Vampirella 74

A photo of Barbara Leigh is used for the cover of this issue of Vampirella, dated December 1978. Yet another all reprint issue, outside of the cover.

Up first is "Hell From On High" by Jose Gonzalez (art) and Steve Englehart (story), from Vampirella 22. Englehart was a pretty good writer who took on Vampirella for a very short period of time in 1973, doing only three stories, two of which are reprinted in this issue. The story features Vampi & co seeking out the true killer of Conrad Van Helsing's brother since by this point its been proven that Vampi wasn't responsible. They head to the snowy mountains where they meet a priest and the suspected killer, but it ends up that the killer was actually under the priest's control, and Vampi is able to defeat him. Pretty good story, a rarity for Vampirella!

Next is another Vampirella story, "The Blood Queen of Bayou Parish!" by Jose Gonzalez (art) and Steve Englehart (story), from Vampirella 23. Vampirella and company head to New Orleans where it is rumored that a cult led by Father Jonas (from the prior story) is. When they head there, Pendragon meets Sally, a woman who looks just like his ex wife Rosie. In actuality, Sally is a woman brought back from the dead after she killed herself and is able to look like any woman. She also happens to be working under Father Jonas, who wasn't defeated after all. Vampirella and company are able to defeat them once and for all.

Third is "Wolf Hunt", from Vampirella 14, with art by Esteban Maroto, which was his Warren debut in its original appearance, and story by Joe Wehrle. An old man finds a woman who transforms into a wolf in the moonlight and captures her in his castle. She is eventually able to escape and take revenge. As always, Maroto's art is quite good here. Alas, with merely three stories in this issue, this is the end of this issue.

Vampirella 76

This issue of Vampirella features a cover with a photo of Barbara Leigh.

First is Vampirella in "Curse of the Pasha's Princess" by Jose Gonzalez (art) and Bill Dubay (story). In this story Vampirella and Pantha attend a seance with a sultan hoping to speak to his dead wife. The dead wife's spirit appears, but transfers into Vampirella's body, causing Vampirella to act very out of character. Eventually the spirit is expunged from out of Vampirella, returning her to normal.

Second is "Gravity Field" by Pepe Moreno Casares (art) and Bob Toomey (story). This story features a group of astronauts that come across a black hole. One of the astronauts kills one of the others, not under his own control, and they throw his corpse into the black hole. He returns alive soon after however. The black hole starts speaking to them, revealing that he caused the murder then brought the man back to life. Lonely, the black hole asks them to bring it with them, which they do.

Third is "The Games of Sharn" by Ramon Torrents (art, his final Warren story) and Bruce Jones (story). In this story an alien creature who has lived on Earth is found by his home world, who plan to destroy Earth as punishment. Our protagonist demands the ability to play 'The Games of Sharn' and save Earth if he wins. The 'game' involves him dying over and over again throughout time as varous men in search for a key, which ends up being inside his lover's heart. By winning he spares Earth and life returns as if it never happened.

Fourth is "Swift Sculpture" by Val Mayerik (art) and Bob Toomey (story). A hunter woman travels through the arctic with her wolves, fighting off some yetis along the way. She eventually reaches a cave where they encounter a dragon, which was the purpose of her trip. The dragon is able to heal her wounded wolf with her blood, and creatues ice sculptures with his breath. She bring him back to her society where they have a female dragon waiting for him.

Fifth is "Time For a Change" by Alex Nino (art) and Nicola Cuti (story). This story features a crew on a spaceship where it is suspected that there is an alien among them. The alien reveals to the last remaining human that everyone is an alien clone but her. It tells her she should keep it alive to provide company but she kills it anyway.

Last is "The Haunted" by Russ Heath (art) and Bruce Jones (story). This story features a man, Roland, who goes into a haunted house. Since childhood he's always tried to compete with his succesful and brave brother, even if it gets him in danger. The brother goes overseas during the war and continues to have a lot of success. Roland ends up going crazy from his experiences in the house and his brother returns, revealing that he was hiding in another country to avoid going to war and that he's actually a coward.

