Comics - Vampirella (1969) [/]
Jul 11 2022
Vampirella is a character first appearing in same-titled anthology horror comic magazine. She comes from Drakulon, a world where the rivers run with blood and the people have vampire-like abilities without the weaknesses. In her first origin story Drakulon is a dying world visited by a human space ship. She investigates, ends up killing the humans, then takes the space ship back to Earth, a world full of blood-filled humans.
Vampirella Magazine (1969) [-] (Dynamite sells reprints as Vampirella Archives) she's mostly the intro/outro narrator of each story, a la Rod Serling or Elvira. After a few issues she gets a serialized story that continues throughout the life of the magazine, though each issue is still mostly random horror stories. For the most part the Vampirella stories in the magazine are not that interesting. The other stories vary a lot and many are "the protagonist has a bad, usually ironic horror, end." It's very 1970s feel and wordy. I kind of found it mostly not interesting except for an occasionally story or two in each issue.
Vampirella (1992) [/] A different publisher picks up the property in the 90's. With Mark Millar and Grant Morrison writing it has more of a superhero feel with Vampirella fighting vampires and demons and teaming up with previous allies and government agents. Still not very interesting but closer.
Vampirella V1 (2010) and V2 (2014) [/] Dynamite picks up the rights and Vampirella continues fighting vampires and demons and more super-powered foes. This is the closest to being interesting and most mainstream to me but there's a lot of historical baggage they reference.
Vampirella V3 (2016) [+] I guess my favorite incarnation (Dynamite really got into "let's reboot each title very year or two"). Vampirella and a couple of allies move to Hollywood. Old characters out and new characters introduced so it's a fresh start.
Vampirella V4 (2017) [-] Vampirella jumps the shark and ends up a thousand years in the future. Post apocalyptic Earth where what remains of humanity is docile and listless and it's up to Vampirella to free them from a Matrix-like existence. Didn't like the story, writing or art style.
Luckily Dynamite also puts out limited series Vampirella stories, crossovers mostly, which are more standard stories and thus good.
Vampirella V5 (2019) [/] Back to the modern day except now Vampirella's secret is out and she's trying to explain her life story to a psychiatrist who thinks she's delusional. It's kind of nice that every reboot of Vampirella tries to reconcile her different origin stories (first one was "true" then next time Drakulon is more like an implanted memory and so forth). Anyways this version is maybe a bit too post-modern realism comic book storytelling for my tastes.
Overall Vampirella is a character with a mixed history and only in brief flashes has her character and stories been interesting.
Vampirella Magazine (1969) [-] (Dynamite sells reprints as Vampirella Archives) she's mostly the intro/outro narrator of each story, a la Rod Serling or Elvira. After a few issues she gets a serialized story that continues throughout the life of the magazine, though each issue is still mostly random horror stories. For the most part the Vampirella stories in the magazine are not that interesting. The other stories vary a lot and many are "the protagonist has a bad, usually ironic horror, end." It's very 1970s feel and wordy. I kind of found it mostly not interesting except for an occasionally story or two in each issue.
Vampirella (1992) [/] A different publisher picks up the property in the 90's. With Mark Millar and Grant Morrison writing it has more of a superhero feel with Vampirella fighting vampires and demons and teaming up with previous allies and government agents. Still not very interesting but closer.
Vampirella V1 (2010) and V2 (2014) [/] Dynamite picks up the rights and Vampirella continues fighting vampires and demons and more super-powered foes. This is the closest to being interesting and most mainstream to me but there's a lot of historical baggage they reference.
Vampirella V3 (2016) [+] I guess my favorite incarnation (Dynamite really got into "let's reboot each title very year or two"). Vampirella and a couple of allies move to Hollywood. Old characters out and new characters introduced so it's a fresh start.
Vampirella V4 (2017) [-] Vampirella jumps the shark and ends up a thousand years in the future. Post apocalyptic Earth where what remains of humanity is docile and listless and it's up to Vampirella to free them from a Matrix-like existence. Didn't like the story, writing or art style.
Luckily Dynamite also puts out limited series Vampirella stories, crossovers mostly, which are more standard stories and thus good.
Vampirella V5 (2019) [/] Back to the modern day except now Vampirella's secret is out and she's trying to explain her life story to a psychiatrist who thinks she's delusional. It's kind of nice that every reboot of Vampirella tries to reconcile her different origin stories (first one was "true" then next time Drakulon is more like an implanted memory and so forth). Anyways this version is maybe a bit too post-modern realism comic book storytelling for my tastes.
Overall Vampirella is a character with a mixed history and only in brief flashes has her character and stories been interesting.