My honest to god biggest gripe about this series is that Van Helsing is paraded around on the cover and only has a back story in the entire issue. I thought that eventually she’d be making an appearance in the series, but with her lack of presence in this issue (just a back story again) it’s clear that she’s only here for the covers. It’s annoying since there are plenty of female characters in this series that could be paraded around on the cover in her place and would at least make sense with the story. Though this story is about the Vampires, it’s clearly just about Samira’s role in the Unleashed events and unfortunately there not very interesting in this issue. The story picks up in the same spot as last time with Samira running into her Sire and her old Vampire crew in Paris. She tells her pet werewolf to piss off and kill something while she gets caught up with the Vamps. As they’re catching up on old times, they’re suddenly gunned down by the French equivalent of a SWAT team and or the military. They all pop back up and slaughter the soldiers and afterwards we flash to Samira’s past again as we see her on her first day of her transition. She and her sire chat about god and stuff and eventually she’s cool with the blood drinking and such, but feels that vampires are destined for more. After the cops are killed, Samira brings them back to her floating castle and lets them feast on her humans because they didn’t already eat enough.
It’s a bit strange that Samira is the Vampire Queen and never once brings it up, but I can write that off as being distracted by old friends. The story just plugs along. I don’t find Samira that interesting of a character and her tragic life and background isn’t unique and certainly not enough for me to feel any compassion for her. She’s just a weak character that’s blaming the world, but I think even she knows it which also makes her less interesting. There’s a lot of talk about god, evolving and sharing the vampire gift, but it’s all sounded like water downed Magneto. Also, the other Vamps bring up the argument of “what would they eat if everyone was a vampire” and the answer Samira gives, while logical, unimpressive. At least the subject was broached since most vampires stories are just, “we should rule them” and contain no logic.
The art is the same as the first issue so it has all the same strengths and weaknesses. I don’t feel that the coloring was the best choice for the book as it gives it a grainy look to the issue. I highly enjoyed the Vamps being shot up, it was very cool and while I’ve seen in movies, it worked as their faces were riddled with bullets.
With only one issue left I’ll ride it out, but this issue was not exciting and brought nothing new or to the Vampire genre nor do I feel it adds to the Unleashed series. It was just a mediocre vampire book at best and comes across as more of homage to Anne Rice’s style of vampires.
Score: 3/5
Writer: Pat Shand Artist: Vittorio Garofoli Publisher: Zenescope Entertainment Price: $3.99 Release Date: 5/15/13