Broken Frontier

Impaler is a revelation in a pool of imitators. Bram Stoker gave pop culture a great gift with his classic novel Dracula and William Harms and Matt Timson are running with it and making it all theirs. Whatever films, or books, or comics, or TV series aren’t inspired by the fanged creatures of night are equally smitten by the current zombie craze. Vampires have always been deadlier though, and far more charismatic. They easily fit into any genre, but Harms and Timson know what has made them hang in the shadows of popular entertainment for all these decades, or centuries. What the duo have done is create a perfect film in waiting. I can see David Fincher directing this with great aplomb.

I recently watched the vamp-romance of Twilight and I must say I was rather impressed by it, and no, I don’t feel less manly by saying that. It presented vampires in a fashionable emo light to be sure, but the heart of the vampire myth was something that the film sorely lacked – blood.

Impaler doesn’t suffer from the same fate. In the world of Impaler, the fanged warriors themselves resemble a kind of Bizarro Vamp, with pasty white skin and vacant eyes, but also with the black tendrils and talons of The Darkness. It’s a great visual as they truly resemble demonic spawn rather than well dressed gentlemen in bathrobes sucking young lady’s necks. There’s nothing subtle about these creatures of the night, as the victims that join their ghoulish ranks can attest. Essentially the series centres on the plight of Vlad the Impaler, as he lands in our time to fight a new vampire plague sweeping America.

Beyond pages of limb hacking and gunfire though is a truly entertaining story. As the U.S citizens scramble to leave or face their attackers head on, there’s a real sense of community. Harms wisely doesn’t focus on just one city, but shows the desperation of the army, and the citizens left behind. One scene, in which the wife of Lt. George Wagner takes her kids across the desert and is accosted by a fire and brimstone road stop waitress is memorable. There’s no vamp attack, but Harms builds tension well, and his artist partner does just as deft a job on the visuals. Timson uses darkness to great advantage and his snowy environments look astonishingly beautiful. This book will hopefully put Timson on the map. It’s a bold and vicious debut for him. It looks real and that’s exactly what makes it so frightening. Be warned – this isn’t for young readers. The Mature Readers label is a fair indicator of the profanity and violence contained within these pages.

Vlad’s stoic resolve seem to project an aura of confidence, but never arrogance. Harms writes him as the only man to rely upon to escape the bloody mess and his old school, low-tech existence doesn’t jar at all with the gung-ho military boys. His inclusion is more than a gimmick, but as he’s connected so deeply to the menace attacking his new home, he’s essentially the subtle driving force behind this series. Vlad appears very little, considering it’s his name on the cover, yet when he does appear it’s always at just the right moment.

Pacing is a hard skill for any writer to grasp, but Harms does it with real panache in this series. From the recently evacuated snow covered Washington, to the military trying to claim back cities, to Vlad and his new partner, homicide detective Victor Dailey, no scene seems boring. They are all adding to the whole of the issue, and the series.

If Dynamite’s The Complete Dracula is an embrace of the beginning of Stoker’s vision, then Impaler is the same story via Quentin Tarantino. It really is an unashamed action tale. Sure, on the surface Impaler may seem similar to the multitude of modern day cities overrun by the undead type of adventures that you’ve already seen, such as The Walking Dead or 30 Days of Night. However with its unique hero, supernatural twist and acknowledgement of the vamp legend itself it takes a sword to the competition and stands a head (or headless corpse) above them all.