Two Girls, a Demon and a Shared Universe...
Since I first heard about Gail Simone’s crossover event Swords of Sorrow being announced, I knew that it would be something that I HAD to read and write about. As details emerged, I became more and more interested in the direction that this event was going- it has strong female characters, and strong female creators- so what’s not to like? So here we are, with the number one issue of the main series, and a one-shot prequel under out belts, with our first tie-in to the events occurring within the main series, with Vampirella and Jennifer Blood.
Vampirella is a character that I have been aware of for a very long time, but only recently have I begun to read Vampirella books. I always kind of brushed off the character as being just an analog to the Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose vaguely pornographic and otherwise irredeemable. But I was definitely wrong- Vampirella, while scantily clad and not afraid to delve deep into the well of sexual innuendo (and much less subtle sexual situations) it also handles a wide variety of villains- demons, vengeful spirits and plenty of things that are actually based on myths, legends and folklore from the “real world”. So while she runs around in a monokini that would make Borat blush while staking vampires in the heart and baring a WHOLE LOT MORE than just her fangs, Vampirella isn’t quite as one-note as I had been led to believe.
Jennifer Blood, on the other hand, was a character that I knew basically nothing about- I have seen some Jennifer Blood comics on the shelf places, and probably a few in back issue bins, or in my searches online for the “what’s new this week”, but I had no real backstory for Jennifer coming into this book. Now I know, she is quite a homicidal murderer- it almost seems like she is basically irredeemable as a psychopath, having **SPOILERS** murdered her husband because he found out about her double life living as this world’s version of The Punisher. This book gives a bit of a crash course in both these characters, keeping in line with the Swords of Sorrow books all having an extremely low threshold for new readers. So, if you were worried about not knowing anything about these characters while reading Swords of Sorrow- go ahead and dive in, the books catch you up pretty well so far.
I really like that this issue starts to show the different characters and their interactions happening now while the universe is in such a state of chaos and flux- Vampirella and Jennifer are from two different universes, and they just so happen to be brought together to fight the same baddie (a demonic thing that has been jumping back-and-forth between their worlds to feed). I really liked that they even had a brief flashback to the events in SoS #1, it was nice to see that these books are being closely overseen, and that events are taking place in the correct order across all the titles. I also really liked this book, because it seemed to have a bit more humor than I had come to expect from a Vampirella book- now that is not to say that Vampirella books don’t have any humor, but usually the humor is more situational to Vampirella, and doesn’t usually involve other people- this book breaks the fourth wall a bit, and when Vampirella jumps into Jennifer’s world a family sees her and they all have quite valid reactions to seeing such a sight literally out of the blue…
I think that these characters, being that not so many people were reading these books prior to Swords of Sorrow, will see an upswing in popularity, and I hope to see more of the creators from this series start to get more work as well. The books so far have been very high quality, and a lot of fun to read, and I am already itching to see what happens next.
These books are definitely easy to recommend to anyone who wants strong females involved in their comics, either on the page, or as the creators- if you are a fan of strong, awesome, ass-kicking ladies (and really, who isn’t?!?!) then this is a MUST READ book for you!