Die!Namite: Blood Red #5 // Review
Vampirella’s trying to contact Dejah. She's trying to do so in her mind. As the Martian in question has the ability to read minds, perhaps it would stand to reason that she would be able to also project her thoughts. Vampirella doesn’t really know if she’s got that ability, though. The heroes are still trying to get to know each other in Die!Namite! Blood Red #5. Writer Fred Van Lente and artist Jordi Perez close-out their crossover mash-up mini-series with colorist Ellie Wright. For a creative team has a lot of ground to cover in the final issue. To their credit, it flows quite smooth smoothly from cover to cover.
Dejah isn't going to have a whole lot of time to talk toVampirella right away. She's fighting a head. The head in question is attached to a few insect legs. The head doesn't wanna have to deal with any of the drama it's been brought into its lab. Of course, that kind of work it's doing is not exactly nice. So it's going to attract the attention of a few heroes. Things aren't going to and well for the head. The heroes on the other hand? They might actually have a chance.
A big crossover can be kind of a difficult thing to negotiate. Invariably there's a character or two that just don't quite get the kind of time on the page that they need to. Fred Van Lente deftly juggles all of the different characters and all of their different personalities and everything that's going on in the plot with room to spare around the edges of everything. It doesn't feel too cluttered. It doesn't feel too rushed. And yet it feels like it's moving along briskly enough for the kind of action that he's looking to put on the page.
The action is brought to the page quite well by Perez. There's a strong sense of momentum as the action ramps up at the end of the series. It can be all too easy to clutter. The page with big crowds of people attacking each other and things of that nature in the big finale to a series like this. Perez manages some very clever work that feels very dynamic and packs and interesting punch that goes beyond the usual sorts of impenetrable slugfest that so often dominate the climax of this sort of series.
Everything rushes through a really quickly. It's a lot of fun to watch. The science fiction and fantasy tropes being flung across the page. Don't always necessarily have to make a whole lot of sense in order for them to fit together really well. It all feels internally consistent. And that's the important thing. Beyond that, there isn't necessarily a whole lot of cohesive drama. There doesn't really need to be a whole lot of that, though. It's been enough fun seeing all of these heroes work together that it doesn't have to have the kind of gravitas that big crossover might otherwise have.
