Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Vampirella 87


This reprint issue of Vampirella is from May 1980. Enrich provides the cover, a somewhat edited version of his cover from issue 52. An odd reprint issue here, melding together six Vampirella stories from issue 60, 61, 62, 65, 66 and 67. All stories were drawn by Jose Gonzalez and written by Bill Dubay. The stories used were "The Return of the Blood Red Queen of Hearts" from issue 60, "An Eye for an Eye" from issue 61, "Starpatch, Quark & Mother Blitz" from issue 62, "The Mad King of Drakulon" from issue 65, "To Be a Bride in Death" from issue 66 and "The Glorious Return of Sweet Baby Theda" from issue 67. The entire story is told under the overall title of "The Return of the Blood Red Queen". Some of the pages here have been edited, removed or rewritten.

As the story begins, the Blood Red Queen of Hearts, who lost her eyes to a demon in her first appearance (issue 49) tries once again to gather hearts so she can become Chaos's bride. She also seeks revenge on Vampirella by taking her eyes from her. Pendragon meanwhile meets a beautiful woman who steals his book on Chaos from him after knowcking him out. Once Vampi is captured, the Queen of Hearts takes her eyes. Meanwhile, the woman who stole the book on Chaos ends up causing a demon to come and attack her. Vampi escapes, but without her eyes is quite helpless. Suddenly a group of aliens arrive and save her, giving her her eyes back. They also restore Pendragon's heart, which had been stolen by the Queen. Vampi is returned by the aliens to near Drakulon where she meets the sole living person there, Cedrin, who actually lives on a moon near Drakulon. She is happy with him for a while until she realizes he stays alive by keeping captive various tourists to Drakulon, sucking the blood out of them. Vampi responds by drinking his blood, killing him. Vampirella then heads down to Drakulon where she has visions of those on Drakulon before its destruction, including her husband Tristan. Eventually she encounters Pantha, who joins her. Vampirella and Pantha return to Earth and head to Hollywood and immediately get picked by an old woman, Theda to take part in a movie about her. In actuality, Theda seeks to take Vampi's face and Pantha's body and attempt her own comeback. Luckily for our heroines, Theda's butler saves them and they are able to escape.

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