Vampirella #675 // Review
Dr. Chary is appearing before a group of well-dressed people in a shadowy room. He has been called-in to the Sam Nunn Atlanta Federal Center to answer for a few murders. Dr. Chary is a psychologist who had been working with a few of the patients in the facility where the murders had occurred. Dr. Chary has a story to tell in Vampirella #675. Writer Christopher Priest continues to explore different angles on the life of a space vampire with artist Aaron Felizmenio and colorist Salvatore Aiala. The drama is carried a bit better than the action in a story that otherwise feels pretty balanced on both ends.
Vampirella finds herself in a mental institution. You live long enough as a vampire, that’s bound to happen, right? And she’s dealing with things as best she can. It’s not that difficult to deal with the situation, but she IS fasting. Hasn’t had any blood in quite some time. So there’s some concern about that. There’s also some concern about the fact that she can smell a certain antagonist a few floors down. She’s weakened from lack of blood, but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t know how to defend herself.
Priest allows the narrative to settle into a really nice rhythm for at least one issue. It had been so strange and jagged in its nonlinearity. for so many issues that it seemed as though it might end up being totally incomprehensible by the beginning of the summer. Thankfully, Priest manages a very tight alternation between scenes featuring Vampirella and scenes featuring Dr. Chary. There’s an inteeting contrast between the action and the drama that develops in the alternation between the two ends of the narrative. It’s a nice balancing act that moves across the page quite well in a very tight and concise package. Too bad that there isn’t very much going on in the story visually.
Felizzmenio handles the shadowy action with a sense of power. The darkness feels suitably moody as Aiala paints-in the atmosphere around the edges of the artist’s framing of the action. It all looks quite well-composed from beginning to end, but there isn’t enough in the issue to really hammer-into the reader. Nothing feels like the kind of revelation that it could have been if Felizzmenio had been able to find the right angles to explore. Action DOES occasionally hit with some force, but so much of the issue seems to be listlessly following the script.
The like of power in the art might actually come from the script. Priest may be working with something that’s a bit more coherent than he has in previous issues, but he’s delivering something that feels quite impressive with respect to the overall storytelling. Priest hasn’t had any problem putting interesting situations together on the page since he started this particular run, but the lack of linearity has been kind of a problem. It’s nice to see him getting back to storytelling that feels at least a bit less scattered.