Vampirella 78

A photo of Barbara Leigh is on the cover of this issue of Vampirella.

Up first is "Kiss of the Dragon Queen", the latest Vampirella story. Art is by Gonzalo Mayo and story is by Bill Dubay. Our heroes, including Vampi, Pantha, Adam, Conrad and Pendragon are in Hong Kong where a dragon has been appearing. Pantha and Vampi are being set up by a man pretending to be a movie producer. The dragon meanwhile is killed, revealed to be a crocodile, but it is rumored that the real dragon is still out there. Not that good a Vampirella story, unfortunately.

Second is "Little Guy" by Auraleon (art) and Nicola Cuti (story). This story surrounds a very short man at a circus who a colleague desires to help him in a robbery by hiding in a crate due to his small size. his wife tells him that she'll leave him if it does it, so he refuses, but the collegue murders her to get him to do it. Rather than do what he asks however, the small man instead cuts off his colleague's legs and puts him in the crate.

Third is "Passion" by Jose Ortiz (art) and Steve Englehart (story). A rather confusing story featuring a soldier who calls himself Errol Flynn fighting for the French Legion. He is a very strange man, as discussed by his fellow soldier. He leaves a brothel, passing up sex, and refuses to fight, willing to go to jail instead. When he has no choice but to fight, a Tyranosaurus Rex suddenly appears and eats him. A rather odd, confusing ending which I find a hard time understanding.

Next is "The Service" by Jim Starlin & Alfredo Alcala (art) and Bruce Jones (story). This story initially starts out with a woman and a lover who comes back to sleep with her every few months, but never can stay that long. It ends up that the man is actually a robot who she pays to come sleep with her, and when he breaks down she asks a repairman to come, who ends up being an actual human man, something which the women had pretty much wiped out from the universe entirely. In order to protect his secret, the woman has him stay and sleep with him, as well as become essentially a slave while he repairs her robot. He is forbidden from leaving when the robot becomes fixed since she has become so used to him. She says that he can't kill him as she files a weekly report that will cause people to come after him if they suddenly stop, but he outsmarts her by killing her and creating a robot copy of her to do the reports instead.

Last is "Zooner or Later" by Russ Heath (art) and Bruce Jones (story). A terrific, terrific story, probably one of Warren's best 20 stories ever. A man finds out he is dying of cancer, so he tries desperately to find any way to save himself, from experimental drugs to faith healers to even devil worshippers. All attempts fail. He learns of a tribe called the Zooner from a cook who says hold the power to reincarnate someone with the mind that they had before they died. He heads to Africa where he initially finds it a meaningless lead, but a drunk at a bar tells him how to find them. He finally does find the Zooner, who worship the Hippopotomus and they sacrifice him. He awakens as an embryo, very excited to be soon born again, but when he is born, it is as a baby Hippo!

Vampirella 69

Another issue of Vampirella featuring Barbara Leigh on the cover.

Up first is "The Saga of Frick and Frack Freckles and the Phantom of Hollywood" by Gonzalo Mayo (art) and Bill Dubay (story). This title appears to have been originally intended for the story that ended up in issue 71 of Vampirella, previously covered by me. The story features Vampirella in Hollywood, being pursued by an old lady inventor to obtain her for her colleague, an old man. By using robots, she is able to capture Vampi, and the story ends, to be continued in the next issue.

Next is "Hit Six", with art by Luis Bermejo and story by Bruce Jones. The story is about a hit man who tries to quit the business but to pay off a debt is forced to go on one last hit, to kill a beautiful woman. They end up going out for a while since he's got a while before he has to kill her, but eventually the people who hired him come after him.

Third is "Off the Beaten Empath" by Luis Duranona (art) and Gerry Boudreau (story). The lead character of the story is an "Empath", a person whose emotions are heavily influenced by the emotions of those around them. It gets so bad for our main character though that he actually transforms if the emotions of someone nearby is too great. This result in him getting fired from his job, fighting a mugger, and eventually fighting his wife until they kill each other.

