CREDIT: Dynamite
Rating: 3/5 – Great Idea, Unoriginal Storytelling.
by ComicSpectrum senior reviewer Shawn Hoklas.
I’m a huge fan of Aliens. I’m a huge fan of Vampirella. I’m also a big fan of Corrina Bechko. Throw in a great cover to the first issue of Vampirella/Aliens number one by Gabriel Hardman and you think this would be a book that hits all the high points for me. Unfortunately it didn’t. The storytelling wasn’t all that compelling and the characters all feel similar and unoriginal. Vampirella feels like just another average character in this book, and while the Aliens are the strongest part of this first issue, their scenes and behaviors are all things I’ve seen before.
A space station on Mars is situated above an Alien infestation that may be what Vampirella calls the “most important find of the century” when arriving on the space station after being woken from cryogenic sleep. After meeting the crew which accepts the female vampire without any questions, they embark into the underground catacombs to find that the Aliens have laid hundreds of eggs, along with capturing vampires who seem to have once lived in the same area. It isn’t that the premise isn’t exciting, it’s the execution of that premise that fails. Vampirella reads just like any other “expert” in the field, the crew is all fairly similar to one another in their dialogue, and just like most of the Alien movies/stories, a crew investigates an alien infestation they know very little about which is something we’ve seen way too many times.
Javier Garcia-Miranda’s art is solid for the most part, but like the writing of the characters, at times you can’t tell them apart. There’s a few panels where you don’t know who’s talking, and because of the issues mentioned above, it feels generic. His Alien creatures looks good and there’s a wonderful scene of a Vampire and Alien fighting at the beginning, but the slow action and focus more on the setup doesn’t play to his artistic strengths. I wanted to love this first issue since it has all the ingredients to be successful, but it never gets past the point of being just a cool idea. There’s still time for this series to turn around, I just don’t think I’m interested enough to find out.
Reviewed by: Shawn Hoklas
(shawn@comicspectrum.com)
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