American Vampire vol. 4

The word out of the New York Comic-Con today is that “American Vampire” will be going on a not-quite-year-long hiatus soon as writer Scott Snyder and artist Rafael Albuquerque pursue other projects.  This will include a ten-issue mini-series with Sean Murphy and a new Superman title for Snyder and what I can only assume is some unannounced DCU work from Albuquerque.  It’s disappointing that both creators are taking time off from their signature series, but at least they’re formalizing it.  At least they’re not going to try and juggle everything at once and we wind up in the same territory that Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Oeming’s “No, it really IS still being published!” “Powers” finds itself in now.  Anyway, the new volume isn’t quite a return to the level of quality that we saw in vol. 2, but it is an improvement over the previous one.

We start off with “The Beast in the Cave,” a story that flashes back to the late 1800’s to show us the shared history of Skinner Sweet and… Jim Book?  Yes, that’s right everyone, even though there was no indication that the two had a shared history in the first volume, it turns out that not only did they spend time together as kids, they also served together in the army during the Indian wars.  Such a retcon is particularly grating in a series that hasn’t had any continuity issues until now, and combined with the backward-looking nature of the story you feel that Snyder might’ve been stalling for time so that Albuquerque could deliver the next arc in a timely fashion.

All this distracts from the overall quality of the story, which isn’t too bad when you get down to it.  Seeing Skinner, the book’s real main character, back in his pre-vampire, pre-outlaw days is a kick as his sociopathic, anti-authoritarian streak was in full bloom even back then.  Book was still the law-abiding sort, but you get to understand why he’d sign up with the Pinkertons rather than remain mired in the rules and regulations of the army.  We also get to see the very first “American” vampire who tries to remain outside of this conflict and fails.  There’s no indication when we’ll be seeing more of her, but I wouldn’t be averse to it.

Next up is the book’s centerpiece, “Death Race,” the tale of a teenage greaser vampire hunter from the 50’s.  It’s fully rooted in its era and the teenage rebellion films of its era as we’re introduced to one Travis Kidd, a nineteen year-old vampire hunter who is extremely good at what he does.  So good, in fact, that the Vassals of the Morning Star wants to recruit him into their ranks by dangling some info about the vampire who was responsible for the death of his family as an incentive to join up.  Travis, though, he’s got his own way of doing things…

The story itself is an involving and exciting tale told in parallel form with Travis’ drag-race battle with the vampire in question alternating with flashbacks showing how things got to that point.  In lesser hands, his rebelliousness would have been off-putting, but Snyder gives him a wicked sense of humor and an ingenuity in dealing with the many deadly situations he finds himself in.  Though the story is entertaining in its embrace of genre, it also makes me wonder if my thoughts about how the series would progress from volume two were mistaken.  There, it seemed that we’d be following vampires, Skinner in particular, as they left their mark on history.  That may still happen, but now it feels like we’ll be getting a tour through the history of American genre.  You had the origins of film and pulp fiction in the first volume, a virtual western in the second, two kinds of war stories in the third, and now we’re getting 50’s-style westerns, teenage rebellion and a look at race in the era here.  If the results are as entertaining as they are here, I’ll still have no qualms about continuing to buy this title.  Yet, there’s still the distinct feeling that the bar has been lowered with the contents of this volume.

Things wrap up with “The Nocturnes” as we catch up with Calvin Poole, who became the newest American vampire after his encounter with Skinner in Taipan.  Now in the employ of the Vassals, he finds himself in Alabama, looking to reconnect with his past life for a moment.  Naturally things don’t go as planned and he winds up finding something else altogether.  “The Nocturnes” tackles the racial issues of the day in typically bloody fashion with a couple twists to keeping things from coming off as too straightforward.  Calvin, though, comes off as immediately likeable after his takedown of some racists menacing him at a pool and his focus on taxonomy gives him a unique analytical eye to his unusual situation and sets him apart from Pearl and Skinner.

Albuquerque’s art has impressed from page one of this series, and it continues to impress here.  The man delivers some invigorating action scenes in his story while his two-page spread of the race’s climax is a sight to behold and the most memorable visual of the book.  Jordi Bernet, famed for his work in Europe and here on “Jonah Hex,” does “The Beast in the Cave” and it’s fine.  His art here is expressive enough, but it feels too simple most of the time and lacks the grit you get from Albuquerque’s style.  Don’t believe me?  Just look at the covers for this arc.  “The Nocturnes” is split between Roger Cruz and Riccardo Burchielli.  Cruz has done a lot of “X-Men”-related work over the years, and while his work has always had a cartoonish bent, here he sharpens his linework and characters into an appealing departure from his usual style.  Burchielli, best known as the regular artist on “DMZ,” also shows that he can handle the supernatural well here.

So I was entertained, but I’m left wondering “Is this it?”  Is “American Vampire” only meant to be a vampire-infused riff on the genre work of America’s film and literature rather than its actual history?  That’s not a bad thing if the results in this volume are any indication, but I thought this title would be so much more than that.

Oh, and if you’re wondering about Skinner’s fate after what happened to him in Taipan, you’ll get part of an answer here.  Regrettably, it just makes that whole business the dumbest and most pointless part of the series.  We’ll see if it can be fully redeemed in the next volume.