Vampirella #2 Review and **Spoilers** (Dynamite)

Send In The Clowns

Written by: Paul Cornell
Art by: Jimmy Broxton
Published by: Dynamite
Price: $3.99
Release Date: April 12, 2017


After her subterranean resurrection (mind you, aren’t they all?) in the 0 issue and her wanderings through a Los Angeles that seems to be a weird mix of Christian mythology and A Clockwork Orange stylings in issue 1, this issue sees the plot thicken as, instead of merely encountering the denizens of this strangely passionless hedonistic paradise, Vampirella and her new sidekick come up against the forces of the order Vampi is dedicated to destroying. The result is somewhat baffling, reasonably exciting and never less than entertaining.


After her rather violent actions at the end of the last issue, Vampi returns to the shop girl she fascinated earlier and throws some money at her as payment for her outfit, the money coming from a ‘bank vault’ that Vampi entered when ‘nobody’ was ‘around’. As you would expect when confronted with the object of her (barely sublimated) desire, the aforementioned shop girl is rather disconcerted to see Vampi out and about and sitting on her window sill. In her discombobulated state, the girl blurts out more snippets of info about the story’s setting, the most pertinent being that ‘real money’ seems to be rare or unusual and nobody steals because, if they do, they ‘lose the afterlife’, a fate about which, largely due to her immortal state, Vampi is remarkably sanguine.

Needless to say, Vampi’s venture into the world of bank robbery has attracted the attention of the police, although in this case the police are clowns and are intent on making sure everyone has a ‘good time’. Well, that’s okay, then.  A surreal series of events ensue involving a clown police car that’s bigger on the inside than the outside, a custard pie that seems to contain a dimensional vortex and a mention of Charlie Caroli, which appears to be a misspelled reference to Charlie Cairoli, the Italian-English clown and variety artist who once performed for Adolf Hitler and, when World War II broke out, took the watch the dictator had presented him and threw it into the Irish Sea. The clowns pile on Vampirella who is saved by the quick thinking and bravery of her shop girl sidekick who eventually introduces herself as Vicki Vincent.

It’s safe to say that Cornell and Broxton are wearing their influences none too lightly here, but more of that in a moment. The issue continues with our first look at this story’s antagonist, a distinctly sinister angelic figure who removes and then imbibes the brains of one of his undead clown cops in order to understand more fully what’s going on in his domain. He is particularly exercised by the fact that Vampirella is acting like she “remembers”. It’s unclear what the figure means by this, as Vampi is most assuredly winging it at this point and doesn’t ‘remember’ much of anything at all. Anyhow, we end the issue with a conversation between Vicki and Vampi which is interrupted by the arrival of two of the winged ‘angels’ similar to the ones we saw in the first issue. They ensnare the pair of women in a net and take them away to, if the ‘Next Issue’ tag is anything to go by, the ‘camps’.

So, this remains a bizarre, almost surreal, take on the Vampirella character, but it’s hard not to be carried along by its chutzpah. There are all sorts of influences swirling psychedelically around in this story, and it’s hard to identify them all. Certainly the clown police are evidence of Cornell’s Doctor Who pedigree, an unsettling combination of the function of the titular ‘Happiness Patrol’ and the creepy aesthetic of the robotic clowns of Greatest Show In The Galaxy, both from season 25 of the original series. Cornell’s interest in faith and its relationship with society comes into play here, too. He’s playing it fairly coy in terms of revealing what’s going on, but you don’t have to be a genius to work out that there’s a lot more hell than heaven involved in this strange, disturbing ‘paradise’ into which Vampirella has stumbled.

In Vicki, Cornell and Broxton have created an eminently likable guide to this world and a character with whom it is ridiculously easy to sympathize. Throughout, Broxton’s art is excellent, adept at portraying Vicki’s touchingly trusting nature and Vampi’s more hardened, experienced and shrewd facial expressions. His action stuff is suitably visceral too and, well, he knows how to draw a Nero-esque angel-figure drinking brains from a wine glass. Cornell’s dialogue is always readable (even if, at times, Vampirella talks like she’s attended a cultural studies course at some point in her long life – “societal norms”? Really?) and displays flashes of memorable wit, too.

Bits and Pieces:
This title continues to intrigue, entertain and disturb in more or less equal measure. The plot is rollicking along nicely and the art is generally very impressive. The pseudo-60s vibe is distinctly British, too. At times the book is extraordinarily reminiscent of Alan Moore-era Captain Britain and there is nothing whatsoever wrong with that. The insertion of a revamped Vampirella into a dystopian future is a great idea and, at the moment, it appears as if Cornell and Broxton are fully prepared to take advantage of the creative opportunities that collision of character and setting provides. In short, this is good stuff. Roll on, issue 3!

7.8