Broken Frontier

Forget Twilight and True Blood. If you want to read a vampire story I, Vampire, based on just one issue, blows those away.

It was probably the easiest decision in Andrew Stanton's life.  After becoming a vampire, the obvious thing to do was to also change over his lover, for who would want to spend eternity without theirs?  But instead of having a happy life for eternity, Mary went a little bit off the deep end.  They developed a careful truce, Andrew trying to keep a war from breaking out, but Mary having other ideas.  400 years is a long time to pine over an ex-girlfriend and try to get her to see the light.  In the end, it appears that Mary was just playing him all along. 

Vampire stories have reached the point of cliche recently.  WIth shows like True Blood and Vampire Diaries, we have episodic looks that romaticize vampires.  And that's before even getting into the Twilight phenomenon.  All the while, writers like Steve Niles have been carrying the torch for real vampire stories.  Well, now it's time for Joshua Hale Fialkov to join him.  This book is a wonderful first issue.  Fialkov gives his readers just enough exposition for them not to feel lost with characters they've probably never encountered before.  He weaves together two time frames, intersplicing dialogue from a romantic tryst the night before over what Andrew Stanton is encountering now.  Dialogue that all rings true.  And amazingly, he makes the story and dialogue seem quite at home with any and all connections to the world of DC Comics superheroes.

It's almost obvious to say that like the stories themselves, artistic interpretations of vampires, can fall into stereotypical depictions.  The beauty of Andrea Sorrentino's artwork is that it takes great strides not to fall into those traps.  It does stereotypically keep things dark, but it works because their world has to be dark.  And despite the darkness, there's never any confusion as to what is going on.  Characters are clear, and emotions are evident.  The storytelling and pacing work very well considering there are two distinct things going on in the book.  Perhaps the best praise of all, there are some very Jae Lee-like qualities here in Sorrentino's work.  There are certainly worse artists to style yourself after and probably none better for a vampire book.

DC certainly saved the best for last with their relaunch release schedule.  In a world with Batman, Superman, and Green Lantern, it's the continued adventures of Andrew Stanton that I am most looking forward to continuing.