By: Scott Snyder (writer), Sean Murphy (artist), Dave Stewart (colors), Pat Brosseau (letters), Joe Hughes (assistant editor) and Mark Doyle (editor)
The Story: Cash & Felecia’s mission to Nazi-occupied Europe looks bleak as the Nazis have been revealed to be league with vampires.
What’s Good: Everything about this issue is good (again) and that’s almost expected with these creators. When we last saw our heroes, the curtain had been lifted on the collaboration between the Nazis and the vampires. This issue details how Cash and Felecia deal with that information.
One of the things that Snyder has been doing throughout American Vampire is playing with the different races of vampires. Other writers of vampire stories have fiddled with that, so it isn’t new, but Snyder does some very cool things with it. For example, not only does this issue have “vampire Nazis” in it, but they aren’t just vampires that have been drafted into Nazi service OR Nazis that were turned into vampires. These vampires have just as many ethnic/genetic superiority issues as their human counterparts. Like the Nazis, they believe that they are the master race of vampires! It’s touches like this that put Snyder on another level. Not only is he talented, but he also gives a crap! Most writers would have been happy to stop at “Nazi vampires” knowing that a sizable segment of the readership will just say, “Whoa! Nazi vampires? Cool, sign me up!” And this story probably could have worked fine that way, but Snyder is always looking for ways to add a new wrinkle to the story.
The rest of the story is more Snyder goodness as the set-up exposition starts to fall away and we shift into action mode. This plays up the whole superspy/espionage feel from the first two issues of the series and moves the story very quickly to the next set-piece. This series isn’t letting up at all.
Sean Murphy (to my eyes) is simply one of the best artists working in comics today. I’ve gushed on-and-on about his art in the past on this site (use our handy search function), so it’s no surprise that this issue looks great. I love the acting that his characters do. During one extended scene, seeing Cash trying to restrain an antsy Feleica in front of a room-full of vampires or seeing Felicia trying to scrunch away from those same vampires is just great. Every panel has that wonderful mix of realism and cartooning that Murphy does so well. And, the detail and planning that the dude puts into his panels is sick. There’s one panel where the scientist is pulling the whacky, sci-fi gun out of a padded gun case. Of course, the gun is intricately drawn, but what really sets Murphy apart is the case: it isn’t just a “box” that the gun is pulled from, but it has padded molding that shows it is custom designed for the sci-fi gun. It’s panels like this that make you love the guy because that box could have easily been “just a box” or Murphy could have turned it around so that we didn’t even see the inside of the box because I’m sure the script probably just said, “pulls the gun from the case”. Point is: Murphy went the extra mile when he could have just gotten by on raw talent.
In some ways, it is easy to overlook the great coloring by Dave Stewart, but we shouldn’t. If coloring were as easy as just slapping down some RED in and otherwise darker panel, then everyone would be doing it. What I love about Stewart’s work is that he knows how to structure the colors of the issue so that the reader’s eyes are drawn to the parts of the panel that are important. When reading a comic with “average” coloring, it is pretty easy to just read the word balloons and blast through, but Stewart’s colors force you to slow down and look at the art.
What’s not so good: Really nothing (again). With creators this talented who are clearly going the extra mile to bring us a great comic, there aren’t many faults. These comics are very hard to review because they are so good and I end up picking at the most minor items: a couple panels are a little wordy, Felicia’s nose is slightly too pointing in this panel, that panel is a touch dark, etc. But these aren’t genuine weaknesses, they’re really just weaknesses compared to the rest of the comic.
Conclusion: A great example of highly talented creators working their butts off. Neither Snyder nor Murphy ever takes the easy way out and we love them for it.
Grade: A
-Dean Stell
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