Fourth is "Reagan Redux" by Jose Ortiz (art) and Bruce Jones (story). The story features a man who suddenly ends up in the desert with amnesia, and meets a woman and her son who live out there. While wandering in the desert, the man suddenly vanishes, only to appear again with the boy, very sick. With a blood transfusion he's able to save the boy's life. It ends up that the man is the boy, from the future, all grown up. Jones points this story out as one he was dissappointed in the artwork for in the Warren Companion when the artist, Ortiz drew a poodle as the boy's pet in the storyline instead of a more typical american dog.

Last is "Jessie's Friend" by Gonzalo Mayo (art) and Bruce Jones (story). Jessie dumps her boyfriend and heads off to get a new apartment to avoid him. Across the street she sees an old man in another building always staring at her. In fact she never sees him not staring at her and eventually realizes that he's dead. At the same time, her boyfriend has been calling her, trying to get her back. Nervous due to the old man's body, she tells him to come over, but it ends up it was the old man she was talking to the whole time!

Vampirella 71

Here's another issue of Vampirella featuring a photograph of Barbara Leigh, as Vampirella.

First up is "The Case of the Connected Clows and the Collector!" by Jose Gonzalez (art) and Bill Dubay (story). Vampi is in Hollywood with Pantha, working on shooting for a movie. Meanwhile movie stars have been dissappearing including one working on the movie. It ends up that a crazed man at the production studio has been kidnapping them and he does so to Vampi, who is able to escape. A parallel storyline featuring Pantha and her encounter with siamese twins with domineering sexual habits also takes place. In contrast to the recent Vampi stories I've been reviewing, this is a pretty good story, with terrific art by Gonzalez.

"Trial of the Sorceress" is next, by Esteban Maroto (art) and Maroto & Bill Dubay (story). It features a woman accused of being a sorceress by multiple men. She is found guilty and is tortured. At the end it seems that one of the accusers set her up for defying him, but she ends up being an actual sorceress and takes her revenge.

"Night of the Chicken" is third, by Jess Jodloman (art) and Michael Fleisher (story). This is a bizarre story about an old man who feeds real humans to his chickens. The story features multiple women dressing up in a strange chicken outfit. In the end the old man ends up getting eaten by his own chicken. Quite an odd story, but very good art.

Fourth is "Machu Picchu" by Luis Bermejo (art) and Josep Toutain & Nicola Cuti (story). This story was originally intended to be for an additional Warren magazine, 'Yesterday, Today... Tomorrow', but the magazine was never published, so it ended up here in Vampirella. The story features a treasure hunter at an Incan temple to tries to take the treasure there, and instead encounters astronauts, who tell him that its uranium! He doesn't listen to them and is killed along with the woman who has been helping them.

Last is "Australopithicus" by Leo Duranona (art) and Bruce Jones (story). This story features two storylines, one taking place with prehistoric man and one taking place with a man in modern times being forced to do things he doesn't want to do. The storylines converge at the end, with disastrous results for our main character. Very good art by Duranona in the prehistoric part of the story.

Vampirella 77

Here's another issue of Vampirella featuring Barbara Leigh on the cover. This issue's Vampi story, "Shadow of the Dragon" is by Gonzalo Mayo (art) and Bill Dubay (story). This is a rare actionless Vampi story, in which Vampi is barely even featured at all. Our entire group of heroes are in Hong Kong, where some mysterious murders have taken place. While Vampi and Pantha are touring the city, and Pendragon is getting in trouble at a local bar, Adam and Conrad are told of mysterious murders taking place in the city, and how they may be tied into legends of Dragons and events that happen in the year of the Dragon. That's about it from this entry, which continues into the next issue.

