Hello, my friends! As our annual thirst for the spooky & supernatural continues to grow, I welcome you back as we move on with our look at our featured piece for this season…
So far, we seen our featured Belmont become eternally wedded to his lady fair. However, not all is well throughout the land as a group of loyal followers have gathered to bring back a longtime & un-dead enemy to mankind and succeeded. As such, let’s continue our trek by checking out…
Published on April 27, 2005, this entry ended up selling 5,329 copies upon initial release. So how does this issue progress this particular narrative? Let’s dive and find out.
Issue 2 opens with a bolt of lightning striking down on the castle ruins as the newly-resurrected Lord of Darkness transforms into a Man-Bat and flies towards a graveyard before he makes his way into a tomb.
At the same time, Christopher and Illyana have consummated their marriage as the new couple lie in bed together. Suddenly, Deimos comes in and urgently tells him that “a great sacrilege” has fallen upon his family name.
Later, Christopher, Deimos and a fellow friend arrive at Legacy Cemetery to find the front gate mangled and the Belmont tombstone smashed to pieces. If that wasn’t bad enough, they then discover the family crypt in ruins and the corpses of Christopher’s parents are hung on the wall like upside-down crosses along with the Impaler’s symbol scratched beside them, informing them that Dracula is back.
Meanwhile, Lord Bartley and Sona are having dinner as he mentions that despite the resurrection, their dark lord is still weary from his century-long sleep. She replies by her willing intention to give some of her blood since she’s much younger than her uncle as she mocks his age. Angered by her comments, Bartley grabs her wrist and tries telling her to watch her attitude. However, Sona holds him at knifepoint before shoving him over and heads into the adjacent room where they’re keeping Dracula & his coffin. From there, she punctures her wrist and begins to pour some of her blood into his mouth.
We then cut back to town where the villagers are doing all that they can to protect their home from the Lord of Darkness as a man named Gaspar Totoyan and his grandson Viktor walk through the streets as the elderly gent tells his kin that they must do everything in their power to help out in Christopher Belmont’s upcoming fight. Just then, Gaspar’s granddaughter and Viktor’s sister named Pascha arrives with a bag containing something that’ll help our hero out. From there, all three of them take their leave.
Over at the Belmont mansion, Christopher tells his fellow associates that Dracula has come back as Deimos retrieves the family’s specific weapons and items for him to use in the upcoming mission. Just then, Illyana comes in prepared for the quest. However, Christopher tells her that such a dangerous task “is no place for a woman”. She shoots that excuse down by stating that she’s just as much a part of this hunt as her husband is. Just then, Gaspar and his grandchildren arrive to help. He says that the Belmonts have entrusted the Totoyans to safeguard a certain signature family weapon. As such, he gives the Vampire Killer whip to Lord Belmont.
Following a quick scene where Sona tells Bartley that Dracula has now been fully restored…
…Christopher is about to head out. However, he wants Illyana to stay behind with Viktor for her safety. As such, he & his men along with Gaspar and Pascha head out on the quest. Afterwards, Issue 2 ends with Illyana telling Viktor that they’ll hunt down Dracula on their own since she personally wishes to “mount that Demon’s Head on a spike”.
The artwork continues to be solid throughout, especially since there’s fewer gradient backgrounds, especially since the coloring helps important details stand out and helps to make its scenes feel vital. Just like the first issue, there’s a mild amount of dialogue that never feels excessive and does make the pacing feel a bit brisk. However, there’s still not much in terms of added development towards our characters. There is the added fact of the Totoyan trio and the fact that their family is just as involved with the vampire slaying as the Belmonts, which does add some depths to the series’ mythos (even though apparently, this comic isn’t considered to be part of the main timeline). However, some minor details would help make these characters become a bit more fleshed out. Other than that, this continues to set up the major players for the remainder of the series and prepares the reader for the fight to come.
Overall, this is a fairly good build-up. While its character development is fairly thin and there’s not much in terms of action, it continues to build on the present situation at a flowing pace with solid art, an narrative that’s easy to follow and a cast of characters that are finally solidified by the time the overall premise is firmly established. It promises to give a epic battle in the issues to come and we’ll be there to see how it all turns out. Until next time, see you around the C-Cubed!
Castlevania (created by Hitoshi Akamatsu) is owned by Konami.
