The Good
Each month I feel like I VAMPIRE is a treat. The issues are something else. The world that Joshua Hale Fialkov and Andrea Sorrentino have crafted becomes more interesting with each issue. The idea of a zero issue seemed a little odd at first. But as with other characters in the New 52 Universe, Andrew Bennett also has a story that needs to be told.
We get to travel quite a bit further back than the typical five years most of the zero issues do. We're talking about a vampire that was turned centuries ago. His story is simple in some ways, but that's absolutely not a bad thing. Andrew's story is straight forward and you get a strong sense of who he was before he was turned. We get to see what drove him which tells us a lot about who he is today and his relationship with Mary, Queen of Blood.
Of course the visuals that Sorrentino provides are glorious. It's a fine line between being a work of art and the stuff of nightmares. The world of Andrew Bennett is not one you'd want to be transported to.
The Bad
Seeing how Andrew was turned almost happened too quickly. We get just a glimpse of who he was before and, of course, don't really get to see what happens afterwards. There is still more to the story. We don't see how Mary was changed in these pages. It's the unfortunate limitation of the zero month being only a single month and the story being limited to a single issue. There is some action but because it's more of an origin story, we don't see as much as we're used to in this series.
The Verdict
Each month we get a glimpse at Joshua Hale Fialkov's little corner of the DC Universe. Andrew Bennett is a great character and seeing who he was before is interesting and changes how you look at him today. We've known he was changed centuries ago but you don't really think about just how long he's been a vampire. There is a bit of sadness as well. There is a bigger picture to Andrew and Mary's life. We can only hope that this isn't the last we'll see of their past. Fialkov and Sorrentino continue to deliver a comic that stands out from the rest.