“The Promise”
Writer: Matthew Rosenberg
Artist: Neil Googe
Color Artist: Antonio Fabela
Letterer: Troy Peteri
Review by Carl Bryan
I was warned that immortality can make one nostalgic, but I didn’t expect it to happen quite so soon.
– Nightwing to Alfred
DC Vs. Vampires: Hunters #1- “The Promise” is a blood-soaked one-shot tale of vampire violence! The Son of Batman, after years of training to be an assassin, is on a path toward utter destruction of the vampire race. Enter Damian Wayne: vampire hunter!
DC Vs. Vampires: Hunters #1
Matthew Rosenberg provides a wonderful sidebar story to the current DC Vs. Vampires mini-series. As a recent fan of all the alternate timelines; Tom Taylor’s DCeased, Sean Murphy’s White Knight, and Matthew Rosenberg’s DC Vs. Vampires, we get the best of “what could be”.
As we already know, the vampire king is Dick Grayson, but the implications of this are explored on a lot of different levels by Rosenberg in this spin-off. Pair that with a vampire hunter in Damian Wayne (albeit, he’s a vampire too… shades of Marvel’s Blade) and you get quite the family affair of sibling rivalry.
Enter Alfred. Why did DC kill him in the main timeline? Sigh… he is the voice of reason, for both Dick and Damian.
The artwork is reminiscent of what is going on in Tom Taylor and Bruno Redondo’s outstanding Nightwing series. The panels and the “map” type layouts are excellent. I hope this type of storytelling continues to bleed to other artists as Neil Googe knocks this out of the park!
I do have one quibble, though. If Dick knows that Robin’s going to try to kill him and he subsequently encourages his vampire minions to kill Damian, why do we get the ending we have? No spoilers here, but it gives us cause to pause as Dick gives all the wrong cues to end up where he is. To me, this is a huge plot hole!
Conclusion
With DC Vs. Vampires: Hunters #1, Rosenberg gives us a great diversion story that delves a bit deeper into the Bat family angst in this vampire world. Is this a cliffhanger, a one-shot, or a cash grab? I mean… I’d gladly pay for Alfred to be placed into a Lazarus Pit anytime?
Images Courtesy of DC Entertainment
