Tales of the Vampires #1

Tales of the Vampires #1

Ah, the anthology, one of my favorite types of comics when done well. Whether to showcase new or established talent in shorter stories, provide a fresh look at a character or just spike sales from an established property, the anthology can yield some of the most intriguing stories told about a set of characters.

As an added bonus, Tales of the Vampires is an anthology within a frame story. Like Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Tales of the Vampires has a central framing figure, a vampire by the name of Roche, and a story around all of the vampire tales. His audience is an intriguing choice that we meet in the first act. Whedon himself writes the framing story while the various tales are provided by Buffy and Angel vets as well as the occasion Whedon short tale.

Tales of the Vampires

Timeline

After Buffy, Season 1 (timeline not fully established in this issue)

The Sitch and Thoughts

As the frame opens on the first page, words come out of darkness. "They're animals." Slowly a light cracks the darkness and a lone figure in robes is seen walking through a dungeon. He is not alone, however, as an argument ensues between unseen characters. The argument revolves around whether "they" are animals. Finally, with the destination reached, the figure is revealed with a torch in hand, telling the others to stay calm.

As the panel pulls back, the size of the dungeon is overshadowed by the fact that the unseen debators are actually a group of young children, who are promptly told to stay near their minders. The debate has spread to four of the children, ended only by a command to arm them. The children are watchers-in-training! After a selection of weaponry, the children are led into a room with Roche, who is to tell stories and teach about Vampires to the Watcher trainees.

After a curt threat from Ms. Downs, Roche explains that they will not hear his story just yet, but rather other vampires' stories, explaining that all of them are different and have their own stories. With that, we have the opportunity to sit on the dank floor, weapon in hand with children and hear the stories of the Slayer's enemy.

Telling a story about the bad guy can be a really tough thing. Crawling up inside the mind of someone who purposely does bad things sometimes gives me the creeps. Witness a movie like Silence of the Lambs. It was a no-holds-barred dive into the mind of a madman. A tough story to sit through when you know that evil is the sole purpose of the main character.

Your other option is to present facets to the bad guy. What drove this person to evil? Sometimes these stories result in greatness, sometimes it's an exercise in boredom. What drives the vampire? Why are they bent on death, destruction and mayhem? After many years of learning what drives Slayers, the opening segment of Tales of the Vampires promises us a chance to see what drives each of these creatures, who are - as Roche states - all very different.

Before we go to the next story, I wanted to note that this is the first artwork I believe I've seen from Alex Sanchez and it is phenomenal. Clean lines with an eye to making you feel like you're reading the story from a print in the 1800s. I will be looking into other work he has done and will do in the future.

Credits

Joss Whedon Story
Alex Sanchez Pencils
Derek Fridolfs Inks
Michelle Madsden Colors
Annie Parkhouse Letters

The Problem with Vampires

Timeline

Days before "School Hard" in Season Two of Buffy the Vampire Slayer

The Sitch and Thoughts

What is the problem with vampires anyways? Three very different problems emerge in this Drew Goddard story about Spike and Drusilla. The story opens with Drusilla captured by a human inquisitor and thrown into a Prague jail. The problem with vampires for her inquisitor is that vampires don't leave anything behind except dust. No other warnings for other vampires to stay out of the city.

Finding what he believes to be an effective means of sending a warning, the inquisitor (think a dime-store Holtz) proceeds to torture Drusilla in a unique chair built for that purpose in 1478. Before the torture, he exposes Dru to a box that will make her remember the pain forever, only driving the slipping hold on reality she has.

Where is Spike during all of this? Lying imprinted into the ground under the bridge he was thrown from by a Prague mob with a stake shoved into his chest, inches from his heart. Spike revels in the night before's adventure until he realizes that he is missing his girlfriend. He then cuts a swath all the way across the city. When Spike finds Drusilla and her captor, he dispatches her inquisitor. Spike's problem? He feels love.

Drusilla's movement occurs all internally. She only speaks 7 words the entire story. The rest of the story happens in her mind as she tries to block the pain of her torture. In a moment of dark humor as spikes are being driven through her by the chair, she tries to recount the things that make her happy and forget, including little girls lost at the fair and little boys wandering too far from home. Her problem? The search for peace from her tormented mind. Her answer? Her sweet boy...Spike.

