Friday, April 1, 2011

Antia Blake: Vampire Hunter: First Death #2

Now, as well all know, or should know, you can't trust a cover. Covers just want you to buy the comic, and promise absolutely nothing about what lies inside. Most of the time, you are disappointed. This time, I saw a comic with some awesome Marvel Zombies on the front, and what was inside was actually so much better.

Comic Review: Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter: First Death


Anita Blake is a book series by Laurell K. Hamilton. Being about a vampire hunter who hunts sexy sexy vampires, Marvel started making comic adaptations in 2006. Guilty Pleasures being first, then The First Death, a prequel. And it is TOTES. AWESOME.

So far, our sexy-cool protagonist, Anita, is both a Vampire Hunter and Necromancer, killing Vampires, mostly ones who break the law, and raising the dead for hire. She's recently been investigating a bunch of child murders. They find a vampire, named Sean, who confesses to some murders. Unfortunately, these aren't the child murders. He then tries to kill them.


After kicking vampire ass in the most efficient way possible, Anita goes with her cop friends to the Vampire's house, to kill them. After the cops mention that they need a warrant to do that, she says she doesn't need anything of the sort.


Oh man, she doesn't need a warrant to break into people's houses and kill them? That's what I want in my protagonist!

So she goes to the Vampire House with her vampire hunting friend, Manny. After shooting in the door, they find the vampires out for the night, so they stick crosses in all the coffins, like the vampires wouldn't notice them or something. When Manny smells blood, they check out the basement, and find a guy naked, chained to the ceiling, and bloody. No surprise, he's dead. The police show up, and that's where Anita leaves for her day job, raising zombies!

After getting some publicity from helping the cops with their vampire, it seems a whole lot more people want Anita bringing their dead back to life. Her first appointment turns out to be that serial killer she knows, Edward.


Yeah, he hunts vampires too, for a price. He says he might know where her vampires are, and that they should work together. She refuses, mostly because he's totally batshit.


After some good ol' fashioned corpse raising, Anita's about to go home, when Edward's back. He "apologizes" for pulling a gun on her before, so she takes that as enough reason to sit alone in a car with him. So daring, our protagonist. After talking for a bit, Edward threatens to torture the information he needs out of Anita or Manny. She tells him she needs to think it over, because he scares her. He tells her to contact him if there's another killing, she says there won't be.


Oooh, is this the start of a romance? I sure hope so, you know how I love stories about women falling in love with scary sociopaths named Edward. You know, not to question our ever-so-smart main character, but isn't constantly telling the sociopath that he scares you giving him the upper hand?

Anyway, the cops call her in when they find a dead vampire, who for some reason, was up at dawn. Then she goes through the long and pointle-- I mean, uh, detailed and interesting process of making sure he's dead.


Back at the police station, she overhears something that gives her a clue as to where those vampires went. Instead of taking this and doing some of her own investigation, she calls everyone's favorite homicidal maniac. She gives him information in exchange for something only slightly more specific than what she already knew. Good call, Anita.

So her and Manny break into another house, where some of the vampire's human pets start freaking out. Anita feels bad for-- Oh wait, no she doesn't, she's angry that they would act human.


Yeah, it's not like there's any reason to think about the situation if the "bad guys" treat you like a homicidal killer.

After being lead into the basement by the humans, my expectations were just completely shattered when Anita and Manny are ambushed by vampires. And then-- hoo boy!


Dude, this comic just got a whole lot better.

Wait, what about hunting now?

Oh, so the vampires let her go because they're dumbasses and want to "hunt" her. Predictably she kicks ass until one vampire takes her from behind.


I... what? What's the point of that panel? They wanted to make it perfectly clear that there's a gay vampire? To what end? Damn those evil gay vampires!

Now I really worried about Anita at this point. How would she get out of this mess? Like an angel from heaven, my question was answered when Edward shows up to save the day!


Anita gets Manny out of the house, and they proceed to torch it down. Edward and Anita have a touching moment.


After a quick trip to the hospital, Edward offers to let Anita go hunting with him out of state. Anita will have none of it though, because she's got other killings on her mind.

(Next issue she stares at vampire man-abs)

Oh Anita Blake, what can a man say about you? You fight vampires, raise the dead, and have such interesting romantic entanglements while doing so. There's really not much more I can say about this that pictures cannot.


Aww yeah.

This is the W Defender, and Happy April Fool's everyone!

PS: Bonus Image:

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