Vampirella 103

A really nice cover for this issue by Enrich featuring Vampirella swimming. Jose Gonzalez contributes yet another table of contents portrait of Vampirella.

First up is Vampirella's story, "The Last Prince!" by Jose Gonzalez (art) and Rich Margopoulos (story). Gonzalez returns to Vampirella to deliver his first new story since issue 82. He would handle the lead Vampirella story from now until the end of the magazine's life. This story features Vampirella dissappearing below the depth of the ocean where she meets Ariel, a prince of the sea who looks just like Adam. He lets Vampirella live with him and others who have lived beneath the sea. It ends up that the others are all diead however and he's been hiding his true form from her. Vampi and he head for the surface and while she makes it, he is unable to make it out of the sea and returns to where he came from. A short story at only 8 pages, but much higher quality than the epic stories we've had in Vampi over the last couple of years of this magazine.

Next is "The Mephisto List", the final story in the Cassandra St. Knight series. Art is by Auraleon and story is by Rich Margopoulos. A rather dissappointing finale to a dissappointing series. Cassandra is recruited to help a tibetan monk discover who stole 'The Mephisto List', which enables its user to summon demons. Both suspects are murdered, causing Cassandra to find the true culprit, a servant to the head monk. The series ends here with no apparant conclusion whatsoever.

Third is "The Final Solution!" by Jose Ortiz (art) and Rich Margopoulos (story), part of the 'Pantha' serial. Dr. Rictus attempts to prolong his life by extracting cells from Pantha, which will kill her. Pantha breaks free of her bonds, defeats Rictus's wife, his bigfoot son, and finally Rictus himself.

Fourth is "Terror in the Tomb!" by Luis Bermejo (art) and Nicola Cuti (story), part of 'The Fox' series. Sha-Ming and Will head with her uncle to Ch'In's Tomb where he finally obtains the wand he's been seeking; it ends up being a fake however and the real one is buried within a dead buried soldier. While this seems like an apparant resolution to the storyline, this series will continue for a while longer.

Fifth is "Pentesilia" by Esteban Maroto (art) and Timothy Moriarty (story). The story features the battle between the country of Thornodium and the Amazon country of Sapphae. Sapphae's queen, Pentesilia refuses to bow down and battles Gleyin, who had originally attempted to be an ambassador between the two countries. After a long battle he succeeds in killing her. Quite a dissappointing story from a story and art standpoint compared with Maroto's recent Vampirella work.

The issue wraps up with "Lover" with art by Artifact (Val Lakey, John Lakey and Laura Buscemi) and story by John Lakey. This story features a space shuttle manned all by women and their robot companion, nicknamed Lover. Lover runs amock, killing all the women aboard except the Captain, the only one that didn't mistreat him. Not a great story, but the artwork is quite good and Lover is quite a scary looking robot.

Vampirella 99

A reprinted cover kicks off this issue of Vampirella. The Sanjulian cover was originally published for issue 23.

First is "Spell of Slaughter" by Gonzalo Mayo (art) and Rich Margopoulos (story). With the assistance of Cassandra. St. Knight, in a cameo appearance (her usual segment is absent this issue), Vampi is able to track down Pendragon's captors. She heads there with Conrad and they fight the demons there. The leader, Shadrach, switches Vampi and Conrad's afflictions temporarily, but they are able to come out on top.

Next is "Missing You" by Leopold Sanchez (art) and Bruce Jones (story). Both were gone from Warren at this point but returned to Vampirella for this two part story. It surrounds a man whose blind wife has gone missing on the top of a mountain, where they had been mountain climbing. As he searches for her he flashes back to them getting in a fight over an affair he was having, the car accident that made her blind and other assorted things that built up to the trip into the mountain. Terrific story which won't conclude until issue 104.

Third is "Friends" with art by the Artifact team (Val Lakey, John Lakey & Laura Buscemi) and story by Val Lakey. A man is in love with his best friend's wife. One day he heads to their home under false pretences and drugs her, planning to rape her while she's unconscious. She ends up waking up soon afterwards, but he ties her up, beats her then rapes her anyway. At the end its revealed that his friend was doing the same thing to his wife, both of whom consented to such actions.

Fourth is Pantha's entry for this issue, "The Lair of Dr. Rictus" by Jose Ortiz (art) and Rich Margopoulos (story). Our heroes continue towards Haiti. Moonchild is able to stop the storm threatening them on the sea. They reach land and go see Dr. Rictus, an old man who initially appears very sick but looks fine the next morning.

