Vampirella/Dejah Thoris #1 Review

Writer: Erik Burnham

Artist: Ediano Silva

Colorist: Dinei Ribeiro

Letterer: Troy Peteri

Published by: Dynamite

This is a crossover I’m surprised hadn’t yet at Dynamite. I mean, this is probably the most obvious of pairings in comic books in the past few years, yet it is only happening now. Is it any good? Actually, yeah, it’s pretty darn good and how they get to the pairing makes a lot of sense.

So, what happens? The Red Martians discover that there is an unknown airship about to make landfall on Mars and it is decided that Dejah Thoris will be the one to investigate. How she gets chosen is an awesome display of “Well, I’m the best scientist the Red Martians have, so, of course, I’m going to investigate”.

Where does Vampirella come into play? Well, if it wasn’t obvious, she was the passenger on the unknown airship and she proceeds to help out Dejah Thoris with a small little (or big really) White Ape problem, all while under the influence of her blood lust. Without going into too many other story beats, I will say that Burnham decides to go with Vampi’s Drakulon origin here which is a good choice. Keep the space-y stuff together, right?

I’m always for a plot progression that makes sense and that is what Burnham provides here. Each scene is meant to set up the next and the tease at the end is a good conclusion to the issue. As the reader, we understand what the following threat implies, because we were given a glimpse of it on a smaller scale in this issue.

Silva provides an excellent backdrop to this narrative and really showcases a knowledge of these characters. He manages to make them look good and the framing of every scene works. There were only a few panels that I could have done without.