The story ends with Spike picking up a damaged Drusilla and carrying her out the door, headed for a first showdown with a slayer in a town with a Hellmouth called Sunnydale.

I have to admit right now that Spike and Dru stories have rarely done anything for me. With Drew Goddard ("Conversations with Dead People", "Dirty Girls" and especially "Lies My Parents Told Me") writing this story, I was willing to give it a fair shake. It's actually a fairly insightful study into the myriad nature of not only what drives vampires but the difficulties in dealing with them from a human perspective. I mean, how would YOU leave a warning for other vampires?

It's also a good story that delves into the Spike-Dru relationship leading up to what we saw play out on Buffy and then Angel. The story bridges well into "School Hard", the first appearance of Spike and Dru on BtVS. I went back and watched the episode while writing this review and was pleased with how well the story expands Spike's quick comment about the mobs in Prague. Paul Lee also shows diversity in his artwork style in this story with a different look than the one given in Dawn and Hoopy the Bear. It is an excellent look, suited to a tale that mixes medieval torture devices with modern intercom systems!

Credits

Drew Goddard Story
Paul Lee Art
Michelle Madsden Colors
Annie Parkhouse Letters

Stacy

Timeline

During 2002...

The Sitch and Thoughts

The final story of Issue #1 is a monologue from a young teenage vampire named Stacy. A young woman who is enchanted both by the idea of magic and apparently the Dune books. Stacy's tale starts with her explaining that she is different and special because she understands magic. As she tries to explain this to her two friends, Jason and Dwayne, in a Lord of the Rings showing that captivates her, we learn that she remains isolated in her beliefs.

After the movie, in her vision of magic she is an elf princess, battling orcs. In reality, she spends time battling her friend Jason's unwanted advances. Stacy again reminds us that most people think her magic is silly, but then surprises us by stating that most people have never been murdered either. We are then taken through Stacy's siring at a party from which she rises up after two days in the bushes. No one found her in all that time.

We flash forward to see who this young girl has become. Connected. Evil, but connected. She finally has her magic and a band of creatures. Instead of the elf princess, Stacy's magic led to being the orc. Evil? Yep. Dead? Yep. Magic. Definite yep. The final image at the end of Stacy's monologue has her sitting on the hood of Jason's car (with a blody Jason hanging out the passenger window), watching a starstorm that no one else can see.

This last story was probably the hardest one for me to read and collect my thoughts on. Whedon has given us a story that delves right into the heart of a disenfranchised young girl, in all likelihood shunned by most, and makes no apologies about the very evil nature of where she found an answer. It doesn't flinch, judge or apologize. Nor does it make you comfortable. Jason's X-driven advances, Stacy's explanation of her closest moments of human connectivity and her final assertion about having magic in her heart all were not easy for me to read.

There is a subtle underlying theme that arises from the metaphor in this story. It took me reading the story a half-dozen times before the story's tale was clear. Though I am certain that many themes are in the story, the one that struck me is the one about the loneliness and the disenfranchisement of being a teen. Even further, the story says a lot about being different from the crowd, even close friends, about that feeling of isolation and a lot about the ways that people fill that gap in a bid to feel community. At first pass, I wrote about how this was a story about a girl who either had evil foisted upon or perhaps even sought it.

Now, I think that this tale is perhaps the saddest of them all. It's about someone who chose a path to fulfillment, that magic place, and that path was dead wrong. Even a quick glance at the news shows that people, not just teens, do strange things to make a connection. A lot of people get lost on that hood seeing the starshow.

Credits

Joss Whedon Story
Cameron Stewart Art
Chip Zdarsky Color Assists
Annie Parkhouse Letters

What's My Line?*

They call you "sausage roll" behind your back. It doesn't mean you are one.
Just try it. You...you...hellspawn!
I need to make a personal function.
The stake in your heart a half-inch from your chest supports that notion.
...she's never used one word...when twenty will do.
Quiver.

Rating*: 3.5 of 5 (A good issue, but the Spike/Dru story slowed it
down for me)

Cover

John Totleben Art
Dave Stewart Cover Colors

* What's My Line and Rating are for the issue as a whole.