greetings comic lovers and welcome back to casually comics the channel
where we chat all things comics reviews of comics new and old to history to anecdotes
really wherever our whims take us it's crossover time you knew i couldn't resist
and apparently so did dynamite because they were kind enough to reach out and send me
vampirella versus reanimator whose story you know i'm going to share with you reanimator
is a cult classic treasure with three different cuts that i've seen all of and i will take any
opportunity to talk about in any form what are you thinking how do you feel
also vampirella is in this now dynamite has a history of crossing over the different properties
under its umbrella so vampire meeting up with ash from army of darkness evil dead red sonia
betty and veronica it's par for the course so from an internal company standpoint this makes
sense take all the properties put them together see what happens just go with it from an external
standpoint it looks like why who asked for this you put your mustard in my peanut butter or rather
you got your science and my vampire story in this case alien vampire story this intrigued me not
just because of my most likely over-enthusiastic love of the 1980s reanimator but also because of
my curiosity about any and all crossovers and a fascination with whether the more bizarro
there can work and this this ends up making more sense than you'd think it would not total sense
just more i mean listen to this writer herbert west the reanimator has long sought the secret
to perfecting his reagent and breakdesk hold of mankind once and for all the key to his success
lies in only one place the forbidden tomb of the aztec god of death but disturbing sleeping gods
is as troubling to put it mildly as raising the uncontrollable murderous dead especially when
this deity is an ancient enemy of vampirella of draculon it's vampire versus mad scientist in
the battle that threatens to tear the gates of the underworld asunder not even a part asunder
you know you have to read that or at least i did so just why is herbert west about to square off
against vampirella get ready to be reanimated i'll see myself out but before i do that i'm sasha and
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look mom real youtuber vampirella versus rhianna mare was written by cullen bunn
with art by blackie shepard it was published in 2018 and ran four issues through power 2019.
now it does help going into this crossover as with most to be aware of each of the characters
the comic is pretty cliff notes about assuming that you already have some prior knowledge
upon entering as both the descriptions of the characters are brief and cursory so it expects
you to be familiar or hit the ground running so this impacts you also if you're only familiar with
one of the characters which likelihood is you would be picking up such a specific and niche
crossover let me give you some overview so herbert west now you can take either the version from the
original hp lovecraft story or the 1985 stuart gordon directed brian younes to produce jeffrey
combs starring bonanza we can defeat death we can achieve every doctor's dream you'll be famous
and live lifetimes basically herbert west is a student obsessed with death he creates a
reagent that can reanimate hence the name the dead personally since this is more modern and
the character design is vaguely clumsy i veer towards that plus it's written very in tone
with that rendition i heard jeffrey combs his line delivery while reading lives plus some quotes from
the authors seem to veer in that direction next up vampirella we're going full on alien from draculon
classic warren year's origin we've actually done a video on vampirella's origin a couple so if
you missed that card and link links down below card on the side so how did this idea come about
well cullen stated oh you know i dug around for some receipts i needed to understand the madness
i remember sitting on the floor in the drugstore reading vampirella magazines while my mom was
shopping i always felt like i was doing something i shouldn't reading something i shouldn't and i
liked that feeling i discovered herbert west first through the movies and layer through lovecraft
stories watching the movie i felt the same way that i was watching something that wasn't meant
for me both of these characters felt like dirty little secrets now having them meet on the comic
page we can see if we can create some dark horror secrets of our own but that's not really how the
concept itself came about for that we need to hear from the artist i just thought it was a
great fit i was attending a horror convention and talking with people and the idea just popped into
my head within an hour or so i had a rough idea of the story vampirella is basically a god with
superhuman abilities and herbert west is just a man with a reagent serum but his intellect and
drive puts him in a class that can stand toe to toe with this warrior draculon i love the idea
of herbert west as a kind of ringleader of ghouls and monsters that vampirella has to fight her way
through so there you go why why not but an excited come on it'll be cool why not the cover features
are two titular leads as an aztec mummy returns to life reaching towards them it's certainly not
lying to you this is the core of the ultimate plot but on the whole it's not the most exciting cover
