Crossdressing: I, Vampire #6 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: And one last review before the comic stores open…

I tuned out of I, Vampire after protagonist Andrew Bennett left Boston for Gotham City. I figured that we just in for yet another meeting of a vampire and Batman, and besides: being from Boston, I was getting a charge out of seeing a major comic set in my town. Maybe I was being unrealistic, but I sort of hoped that we’d see Mary, Queen of The Vampires, take a bite out of David Ortiz and grow about three horse testicles in her armpits.

So robbed of the chance to see some Boston University knuckleheads get bled out on Lansdowne Street, I checked out for a little while, and I clearly shouldn’t have. Because sometime between then and now, all the shit has hit the fan.

The book opens in some kind of gothic building (A subway station? A church? Being Gotham, maybe a 7-Eleven?) with Bennett, some allies and yes, Batman, fighting about a scrillion vampires. And it is an impressive scene… and it says something about the state of the modern vampire story that I’ve written and deleted about seven different “sparkling vampires” jokes just now.

This is a strange issue, because it embodies some of the best and worst things about comics. On one hand, a massive vampire battle with rapid transformations from humanoid to bat to wolf and back again is something that is tailor-made for comics, where a special effects budget the size of a fine Sharpie can give you scenes that make the third act of Underworld: Rise of The Lycans look like the wretched pile of shit it truly was. This type of large-scale, exciting battle is what adventure comics are for, and you don’t even have to suffer through three months of seeing Andrew Bennett on Big Gulp cups before reading it.

This comic also takes some storytelling chances that you won’t see in any movie. The key to ending the battle is taking out the primary vampire who sired most of them. This is a standard trope of vampire stories, but in this story, that vampire’s a child. While writer Joshua Hale Fialkov tempers the blow, and the likely angry emails from people who would like us to please think of the children, by making the kid not only a vampire, but having him take the shape of a wolf when the swords start swinging, it takes balls for a writer to put together a scene where the hero’s trying to kill a kid. Last time I saw it was in AMC’s The Walking Dead… also based on a comic book. So when you start to despair over pop culture, just remember: comics kill kids. Other media give Justin Bieber money. Which Bieber then uses to buy Batmobiles. Comics win.

And then we get to where this issue gives in to some of the worst instincts of comics: there is almost no reason whatsoever for Batman to be in this issue. Sure, he fights alongside Bennett, and he is the voice that refuses to kill vampires and who screams that Bennett shouldn’t attack the kid… but any character could do that. Hell, the other vampire hunter screaming “No! Some of them can be saved!” on the second page would seem to be a prime candidate for the job. Instead, we get Batman, in a crossover that feels like it’s here only to put Batman in the book and attract readers. Granted, I missed the prior issue(s) when Batman first appeared, but in this individual issue, it feels like the character’s here only to get people to check the book out. It’s the oldest readership-bumping trick in the book, and the story’s good enough that it doesn’t need it… or at least it is until the end.

Just like in Justice League Dark, we get a sudden twist in the last two pages that seems to come from nowhere to set up a crossover between the two books. Now, I have no memory whatsoever of this game-changing, crossover-forcing character being mentioned in Justice League Dark, and Amanda (Who has been following I, Vampire) has no memory of him being mentioned in prior issues this book. But regardless, there is certainly no mention if him in either of these particular issues. It feels like, in both books, we have story, story, rising action, climax… BOOM! Here’s something from out of nowhere to bring in characters from another book! It feels forced, like a crossover mandated by beancounters instead of creators, and shoehorned in at the last second. And not only does it not work, but by coming out of nowhere, it raises absolutely no excitement in me for the crossover, and diminishes the real climax, which was in itself one hell of a twist. This ending was the Southern Trespass of comics storytelling.

Andrea Sorrentino’s art causes a similar cognitive dissonance in me. The art is stunning and moody, with deep shadows, a thin ink line to allow detail while simultaneously often withholding detail to provide an abstract, somewhat mysterious feel to the visuals. It is excellent art for a moody vampire story… but it’s probably not the best for a massive, large-scale vampire battle. While the shadowed, low-detail images provide a solid feeling of just a mass of attacking vampires, the shadows also mean that sometimes it’s hard to tell which primary character is doing what. One of the vampire hunters has short, bobbed hair, as does Mary, which means that there are times when, due to heavy shadow, I had to stop and go, “Huh… who’s killing that guy now?” The only character that I could consistently identify in the throng of attackers was Batman. While the visuals are beautiful, they would probably work better in a small-scale story than they do in a teeming throng, where clarity of storytelling must trump beauty.

This is a good comic, but definitely not a jumping-on point for I, Vampire. Sure, it’s a hell of a vampire battle, but there’s no context within the issue as to why it’s happening, and the art will stun you while simultaneously sometimes confusing you. And it provides a lead-in to a crossover while simultaneously providing no context as to what that crossover means, or indeed, why it’s even happening. Check it out… but maybe as part of a trade collection.