By: Scott Snyder (writer), Rafael Albuquerque (artist), Dave McCaig (colors), Jared K. Fletcher (letters), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Mark Doyle (editor)
The Story: Pearl and Skinner continue tracking down vampires in Hollywood while Henry lies old and close to death.
The Review (with SPOILERS):
1. Pretty big event on final pages! – Is this the first sex we’ve seen in the pages of AV? Maybe we’ve seen Pearl and Henry together, but this is definitely the first hot and naughty sex. Remember when AV started, people just rolled their eyes and said they were sick of vampires? But, this lack of sex is just one of the many ways that AV is so different than other vampires stories. The creators have never fallen back on love triangles when they’ve gotten bored telling real stories. And because we haven’t had much sex in the series, it hits that much harder when Pearl and Skinner get it on at the end of this issue. Not only is it just kinda fun to watch a vamped out sex scene in AV, but it really puts an exclamation point on the problems in Pearl and Henry’s relationships: She can love him all she wants, but the fact is that he’s going to die and leave her alone, and maybe she doesn’t want to be alone.
2. Vulnerabilities make the AVs more interesting. – It was very refreshing seeing Pearl bite off more than she could chew in this issue when she jumps onto the boat and gets attacked by the normal vampires. So far in the series, the AVs have been kinda portrayed as virtual superheroes without many vulnerabilities. They’re stronger, faster and can go out in the sun. Every time they fight regular vampires, they make instant work of them, but seeing Pearl behaving recklessly and almost dying was a nice reminder that the AVs aren’t invincible, and it also made the sex scene with Skinner a little more believable.
3. Still don’t understand the Henry problem. – The Henry situation has always bothered me and I’ve never understood why Pearl wouldn’t just make him a AV. There’s always this sense that vampirism is a horrible curse once you get past the superpowers and the fact that everyone suddenly finds you super-sexy. You know….all that “creature of the night” and “loss of humanity” claptrap that you hear about in Twilight or True Blood. But, here’s the thing….Pearl’s life doesn’t seem so bad and neither does Skinner’s. Sure, they have people who try to kill them sometimes, but Henry already has endured that risk by association. Just make the guy a AV already.
4. A little disconnect from last issue. – Didn’t last issue end with this looming specter of a Skinner betrayal? I guess we could be revisiting that item very soon, but it’s still not like Snyder to leave us hanging. His stories typically have such a smooth flow to them that we begin to take it for granted. This is a little reminder that he’s human. 🙂 It isn’t a horrible flaw and (honestly) it’s something we see all the time in other comics, but it’s rare to see it in a Snyder comic.
5. Excellent art (again). – What more is there to say about Albuquerque’s art? He really got to stretch his legs in this issue as we had a lot of vampires fighting each other. Even though he draws everything really well, it’s the scenes when characters are in motion where he’s at his best. And, it isn’t just about the visceral energy of his vampires either… There’s one panel that really stood out to me in this issue. Pearl and Skinner are chasing after some vampires and Pearl has to leap from a dock onto a boat that is departing, and she has to dive across with her arms outstretched like she’s an Olympic diver or something. What’s amazing about this panel is that you can almost hear the sudden silence. Do you know what I mean? In the preceding panel, she’s running like hell down the dock and you’d “hear” the clomp-clomp of her feet and the swishing of her clothes and the grunting and heavy breathing, then she leaps and there’s silence for a moment as she glides through the air to the boat. Of course, no comic panels actually make noise, but there is a calmness to this panel that sells the scene. Bravo!
Conclusion: A few little quibbles hold this back a bit, but it’s still a darn fine comic from an outstanding series.
Grade: B
-Dean Stell
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Conclusion