John Constantine

Do you know that you’ve got something growing out of your head?

Batgirl

No, but sing it and I’ll whistle along.

Previously in I, Vampire #1-6:

Batman once observed that Andrew Bennett’s “name appears throughout the public records… I’ve seen sketches that date back to the renaissance, and clothing aside, he hasn’t aged a day.” The truth is that Andrew Bennett is a six-hundred year old vampire, one of the oldest on record. He has mellowed with age and can now resit the blood hunger that drives most vampires to kill people. He devotes his time to hunting down those of his kind who give into that hunger, it’s a war that he appeared to be winning.

Mary Seward from I Vampire #1 (art by Andrea Sorrentino)

Bennett’s great sin is that four centuries ago he turned (“sired”) a young serving girl called Mary Seward into a vampire. They were deeply in love and Bennett thought that turning her would allow them to be together as immortal lovers. However, Mary lacked Bennett’s control and wavered hot/cold on his philosophy. They remained together for four hundred years, tolerating the flaws they saw in each other, but still deeply in love. That recently changed when Mary declared that it was her intention to become a vampire freedom fighter, the “Queen of Blood”, who would free their kind and conquer the human cattle.

Mary secretly sired a new army of full-blood vampires who staged coordinated massacres in Boston, Star City, Los Angeles, and Coast City. Bennett barely survived a confrontation with her army in Boston and asked for help from his friend of thirty-years Professor John Troughton. They began tracking Mary and unwittingly recruited a psychotic teen vampire slayer called Tig Rafelson. Her father, Steve, was turned into a vampire when Tig was six-years-old. John Constantine and Bennett later encountered Steve Rafelson and killed him.

Andrew Bennett meets John Constantine from I, Vampire #4 (art by Andrea Sorrentino)

Mary left a challenge for Bennett to follow her to Gotham City. Bennett, Troughton, and Tig followed Mary’s trail and were intercepted by Gotham’s resident creature of the night, the Batman. With him they traced Mary’s vampires to the disused cells beneath the city’s Court House. They appeared to gain the upper-hand after Bennett killed one of the full-blood vampires so freeing dozens of humans who had recently been turned into vampires by it. Tig saw this and erroneously believed that destroying Bennett would free all vampires, including Mary and her clan, “descended” from him.

Tig stabbed Andrew Bennett from behind and severed his head. A vampire as old as Bennett should not be able to die unless he personally wills it to happen. At some level Bennett glimpsed the truth at what Tig was attempting and allowed himself to pass. However, the world’s vampires did not die, instead they screamed in unison as “the Sleeper”, Cain the first vampire, was awoken from his slumber. Their psychic cry was so powerful that it was even felt by the seer Madame Xanadu…

“Rise of the Vampires Part 1:�Red Blood, Dark Magic” (20-pages)

Xanadu tells the mages gathered in her parlour that something evil has awoken. Constantine had recently met Bennett and is all for leaving the vampires to their own devices. Zatanna prevents him from leaving and Rac Shade teleports them all into Gotham City. However, Shade’s M-Vest cannot penetrate into the heart of the chaos. He is having trouble believing in vampires and is becoming increasingly incoherent. A second jump brings them to a roof top deeper into the City — everywhere appears to be on fire and vampires roam openly in the streets attacking normals.

They spot Batgirl who is about to be overwhelmed by a vampire group. Deadman and Constantine jump in to help her and she recognises them as “Zatanna’s team” (much to Constantine’s consternation). However, some outside force is limiting their magical abilities — Zatanna’s spells do not work, Shade’s vest is increasingly erratic, and even Constantine’s attempt at a magic circle dissolves before his eyes. Batgirl has to leave on Batman’s orders. At that moment Batman is across town fighting for his life alongside with Bennett’s allies Professor Troughton and Tig.

Xanadu senses that the cause of their impotence is Cain, the first vampire, who is “stealing all the magic”. She orders Constantine and Deadman to find Andrew Bennett’s soul in the afterlife while her astral-self goes elsewhere. She leaves Zatanna and Shade are left to defend her body. Constantine’s method of getting into the afterlife is suitably unique — the sacrifice of a dead rat and whisky for holy water — but, it works. Shade teleports Zatanna and Xanadu’s body to Batman’s fight while Xanadu’s spirit travels to the Astral Zone of the Crystal One to petition him for help. The Crystal One asks whether she truly understands what she is asking of him to do and whether she is prepared for how her allies will be hate her afterwards? She answers, “Yes, Yes, I am.”

Andrew Bennett: I… Vampire

This issue marks the first chapter in a cross-over with I, Vampire. The hero of that series is a character called Andrew Bennett, the eponymous vampire of the title. Bennett first appeared in House of Mystery #290 (March 1981) and was created by J.M. DeMatteis and Tom Sutton. Unlike Marvel’s Blade, Andrew Bennett was a full-blood old-school Gothic vampire. The unique spin on his tale was that he was a vampire with a conscience who had fallen in love with a human girl called Mary. He believed turning her into a vampire would allow them to be together for ever, but she turned into terrible monster and the leader of a cult of vampires. He would then spend the next few hundreds years fighting her and her cult.

