Interview: Vampirella Rages in New Christopher Priest Series
Aug 22, 2023
Interview by Nicki Faust
They're coming for her baby. They're going to murder him before her eyes. And then she's going to kill every last damn one of them. This is Vampirella/Dracula: Rage from Dynamite Comics.
In the following interview, writer Christopher Priest (Black Panther, Deathstroke, Superman: Lost) explains why it's probably unwise to piss off a vampire...
PREVIEWSworld: Year One is in the rearview — fans got a peek at Vampirella’s early days, while also keeping up with her current status following the big events of Vampirella/Dracula: Unholy. Now Dracula is back in focus for Rage. How has he come back into the picture?
Christopher Priest: In Vampirella/Dracula: Unholy, Vampirella married FBI Agent Matthew Ecsed as part of a blood ritual required to stave off the “Dracula virus,” a necromantic strain created from Dracula’s DNA and passed down through generations to the unwitting Matt. The ritual succeeded in averting Matt’s becoming Dracula, but not before Matt passed the virus on to someone else.
An unforeseen complication of Vampirella’s efforts to save Matt was her discovering she was expecting her first child. Vampirella: Year One features our vampire mom-to-be telling her origin story to her unborn child. Year One concludes with Vampi going into premature labor, leading to our new story, Rage.
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Although now severed from the Ecsed family line, Dracula has been resurrected in the bloodline of another. He knows Vampirella’s son is a carrier of the Dracula virus, his own DNA, which makes this a child of Dracula and a carrier of his legacy.
PREVIEWSworld: The finale of the last series was teased with the birth of Vampirella’s baby, as she was pregnant throughout it in the scenes set in the present. Due to some shifting of story beats, the next baby reveals are happening here — but we hear it’s not set to be so happy ever after. What is setting off this titular Rage for our heroine?
Priest: After suffering terrible birth complications, Vampirella awakens in Rage #1 and is told her baby did not survive. However, she soon discovers this is not true. Deranged cultists have stolen her baby, and Vampi launches out to hunt them down.
PREVIEWSworld: You’ve described Vampirella in this story as a “shark,” which fits well with her vampire abilities as well. She’s lurking in the dark, hunting victims, and she smells blood in the water. How is this vision of Vampirella going to be so starkly different from how fans are used to seeing her?
Priest: Having tracked the cultists, Vampirella is on the verge of recovering her son when the newborn infant is murdered before her eyes. This triggers an inconsolable rage within her, stripping away her compassion and goodness while revealing a Vampirella we’ve never seen before.
These people murdered her son. Now she’s going to kill every damn last one of them.
This, ironically, puts Dracula on the side of the angels as he pursues Vampirella in an effort to save her from becoming completely consumed by hate and, therefore, becoming as evil as he is.
PREVIEWSworld: The Vampirella mythos has been built up quite a bit since you took the wheel for our 50th-anniversary celebration in 2019. What other characters can we expect to see in Rage? We hear Victory will be swinging through for an appearance, while fans can also check out her solo efforts in her new series.
Priest: Ha ha! Victory doesn’t swing (or does she…?). Victory becomes Dracula’s ersatz Renfield for this story arc. We will not see much of Vampirella’s supporting cast as this is a much leaner and more tightly focused story: she’s hunting, she’s killing, can Drac prevent Vampirella from losing her soul?
In pacing and tone Rage will be much more like Lone Wolf & Cub than Paper Girls (both series I love, by the way). Tonally it will be a rapid departure from the kinds of stories we’ve typically done in this shared universe, as we push a good and noble character well beyond what she can reasonably bear.
She’s going to kill every damn last one of them.
Vampirella/Dracula: Rage #1 is available now at your local comic shop. Reserve your copy with PREVIEWSworld Pullbox.
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They're coming for her baby. They're going to murder him before her eyes. And then she's going to kill every last damn one of them.
Picking up where Vampirella: Year One left off! In an unprecedented turn for our titular heroine, Vampirella/Dracula: Rage presents Vampirella as you've never seen her before. Inconsolable grief yields to irreducible rage as Vampirella tracks the cultists who threaten her son across Europe and America, unsettling political and economic alliances and unraveling the global network of the baby's father - Dracula.
In a macabre exchange of norms, it is Dracula, the Lord of Vampires, hunting the elusive Vampiri, trying to save Vampirella from herself - or, more precisely, to save her from becoming like him. To this end, Dracula recruits Victory, once Vampirella's closest friend, to act as his ersatz Renfield while they try (and fail) to anticipate the next moves of a woman whose anger has now completely consumed her.