outside of the why are these characters together factor herbert is also gazing at nothing yeah it's
supposed to be dispassionate and cool but it just looks like he's frozen vampirella looks alright
just vaguely concerned now there were variants for this and you do get to see them in the trade
i think my favorites were the one by stuart sager and the one by nick varela thematically
varela is more but for color sager it's also very thirsty thirstier than me that's for sure we open
somewhere in mexico and right away you can see that we're working on a mostly black and white
color gradation with some accents here and there we'll be seeing red green and later purple this is
deliberate the editor matt idelson stated you'll find the pages are mostly in gray tone rather than
full color we're doing a worn magazine homage of sorts saving spot color for just the yellow
reanimator serum and the reds on vampy's costume and such wait yellow yellow am i colorblind yeah
i guess it is yellow or like a really light acid green i think it should be greener
maybe this green or this green yes i dressed up for the reanimator video i'm very excited west
is researching ways to improve his reagents he's dedicated to trying any method he's not
going to rule anything out he's like doctor doom like that he's not going to be held back because
science and magic are competing or supposedly opposites no he's going to try it all but now
in the pages of these esoteric texts i've perhaps found could you please keep it down i can't hear
myself think he's found a book a text that he claims has equations in it on top of what he
calls the pseudo-religious rantings he's convinced he's close to a breakthrough he's used his reagent
on the corpses from a nearby village so they killed the monks for him no chill none time to
meet vampirella who's saving a woman from some werewolves the lames vampirella the umbrella
i'm not your average hero i'm a vampire from another world i'll never not give a really
awkward embarrassing wolf howl why not never let it be said that i have not suffered for science
i have been exiled by my peers reviled by society yeah both west and vampy are equally melodramatic
but in very different ways vampire is a bit more of i'm cool and i've seen things and west is all
woe is me but i'm also a genius i guess the shift between the two has been abrupt at first west has
come to an ancient temple where he comes upon a tomb where suddenly a bat-like apparition
lights the torch for him leading him towards the center smoking mirrors parlor tricks interior
temple scares two out of five that's gonna be his yelp review these apparitions appear before
vampirella as she's washing all that werewolf off her it turns out that she left them there
there's some kind of warning system but it's too late west has already used his reagent on
one of the mummies and reawakened hold on give me a moment miktaka mikta ka klu mik miktaka
the lady god of death that's something that i'm not going to be saying again
until i get better at it so perhaps in a few weeks no watch this come up again now it's just going to
be this is the death god we're gonna see i kind of hope so i wanna be an expert issue two west
is not taken aback by any of this and in fact a little annoyed that she's threatening him a bit of
civility some appreciation seems appropriate here he goes to reanimate her husband but she stops him
says that he failed her and that it was west who brought her back stronger than ever i have found
my god of death and then she kisses him and he's not here for it so she assaults him it's also
clear that she's done something to him which we'll find out what it is a tiny bit later on
let's not rush ahead our aztec lady god of death is all business saying she must raise an army to
deal with her the her in question being vampirella i have so many questions yeah you and me both so
we see vampirella millennia ago battling these self-proclaimed gods of death on dracula and
armor that i'm not sure how i feel about they look really cool with spider creatures vampire defeats
them but knows given their immortality and hers it's likely that she'll have to deal with them
again at some point she says that she can't kill them because without their bodies they'll become
even closer linked to death so she stuck them on a tomb on earth she thinks the kiss it turns out was
so that wes could understand our lady aztec god of death that is still easier to say for me at least
than her actual name i'm so sorry he couldn't before she was speaking dracalonian but if you
miss those symbols along the side that signify that different languages being spoken you would
just think that she's ignoring him which would also have been a viable possibility anyway she
starfired him and now they can talk she wants him to reanimate her ghost spiders meanwhile
vampirella has arrived at the tomb where she finds some reagents on the floor i know he was
real flustered because of everything going on but i find it hard to believe that he would have left
that there that's his life his okay but he had to you know so the plot could happen our lady death
has offered west control of death which he's more into than becoming a god which rubs him
the wrong way but vampirella arrives to stop all of this vampirella i was hoping to see you again
vampirella was unprepared for the souped-up ghost spiders and is not a match for the strength boost
