3 hours ago
5
Written by Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon
Art by Peter Bergting
Published by Dark Horse Comics
Well, this book was a real welcome and entertaining surprise.
I went into this book without a single idea of what it was even about and discovered the plot as I was reading it.
I would recommend that being the best way to read this book. It is truly engaging and an imaginative twist on characters that we have known forever.
Except this time those characters are spun in a new and interesting way. I honestly couldn’t believe what I was reading and each time that I turned a page, something new and exciting happened.
I just loved this.
The story premise has to do with some of the characters from the novel Dracula.
Here, Jonathan Harker, Lucy Westenra, and Mina Murray are living in an alternate version of their world inside of an underground London. They are trying to keep the city safe from the mortals who are above ground.
The authorities are refusing to believe the mortals that their the three main characters are underground and that they are all something that nobody would ever believe. That’s because in this reality, our main three characters happen to be vampires.
This leads to a lot of interesting developments for the story itself.
Basically, the whole idea of the classic novel is flipped.
“Mortals” are the myth here and the vampires are the “real element.” Once you get it straight in your head, it makes for some interesting reading. By rearranging these elements, the writers open up the story to a whole bunch of new possibilities.
And they do explore those possibilities with aplomb and with more than a little bit of glee.
The writers really explore the vampire tropes through a new lens here, introducing elements we haven’t seen much before. We get to see the vampires function as a society and what that means.
We get to see the class system that they have employed and how it all works for them. It is very intriguing. We also get a glimpse of how the power dynamics work in this society and how the various characters are placed in it. We get to see where they all stand socially in this society.
After the first chapter establishes these characters perfectly, we head off to the second chapter.
We get to see the three lead vampire characters reeling after an attack by the mortals. They have a discussion about it and come to a decision that they have to investigate it all. So, they get together they form a plan. They have to go to the surface world above to conduct this investigation. Things, however, don’t go off as they had planned it to.
Their investigation turns out to become much more intense than they had originally thought it would.
They not only have to go through a list of suspect and possibilities, they also have to contend with the fact that this is not their normal terrain.
They do their best to overcome it all but it starts becoming overwhelming for them. On top of all of that, they are vampires and they have to contend with the sun coming up.
All of this leads to various conflicts which are all exciting and terrifying.
The spin on these classic characters are great. The best spin of all comes when we meet Dracula. He isn’t a Dracula that we remember but a twisted sort of version of the classic character. I love what they did with him, and it certainly wasn’t like anything that I had seen with the character before this.
The story resolves itself in a way that is very interesting and intriguing.
It also leaves itself open to possible further adventures as well. The writing team of Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon do a fantastic job creating a strong story for this book. The circumstances they create are spectacular and the dialogue is flawless.
The art by Peter Bergting complement the story perfectly. All together, this is a fascinating read and one that feels like a completely fresh take on a tale we have known forever.
RATING: A
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English (US) ·