Review: American Vampire #6
A week of catching up continues as we take a look at the spine-tingling start of another arc of my fave-rave American Vampire with Scott Snyder soloing the writing duties and more of Rafael Albequerque's incredible art. Fittingly enough, tomorrow I dip my toe back into talking about the really incredibly underrated Hack/Slash: My First Maniac, a book that's absolutely one of the best horror comics being produced right now.
For now, though, read on for my thoughts on our reintroduction to Pearl and Skinner and the story's relocation to the greatest vampire of all: Vegas!
I confess that I am a sucker for the Flashback of the Damned. As with the first arc written by Snyder - Pearl's origins story - this issue drips with my favorite kind of horror: the creeping certainty that tragedy awaits the innocent. Blood and guts and screaming madness have their place in the genre, sure, but the hook that always gets me is dread and this book has it in spades from the moment we're introduced to the newest character. Further, that kind of character - the compromised enforcer - is one that appeals to me more than most for some reason. It's what draws me to Batman over Superman, and Snyder's clear understanding of the importance of the drive behind that type of character and the emphasis on what inspires them to turn their potential weakness into a source of strength is what makes the character of Cash appealing from the outset. After seeing Snyder so deftly create and evolve the character of Pearl I can't wait to see his portrayal of Cash's development into the figure we encounter on the first pages of the issue.
(That all of this again underscores how much I look forward to resubscribing to Detective Comics in two months is just icing on the cake.)
Speaking of characters, I assume that is Pearl and her earlier ally making their appearance in 1935. (I leave some room for error because sometimes I'm as dense as a brick.) One of the compelling points in any functionally immortal character's development is observing the effect on them of seeing the world age around them, so I'm really looking forward to finding out what a few years has done to Pearl's outlook. The return of a Certain Someone is just as welcome and crazy as one might expect, and again the characters of Pearl and Skinner - and others of young Las Vegas, even Las Vegas itself - are used to personify one aspect or another of America's development in the 20th century to great effect. Importantly, they also personalize the story, as we see them as individuals with competing agendas rather than lock-step bugaboos in the story's shadows; in fact, much of the action of the first arc is the main characters of American Vampire physically assaulting that very stereotype.
To pontificate briefly, when I said "aspect" above I meant it in the theological, mythological sense, too. In this story, America is a living, breathing, restless thing, a world power in its adolescence that has outlived everyone and everything that made it and it revels in its own glory. Pearl and Skinner and Cash represent the arcs of history in which they've lived. Skinner is a dormant power that bursts out of decades of slumber to wage blood-drenched, maddened war against his enemies. Pearl is the wary resolve of an innocence lost by those who went west in search of opportunity. The story itself is as much about America as any individual. Look at the settings where the story happens: an entertainment industry where the hopeful are literally drained of their lives, consumed for the pleasure and benefit of the people at the top; mining towns where the earth itself is ripped open and wealth removed by people who are corrupt and vile and interested only in themselves; Las Vegas, itself perhaps the greatest vampire ever known. There's a somewhat fractal quality to American Vampire in that any part of it, at any resolution, lives up to that title: the main characters, the supporting characters, the enemies, the settings, you name it. The inevitable film deal - come on, we all know there's going to be one, surely - will just be another step in the expression of those terms.
That I'm absolutely in love with this book is obvious, yes, but it is absolutely the best book being published right now. There is none better. There's a lot of stiff competition: Batman & Robin, X-Factor, Hack/Slash: My First Maniac, Joe the Barbarian and if A Dummy's Guide to Danger ever came back then I'd just have to flip a coin, I guess, but American Vampire is always the book I save for dessert.
Klarion
Posted to Review on 23 September 2010
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