her enemy is gained because of the reagent and so she retreats to think of a new plan
that sucked was that a vampire joke i'm gonna pretend it was because it makes me happy i'm
sure it was yeah it was vampirella needs a new plan and so she says that she's gonna reanimate
okay we're gonna try this one more time mikta kakuatul's husband it sounded better or at least
more confident it's probably still wrong i love how she's like wait till he sees how comfy she is
with that nerdy scientist when all she saw them doing was standing next to each other talking
issue three under our lady asset god of death tutelage west has been able to make a new strain
of reagent a superior one this one is purple my magic my alchemy mixed with your science has borne
fruit look at what we have built ew it's gross i love it vampirella's efforts have worked but her
would-be ally attacks her you know for killing him and his wife and stranding them on some backwater
planets but she convinces him that he needs to go see what his wife has been up to she's been
making purple drank and he needs to know about it actually she's telling wes that he needs to inject
the gate it'll be fine he'll get control of death trust the random god lady it's totally cool just
inject it purple stuff right the weird hell gate teamwork makes the dream work the panels of the
gate opening are excellent very classic 80s body horror and yunes-esque it's now that her husband
shows up and assumes that west was trying to usurp him vampy reacts like she's about to go get some
popcorn it's during this fight that the worst line in my opinion in the series occurs if you've been
here a while you'll know i have mixed feelings about characters using slang or very current or
modern colloquial language the kind of stuff that will pass out of fashion in a few years especially
if the character is meant to be very old and would more likely than not have settled into
a speech pattern that precluded keeping up with the kids unless that's part of their character
or they're trying to stay hip or on top of things or are good at blending into any time i'm stalling
so vampy has to get west out of the way of the two gods who are now fighting and she says i guess
i've forgotten how short of a nistic these ancient gods were he's awakened but totally not woke
there's low-hanging fruit and then there's fruit that somebody took a bite of and threw on the side
of the road it's so obviously meant to speak to a modern and quotes reader that i found at jarring
and it unimersed me for a hot minute yes of course people can learn and use slang but she's not even
talking to anybody this is her internal monologue i don't know for me it just felt very out of place
and especially because that's just a word that is utilized so much and misused and just everywhere
and just i don't know i just didn't need it and the joke wasn't strong enough to justify its usage
as wes discusses the portal and rambles on about being promised control of death
vampirella realizes what's going on this is a gateway to draculaun which she says
isn't like earth it's made of negative energy a death energy her planet is death-based that's
ridiculous and i love it and the godly couple make up and make out leading us into issue four
vampirella realizes that they want to turn earth into another dracula and so vampirella suggests
a really obvious solution she's no match for them especially now they've been boosted with reagents
so you know hind hint wink wink do you get it what's gonna happen well we do but west doesn't
for some bizarre reason so vampirella charges in against the two death gods and gets herself killed
via neck snap a fine choice one favored by the highest quality of heroes wonder woman
superman the flash and for some reason it takes herbert west mr animator mr i injected a head
by itself with reagent just to see what would happen this man it takes him six pages to figure
out that she wanted him to inject her with the new reagent the superior one the purple one he's
too busy pontificating and i mean it's nice oh woe is me the science melodrama but come on now
come on tucker nice little vampirella aliens joke throwback for you vampirella i give you
life so she's charged up and purple and she goes through the portal and decapitates husband death
right out the gate vampirella says that now she is a goddess and leaves our lady death stranded
sorry lady death is another character leaves our lady asked a god of death stranded inside
the portal between worlds ice cold vampirella is left wondering is she dead or alive but by
the time she comes back west has skedaddled he knows better than the stick around the death wave
from a dead dimension sounds like the title of a bad pulp novel i see you bun name reference over
there the editor's name matt eidelson and the letterers taylor esposito are also referenced
in this drawing see that nice touch west assumes that she's going to be looking for him but he's
ready because now he's got purple stuff oh man what an experience it's a mixed bag but overall
i really really had a lot of fun let's start with the positives this is a lot of fun largely
because it just goes all in it's a universe where all these characters exist and all this is just
happening and feasible and everybody's on board and that sort of thing makes it have a kind of
internal logic that helps hold it together the two parts do feel very dissonant at first with