First backup for this story is "The Night of the Yeti" by Russ Heath (art) and Michael Fleischer (story). A man falls off a cliff while hiking in the himalyas while his wife and colleague watch. The man survives the fall, but is forced to hike for days to get back to civilization. Along the way he confronts a bear in a cave and has his throat slashed and his winter clothes destroyed. He wears the bear's pelt, making him look like a yeti. He eventually finds his wife and colleague, who desires her, and she is accidently killed when he is shot at. The shots cause an avalanche, burying his collegue. Our protagonist continues the wander the himalayas, becoming the yet if legend. Very good art by Heath, as usual.

Third story is "The Night the Birds Fell" by Moreno Casares (art) and Nicola Cuti (story). Casares was a very good Spanish artist whose style was nothing like that of the other Spanish artists who worked at Warren. This story features an air traffic controller terrified of birds who goes on a rampage at an airport, resulting in planes crashing into each other, causing a horrific disaster at the airport.

Fourth is "Siren of the Seekonk" by Auraleon (art) and Jonathan Thomas (story). A man falls in love with a water woman he finds by a bridge. With his life crumbling around him, the man decides to kill his ex-wife and feed her flesh to the water woman. Upon finding that she already has a mate, he loses it and jumps off the bridge, trying to join them.

Next is "Weird Wolf", with art by Jeff Easley (a rare solo appearance by him, he usually is paired with Val Mayerik) and story by Gerry Boudreau. This short story, at only 3 pages, features a civilized werewolf who is pursued by the sheriff of a small town. The sheriff is able to take out the werewolf by tricking him into using a gun that fires backwards, killing him while not causing the sheriff to turn into a werewolf himself when killing him.

Last is "Futura House is Not a Home" by Isidro Mones (art) and Nicola Cuti (story). Mones was a terrific artist during his original run with Warren from 1973-1976. After a couple of year absense from Warren he returned for a little while, but his art had declined tremendously. This is one of those stories. Its unfortunate, as he was quite a good artist, with a very realistic style during his original run. Anyway, this story features a family testing a new futuristic home. It ends up that the computer running the house has been creating robot clones of the family member in a plot by the president to replace the entire populace with easy to manipulate robots.

Overall, a slightly above average issue. No particularly great stories (although Thomas's is quite a good one), but at the same time no lousy ones.

Vampirella 67

The cover of this issue features Barbara Leigh dressed as Vampirella, in the first of about a half a dozen or so covers featuring her. The Vampirella story for this issue is "The Glorious Return of Sweet Baby Theda" by Jose Gonzalez (art) and Bill Dubay (story). Vampirella and Pantha 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.

"The Quest" by Ramon Torrents (art) and Budd Lewis (story) is next. This story features an Amazoness-esque heroine who tries to save a holy city from a group of barbarians. In the city she finds a group of dead lords as well as a pair of bizarre pillars made up of naked people who ask her to join them. After saving the city from the Barbarians she does so. The final page reveals that the entire city is actually a giant spaceship of aliens whose time goes much, much slower than ours. All the humans in the pillars end up being used as fuel for the ship. Quite an interesting story here.

"Fish Bait" by Alex Nino (art) and Nicola Cuti (story) is next. It features an underground city that is overrun by sea monster. The entire human populace of the city end up being used as fishbait for the fish people who live nearby.

"Home Sweet Horologium" is next, by Paul Neary (art) and Nicola Cuti (story). This story is about an Earth colony that keeps being attacked by a large creature, 'Dathra'. A man goes after the creature and harms it, but it ends up the creature was actually his son, who, as the first born on the colony ended up turning into a monster at night. Having harmed him, the boy remains a monster permanently.

"Choice Cuts" by Russ Heath (art) and Cary Bates (story) is next, a very short story at only three pages long. Its about a man and fiance who crash in the desert and are stranded for over two months. Eventually the man is forced to feed her by chopping his own legs off and feeding them to her. Pretty good story here.

Last is "The Last Dragon King" by Esteban Maroto (art) and Roger McKenzie (story). This story, which is in color features a reptilian humanoid hero and his dragon pet who fight a number of other reptilian creatures. Not McKenzie or Maroto's best hour here.