2.99 Writer - Dan Jolley : Art - Stefan Caselli Choir in the Mist: Jinks Magrath, the circus strongman, has family problems in his native Ireland and Vampirella tags along. Cousin Sam is being hunted by an assassin from a rival family, an assassin with a protection spell tattooed on his arm to protect him from the Banshees. Vampirella is also weakened by the tattoo, but she bites it off his arm and throws him to the waiting Banshees. Adopted as a temporary member of the Magrath family, Vampirella, Jinks and Sam retire to the pub for a pint.
Not a bad story in principal, but it fell down a little in execution. What was the relationship between the Magrath family and the Banshees? Why were they hovering around Sam's house? Who created the protection spell? What happened next in the Irish family feuds? Too many unexplained items. This would have been better as a two part story instead of a single tale - which didn't quite fit with any of the other story lines in the series. It doesn't quite gel with the other stories, and this series ends not with a bang, but with a whimper. |
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