I, Vampire #5 – Review

By: Joshua Hale Fialkov (writer), Andrea Sorrentino (artist), Marcelo Maiolo (colorist)

The Story: You’re one to talk, Batman—most people think you’re a vampire, too.

The Review: Throwing in any guest star of the Dark Knight’s caliber can be a risky business.  As a major character with an established, popular fan-base, people have certain expectations of him.  It’s something like wearing a sombrero at work; you can’t really go walking around, doing your normal thing, and not explain to people what’s the deal with the sombrero.  So it goes with Batman.  If you want to have him in there, you better have a good reason for it.

I suppose the fact that vampires have taken nest in Gotham is reason enough to get Batman involved.  More than that, Fialkov puts the caped crusader to good use, balancing both his hyper-competence with the fact that he’s mostly out of place with these particular foes.  Despite Andrew’s unnatural abilities, Batman’s able to hold his own, actually getting the vampire riled up.  At the same time, you know Batman only has an academic idea of what he’s up against, a frustration he expresses by being gruffer than ever: “You’re still a monster…  Fine.  We work together.  For now.”

Despite the presence of such a major icon in their midst, the regular characters keep their composure and make it clear this is their title.  While John does little more in the issue than try to keep a fight from breaking out among his companions, Tig actually attempts to incite one (“He’s a vampire!  He’s in love with the one who did all of this.  Kill him.  Better yet, let me.”).  If you hoped she’d be a force of cuteness, albeit a deadly one, in this series, you learn very quickly that she’s not taken in by Andrew’s charm, and she has a lot of resentment left to work through.