Zenescope Entertainment 2020
Written by Raven Gregory
Illustrated by Deivis Goetten
Coloured by Robby Bevard
Lettered by Taylor Esposito of Ghost Glyph Studios
Part 1 of 6
Van Helsing is still reeling from the revelations of recent events after her world came crashing down around her. But she won’t have time to catch her breath as something catastrophic is heading her way. Will she be able to handle some of the deadliest creatures in all existence? Alone any of these would be formidable foes, and Liesel will have the ultimate challenge laid before her, with taking them on all at once. The odds are not in her favour, and it doesn’t look good for the legendary vampire hunter.
I am such a fan of this franchise and I have said this repeatedly. I love the direction that Raven is taking this in and then again how he's keeping one arc leading into the next so that they could be stand alone arcs a well as the continuing story, of Another World, for the continuity of regular ongoing series. This is for new fans and stalwart ones and the way that this is written is utterly fantastic.
This is kind of what I was hoping for elsewhere so seeing this gets my hopes up. So Dracula is resurrected by his daughter, see last arc, and they all realise that alone they have no hope of taking out Liesel. I love this for a myriad of reasons but chief among them is the fact that she's feared and seen as a formidable opponent. Now I find it incredibly interesting where this Maximum Security Global Threat Institution is located. My only wish was we get to see who else was there, I mean all this isn't for one person and I wonder if anyone else was let free. Raven does a great job here in showcasing the different personalities and the animosity of one against another while still making the enemy of my enemy a real deal. It isn't the bad guys either there is a great mix of other characters being shown as well.
The way this is being told is awesome. The story & plot development we see through how the sequence of events unfold and how the reader learns information is beautifully presented. There are several segments featuring different sets of characters and the flow of this doesn't skip a beat once. Raven shows us why he's such a talented writer with the way the book is structured. The character development is sensational. I like how we see and understand who they are while leaving room for them to anticipate and react to situations and circumstances yet to come. The pacing is great and as it takes us through the pages revealing the twists and turns along they it works with everything else to create the books ebb & flow which in itself is impressive.
The interiors are really nice to see. The linework is solid and how the varying weights are bing utilised to bring out the attention to detail we see is well rendered. One thing though what's up with the empty picture frames, it looks well stupid to put it bluntly. If you are going to take the time to make them then you've got time to put something in them and if you don't use a computer to add images. Speaking of backgrounds what's up with seeing Liesel in silhouette against a blue background? Don't use props in some panels and then decide to leave them out of others, to me that's just lazy. Now the tone of the book is pure classic comics and that I really like. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a decent eye for storytelling. The colour here is impressive to me. The gradation of the colour utilising the hues and tone within them is extremely well done. Also that we see this nice ranges of variation in the dark is more impressive so job extremely well done.
God I love this, it is exciting and has this feeling of something epic coming into being. It is like the villains of Zenescope forming their own Legion of Doom and it doesn't feel like a rip-off or a copycat idea it feels like this is how this world is naturally heading towards. While the women, and there really are hardly any men though I want a gay male hero, are as keen as working in a group the team-ups are rather regular. Zenescope is a force to be reckoned in the super-hero genre these days and it's about time everyone sits up and takes notice.