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Vampirella Year One #1 Review: Does It Take Flight?

Published Sun, 18 Dec 2022 16:32:12 -0600

Vampirella Year One #1 is a great place to gamble on jumping into reading Vampirella. As with any comic labeled Year One, the comic covers the first year of Vampirella as a titular character meaning there's less likely a new reader (me) will miss any important story developments.

: Vampirella Year One #1 cover

Christopher Priest wrote the issue clearly enough that there were no problems following what was going on, even as a young Vampirella moved from somewhere else to Earth. In the framing sequence (presumably the part that immediately follows Vampirella/Dracula: Unholy), a pregnant Vampirella and a lover reveal that Vampirella is narrating her memoirs.

A detail that nagged at me: There's a coffee pot and coffee maker in one panel. It's not the design of the coffee maker; it's that the coffee maker apparently exists in a fairly dense forest or jungle area. Where does the electricity for a coffee maker come from? Where's the power outlet? Which is a weird complaint to have, given that the first page includes a human flying on vampire wings with groceries and the comic in question is about a society of vampires. That wasn't a problem or an ask in terms of suspension of disbelief. No idea why the coffee maker breaks the mise-en-scène, but it took me out of the issue all the same.

Both art teams (Ergün Gündüz and Giovanni Tmpano with Flavio Disepnza) are solid. Apparently, a retelling of Vampirella's origins, Vampirella Year One #1 welcomed me into reading the series with open arms, so long as no one's making coffee.

REDISCOVER THE BEGINNINGS OF A LEGEND!
Following the explosive conclusion to Vampirella/Dracula: Unholy comes the next chapter in Christopher Priest's Vampirella saga! Wanted for murder, and with every demon, shaman, vampire, whack-job zealot, reporter, and law enforcement officer on Earth hunting for her, Vampirella has taken refuge in an undisclosed location where she questions why she came to our world in the first place.
Critically acclaimed European artist Ergun Gunduz rejoins Christopher Priest for an expanded reimagining of Forrest J Ackerman's classic origin story, with framing sequences set in the present day illustrated by Giovanni Timpano, the story explores the exotic world of Drakulon, the pressures that cause Vampirella to leave, and her first days on Earth, arriving on the day of the Apollo moon landing in 1969. Lost, alone, unable to speak or read our language, Vampirella makes her first friends (Pantha, Pendragon) and runs afoul of new enemies in this multifaceted period piece that revisits the world of the original 1970s Warren stories!
Discovering to her horror that her journey to Earth was actually a one-way trip, Vampirella grapples with depression and intense loneliness as she starts to build a new life and new community at the turbulent close of an unforgettable decade! Grab your go-go boots and Afro Sheen and join us for this most unusual expansion of a classic era!

Vampirella Year One #1