By Cat Wyatt

Dark Fang #3 starts off a bit different than the first two did (can I say that when the series is still so new?). We see the earth, dead or dying, with Valla desperately trying to conserve all her resources (i.e., blood) before it’s too late. It isn’t enough though, not for an immortal being. Eventually, her lifespan outruns that of her food source, and when that inevitably happens, she’s doomed to a slow death (or if she prefers to take action, a quick one). And that’s when she wakes up.

I think we can all pretty much agree that vampires probably don’t dream, so what Valla likely saw here was a vision, one of the possible futures, should she not take drastic action to change it. As if she needed further motivation to go after the people destroying her planet (and what else would she consider it, but hers?). It does spur her into acting more rapidly than I believe she would have otherwise, so there’s that.

Thankfully Valla is starting to think about her targets a bit more thoroughly; along with going for the CEOs for oil companies, she’s going after the senators that make their practices legal. It isn’t a bad play, if I may say so. We all know a company is never going to change for the better unless they’re forced to. So she’s going to apply the pressure from both ends, so to speak.

We do get to see one detailed example of what she’s doing to the senators, and I have to admit, it was actually pretty funny. After getting into his house, she convinced all his men that they were infants (and had her minion take care of them, a nice touch), released the white lions caged up on his property (that he had been intending to hunt and kill), and well…she let nature do its thing. It was everything this man deserved, based on the little they showed of him.

The next few pages are dedicated to the president’s speech on the matter. Yes, the president of the US (don’t worry, he’s not drawn to resemble any of the more recent presidents or candidates) is personally reporting on the murders of the CEOs and senators. Granted, he’s lying his ass off the whole time, but still. It’s hard to say if it was the lying, or the base corruption that got him on her hit list, but either way I really should have seen what happened to him coming (I didn’t).

What I found more interesting that what happened to the president is the reactions shown; some people were please, some shocked or horrified, and others nonplussed. The varied reactions speak a lot to the fractured politics of the time, if nothing else.

I’ve been wondering how far she would be able to go, before she got a reaction out of somebody. It stands to reason that if there’s one vampire (plus the four others we knew once existed) that there may be others. And the more vampires that exist, the more likely there are to be vampire hunters. Granted, I have no proof that this is going on here, but I’ve been anticipating a nemesis for her for quite a while. The question is will they care about her altruistic reasons? Okay, maybe her saving the planet isn’t completely altruistic, but it’s certainly going to benefit more people than just Valla. I wonder if they’ll even bother to consider her targets and what they’ve done before charging after her.

I love the concept of having to preserve the human race because it’s her food source. The idea that her food is going to become endangered soon because of the planet’s impending doom just ups the ante for what she is trying to accomplish. Every issue seems to reveal another way that what is happening to the earth impacts her. It gives her another reason to fight. I also don’t feel like the authors are being too pushy about the subject, it simply is what it is.

Like the past couple of issues, I absolutely love this cover. It’s stunning, to say the least. Having her representing in a glowing bright white while the lions are white dipped in red makes for a striking image. The blue background both complements and contrasts it all perfectly. I also approve of the artists’ choice to represent the end of the world vision in hues of not just red, but purple. It helps make it stand out from all of the other apocalyptic representations out there. Plus it shows us rather than telling us that the sun has been blocked from reaching the earth (while having a blocked out sun may sound like the vampiric dream, one must consider the cost).

Score: 4/5

Dark Fang #3
Image Comics