The issue wraps up with the cover story "Salome", with story & art by Esteban Maroto.Salome, daughter of the king is in love with a prophet who has been jailed. He refuses her so she desires he be executed. Her father fears what the people would do to him were the prophet to be executed, but eventually goes along with her wishes, chopping off his head, then orders her executed as well.

Aside from Vampirella & Pantha's segments a really good issue.

Vampirella 94

I realized that I posted Vampirella 95 before issue 94, a bad mistake of mine given that there are many continous series in these issues. So here's issue 94!

Vampirella's cover this issue is a conglomoration of a number of different past issues, something which had already been done before on issue 45's cover. Jose Gonzalez contributes a portrait of Vampirella on the table of contents page, something that would be common throughout the rest of this title's run.

First up is "Death Machine" by Rudy Nebres (art) and Rich Margopoulos (story). Taking place immediately after the end of the prior tale, the leader of Apocalypse Inc arranges for a humanoid robot to attack Vampi at her home. Vampi eventually defeats it, revealing a 10 year old girl who was controlling it.

Next up is the second part of "Cassandra St. Knight" by Auraleon (art) and Rich Margopoulos (story). Continuing from the past story, Cassandra and Tarot battle a psychic entity that follows them to the real world from hell. Eventually they are able to defeat it and send it back to hell.

Another segment in the Pantha serial is third, "Druids on 54th Street!" by Jose Ortiz (art, who takes on this role for the remainder of the serial's run) and Rich Margopoulos (story). Pantha goes back to being a stripper, but the place she joins is occupied by a bunch of cult members who try to sacrifice her in order to obtain great positions in life. Using her Panther shapeshifting power, Pantha is able to defeat them all.

"The Big Shot" is next, by Delando Nino (art) and Michael Fleisher (story). The story is about a human cannonball in a circus who kills a fellow performer, whose girlfriend gets revenge by switching the cannon that he had ordered with one that ends up killing him.

Fifth is "The Last Gift", a christmas story by Esteban Maroto (art) and Roger McKenzie (story). The story takes place a number of years after the death of Santa, all his reindeer and helpers except for one. In a post apocalyptic world the last survivor tries to restore Christmas to how it used to be but fails and ends up killing himself. Quite a depressing Christmas tale!

Last is "Gunplay" by the Artifact team (John Lakey, Val Lakey & Laura Buscemi). This story is about a group of outlaws who rob a bank but get pursued by the cops and mostly get gunned down. The last two are a man and his brother, who is already severly wounded. Eventually the outlaw agrees to shoot his brother to put him out of his misery. The ending reveals that it was actually kids all along. As usual, terrific art by the Lakeys.

Creepy 130

Here's a late issue of Creepy from the summer of 1981. The cover is a good one, by Richard Courtney, featuring the partially dug out skeleton of a giant. This issue features a one page Uncle Creepy intro drawn by Rudy Nebres.

First story is "The Vampire on the Hill" by Martin Salvador (art) and John Ellis Sech (story). The story features a writer in a new town who is attacked by a vampire and eventually becomes one himself. Not that impressive of a story.

Second is "Duel Nature" with is written & illustrated by Laura Buscemi, John Lakey and Artifact (Val Lakey). This story features an alien creature that crashes to Earth and battles a wheelchair bound taxidermist. By the end of the battle both are dead, although the man is able to successfully stuff and display the alien. As usual, Lakey's artwork here is terrific.

Third is "Screaming in the Rain" by Alfredo Alcala (art) and Don McGregor (story). At some future point in time, acid rain has devestated the Earth such that is becoming uninhabitable. The industrial firm whose pollution caused this disaster try to depart the Earth in a rocket ship, only for the acid rain to destroy it!

"Mythologia" by Fred Carrillo (art) and Nicola Cuti (story) is fourth. A ship reaches an uncharted island where they find various scary and beautiful creatures who are the last of their kind. One of the men kills one of the creatures, believing he'll obtain immortality, but he ends up being turned into a centaur who is killed by his companions.

Next is "Missing Love" by Moreno Casares (art) and Brian Jacobs (story). This story takes place in space, featuring an astronaut who is approached by an old man to rescue his beautiful daughter. The astronaut finds the daughter, who ends up being a beast woman.

Last is "Small Dreams" by Herb Arnold (art) and Maggie Pierce (story). The story is about a midget who tries to become a superhero. Although his first quest is successful, when he fights his landlord, he ends up getting killed.

A so-so issue. most of the stories are good, with the exception of the last one.