west and vampirella feeling very much like separate entities but once the connection is
made between the death god vampirella and west it comes together it feels cohesive even though
west and van perella don't meet for a little while after that west in particular is very
true to form he feels completely in character the arrogance the obsession that drives away all else
so he can be manipulated but also oblivious to how others are reading the situation like how people
assume he's having a thing with lady death god and never even crossed his mind his only really
odd moment is not thinking to inject vampirella at the end because yes he's a genius but he's
also fallible and nowhere near as clever as he thinks he is but many of his flaws stem from
arrogance and poor social skills injecting people is always his go-to including himself
god herbert direction no no it's just a weak solution so i don't have to sleep just to keep the
brain sharp that clip was only in the director's cut by the way not in the theatrical cut because
in this movie about zombies and all that jazz and dead people injecting people's heads
that was too far drug addiction no when it comes back to west not figuring it out for all those
pages it comes across as a bit patty a little bit like forced drama vampirella is in her action hero
mode but her dialogue is heavy on the more quote unquote relatable current side sometimes it works
or sometimes it feels like you're reading a myspace page or a live journal page oh
was that dated well so will some of these lines be that was not grammatically correct
i too am also dated when i use slang but i know i'm doing it and i call myself out for it
dear diary mood apathetic the idea of vampirella having these ancient dracolonian enemies on the
earth is an intriguing one but the stakes do feel rushed and they never fully develop and yet i was
compelled it's probably my deep deep love for the rihanna mirror universe and my fondness for
vampirella but the more this went on the longer i read it the more fun i had with the idea if you
can accept the idea on its terms and go into it like that this will be a very fun experience if
not then it may be a very trying one the idea of these two coexisting in the same space didn't feel
all that odd but of course this subjective i can see some people opting out of this at a concept
level or not being drawn to the execution the art for me was hit or miss some panels i loved and
will stay with me giant hell portal and the like and sometimes the use of splashes of color were
eerie and evocative there's some nice stuff done with the reagent reflecting in people's eyes or in
the veins however other times the color dominates like in the battle panel that's just a lot of red
and sometimes the characters could feel posed rather than dynamic or the lines could be harsh
and other times they feel very lively so it varied with the trade for all of you know that i enjoy
trades you get the variant gallery in the back which i am a huge huge fan of so you don't have
to do that thing where you have to pick between covers which for me is a huge plus i'm a huge
fan of trades i like this one it's good quality if you're interested in picking it up well i have the
link down below it'll take you to dynamite where you can pick it up it's not an affiliate link it's
just a link back directly to the source now there was a nerdy question that came to light regarding
this while i was doing all the research and that question is get ready to go full comic book guy
where in the dynamite universe or rather when is this taking place or is it in a different universe
this is because of an event called prophecy let me explain prophecy was a dynamite comics event
from 2012 that ran for seven issues and centered around the mayan prophecy that the world would end
in 2012 which it didn't or did it no it didn't in this event red sonja vampirella herbert west ash
williams dracula and more all fought together so vampire and west should at least be aware of each
other because of this event unless it's a separate universe or people just forgot about it bun stated
i thought it must have already been done it's such an obvious crossover but since it hadn't we worked
up a pitch and sent it in i mean maybe it meant a direct crossover because prophecy was an event i
reached out to dynamite and actually got an answer and that was dynamite plays fast and loose with
continuity so for those who are wondering and i've been on forums so i know some people were
that's the answer so yeah this comic won't be for everybody but it worked for me it wasn't perfect
but as a fan of both of these things especially reanimator it was right up my alley there was a
lot of love and excitement behind the concept itself and that translated into the execution
and that's always entertaining to experience but those were just my thoughts and i want to hear
yours do you like the idea of this crossover are you here for the warren inspired art not for you
disagree with me entirely i've been injecting too much reagent directly to the veins share
all your thoughts down below and while you're down there please do all the youtube things like share
comment subscribe and hit the bellifications that you never miss a vid thanks so much for taking my
day i spent discussing comics with me i always appreciate it and i will see you again soon bye
you