This issue of Vampirella fatures a book length story titled "A Gathering of Demons". The cover is drawn by Bob Larkin, hardly one of his or Vampi's better covers. This issue's art is provided by Gonzalo Mayo while the story is written by Bill Dubay. At 71 pages, this is the single longest story in Warren history and the only instance in which a book length story actually consisted of a single story rather than multiple related stories.
The story itself unfortunately is nothing all that special. It surrounds a series of murders happening each day where a "V' is left on the scene. Conrad initially blames it on Vampi, but it later becomes apparant that the murders are due to a council of wizards who are leaving the "V" because it forms a giant pentagram. Working on selecting a new leader, the Anti-Pope, they kill a person each day that one isn't selected until ten have been killed. In addition the ten council members have each selected a human host to be used in a battle of demons against each other to determine who will become their leader. Vampi and our heroes interfere, resulting in the deaths of the council and their defeat. For now anyway. Many characters from this story including Crissy Collins (one of the human hosts) as well as council member Tenichi would make appearances later in Vampirella's history once Rich Margopoulos became the Vampirella writer. These stories have already been covered on this blog.
Overall this is a rather dissappointing effort. While issue 64's book length Vampirella story was quite a good one, this one drags excessively and even the usually dependable Mayo contributes a less than great effort, probably due to the huge amount of pages drawn.
The story itself unfortunately is nothing all that special. It surrounds a series of murders happening each day where a "V' is left on the scene. Conrad initially blames it on Vampi, but it later becomes apparant that the murders are due to a council of wizards who are leaving the "V" because it forms a giant pentagram. Working on selecting a new leader, the Anti-Pope, they kill a person each day that one isn't selected until ten have been killed. In addition the ten council members have each selected a human host to be used in a battle of demons against each other to determine who will become their leader. Vampi and our heroes interfere, resulting in the deaths of the council and their defeat. For now anyway. Many characters from this story including Crissy Collins (one of the human hosts) as well as council member Tenichi would make appearances later in Vampirella's history once Rich Margopoulos became the Vampirella writer. These stories have already been covered on this blog.
Overall this is a rather dissappointing effort. While issue 64's book length Vampirella story was quite a good one, this one drags excessively and even the usually dependable Mayo contributes a less than great effort, probably due to the huge amount of pages drawn.
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