This bold new limited series bookends Vampirella/Dracula: Unholy, bringing Vampirella's conflict with the Prince of Darkness to its ultimate conclusion and setting up a dramatic change in direction for the Vampirella!
They're coming for her baby. They're going to murder him before her eyes. And then she's going to kill every last damn one of them.
Picking up where Vampirella: Year One left off! In an unprecedented turn for our titular heroine, Vampirella/Dracula: Rage presents Vampirella as you've never seen her before. Inconsolable grief yields to irreducible rage as Vampirella tracks the cultists who threaten her son across Europe and America, unsettling political and economic alliances and unraveling the global network of the baby's father - Dracula.
In a macabre exchange of norms, it is Dracula, the Lord of Vampires, hunting the elusive Vampiri, trying to save Vampirella from herself - or, more precisely, to save her from becoming like him. To this end, Dracula recruits Victory, once Vampirella's closest friend, to act as his ersatz Renfield while they try (and fail) to anticipate the next moves of a woman whose anger has now completely consumed her.
This bold new limited series bookends Vampirella/Dracula: Unholy, bringing Vampirella's conflict with the Prince of Darkness to its ultimate conclusion and setting up a dramatic change in direction for the Vampirella!
They're coming for her baby. They're going to murder him before her eyes. And then she's going to kill every last damn one of them.
Picking up where Vampirella: Year One left off! In an unprecedented turn for our titular heroine, Vampirella/Dracula: Rage presents Vampirella as you've never seen her before. Inconsolable grief yields to irreducible rage as Vampirella tracks the cultists who threaten her son across Europe and America, unsettling political and economic alliances and unraveling the global network of the baby's father - Dracula.
In a macabre exchange of norms, it is Dracula, the Lord of Vampires, hunting the elusive Vampiri, trying to save Vampirella from herself - or, more precisely, to save her from becoming like him. To this end, Dracula recruits Victory, once Vampirella's closest friend, to act as his ersatz Renfield while they try (and fail) to anticipate the next moves of a woman whose anger has now completely consumed her.
This bold new limited series bookends Vampirella/Dracula: Unholy, bringing Vampirella's conflict with the Prince of Darkness to its ultimate conclusion and setting up a dramatic change in direction for the Vampirella!
They're coming for her baby. They're going to murder him before her eyes. And then she's going to kill every last damn one of them.
Picking up where Vampirella: Year One left off! In an unprecedented turn for our titular heroine, Vampirella/Dracula: Rage presents Vampirella as you've never seen her before. Inconsolable grief yields to irreducible rage as Vampirella tracks the cultists who threaten her son across Europe and America, unsettling political and economic alliances and unraveling the global network of the baby's father - Dracula.
In a macabre exchange of norms, it is Dracula, the Lord of Vampires, hunting the elusive Vampiri, trying to save Vampirella from herself - or, more precisely, to save her from becoming like him. To this end, Dracula recruits Victory, once Vampirella's closest friend, to act as his ersatz Renfield while they try (and fail) to anticipate the next moves of a woman whose anger has now completely consumed her.
This bold new limited series bookends Vampirella/Dracula: Unholy, bringing Vampirella's conflict with the Prince of Darkness to its ultimate conclusion and setting up a dramatic change in direction for the Vampirella!
They're coming for her baby. They're going to murder him before her eyes. And then she's going to kill every last damn one of them.
Picking up where Vampirella: Year One left off! In an unprecedented turn for our titular heroine, Vampirella/Dracula: Rage presents Vampirella as you've never seen her before. Inconsolable grief yields to irreducible rage as Vampirella tracks the cultists who threaten her son across Europe and America, unsettling political and economic alliances and unraveling the global network of the baby's father - Dracula.
In a macabre exchange of norms, it is Dracula, the Lord of Vampires, hunting the elusive Vampiri, trying to save Vampirella from herself - or, more precisely, to save her from becoming like him. To this end, Dracula recruits Victory, once Vampirella's closest friend, to act as his ersatz Renfield while they try (and fail) to anticipate the next moves of a woman whose anger has now completely consumed her.
This bold new limited series bookends Vampirella/Dracula: Unholy, bringing Vampirella's conflict with the Prince of Darkness to its ultimate conclusion and setting up a dramatic change in direction for the Vampirella!
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Nicki Faust's heart is as cold as concrete in the Chicago winter. When not writing for PREVIEWSworld, Nicki is busy playing Limbo on Twitch, writing about the great robot uprising on Medium, and completing the untitled follow-up to the 2012 best-seller, Sue Storm: A Nude Photobook.