Michael W Kaluta’s cover to House of Mystery #313 (Feb 1983)

That version of Andrew Bennett was dressed like the traditional Dracula stereotype and was firmly of the old school Dracula / Hammer horror school of vampirism. The”I, Vampire” feature lasted for 24 issues before Bennett was relegated to supporting and guest star status. He lurked around the DC Universe, was killed off, and resurrected, but remained close to his roots.

When DC Comics launched the New 52 they announced that that I, Vampire would be one of the new titles. Writer Joshua Hale Fialkov revamped Andrew Bennett for the post Angel and Twilight. Bennett is still a proper vampire — not one of those sparkly frauds — but, he is shown as physically younger than he had been. Many of the visual Gothic elements have been stripped away, but the darker pathos of genre remains. There has been little hint of Bennett’s previous life or his long history. His lover Mary Seward remains in place, she has also been stripped of her gothic trappings. Her cult is now the legions of vampire kind.

Interviews

This crossover between I, Vampire and Justice League Dark is one of the first inter-book crossovers since the New 52 reboot. It features Peter Milligan’s second and final arc on JLD before he leaves to take over Stormwatch. His place will be filled by Jeff Lemire.

Editor Matt Idelson joked to DC’s house blog that:

When I, VAMPIRE writer Josh Fialkov royally messed up and killed his lead character, we had no choice but to reach out to Peter Milligan, scribe of JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK to help bail us out. What resulted was one of the first crossovers of the NEW 52, encapsulating issues #7-8 of both titles.

io9 interviewed I, Vampire writer Joshua Hale Fialkov about how he worked with Justice League Dark writer Peter Milligan:

It was very organic. Peter and I started out with a phone call, laid out what we needed to accomplish, and went back and forth with DC editorial. We’re both at big changing points in our series. For serial storytelling in comics, I’m always trying to flip the status quo on its head. We’re at an entirely different place in I, Vampire at the end of issue #6, and we’ll be somewhere new with issues #8 and #10. With characters like Andrew and Mary, I can go off to some strange places and stay in the spirit of the book. It’s not like Superman, who at the end of the day, will always be Superman.

Solicitation Cover

When this issue was solicited it featured quite a different cover, an image of Madame Xanadu operating Deadman and Zatanna like puppets. Its a fantastic image, but it didn’t make it to the final issue. Instead we had the above cover showing the team fighting vampires.

Sales

My Thoughts

Surveying the Internets

Both Greg McElhatton (CBR) and Jesse Schedeen (IGN) concur that this issue works quite well as the first issue of a crossover. McElhatton says that:

Milligan handles this crossover in just the right manner. His characters are slightly befuddled and confused on what’s going on, piecing the facts together along with the reader. It’s the best way to ease non-”I, Vampire” readers into the story and it makes for a good flow.

While Schedeen adds that:

Another plus to this crossover is that it doesn’t have to be viewed as a crossover at all. The two issues merely examine the conflict from opposite perspectives, meaning JL Dark readers are free simply to move onto the next issue in April if they so choose.

That isn’t to say that the issue is perfect. Tim Vinton (Player Affinity) held that it had issues, but still delivered:

This is certainly now the worst issue in the series, but this time I can’t even offer the same backhanded compliment. In the end, there are still characters I like fighting vampires and something has to be said for that.

However, your mileage will of course depend on how much you like vampires as Pierce Lydon (Newsarama) put its,

I wish we’d end the fascination with vampires. I understand that our culture”s obsession with youth, overwrought romance and Robert Pattinson’s quaff have endeared us to the eternally lovelorn bloodsuckers but enough is enough.

The temporary replacement of Mikel Janin with a pair of guest-artists also drew comment from Andy Hunsaker (Crave Online):

Admira Wijaya’s expressive art on the first eight pages rates a skosh higher than Daniel Sampere’s art on the back 11, but they’re close enough to blend almost seamlessly into each other – perhaps helped by Wijaya handling the coloring as well.

The Verdicts

Page 1. This issue continues on immediately from “” and I, Vampire #6. Bennett was killed by a misguided vampire slayer called Tig Rafelson. Constantine met Bennett quite recently, in I, Vampire #4 when he helped kill a vampire who turned out to be Tig’s father.

Page 4. Manchester ain’t so bad — not compared to Birmingham anyhow.

Page 7. Batgirl. For those of you not reading Gail Simone’s excellent Batgirl series, this is Barbara Gorgon, the original Batgirl healed and back in action.

Page 9. This is the second time that Deadman has been thrown out of a body recently. The same happened when he tried to possess John Constantine’s filthy demon-blood infused body, although it was implied that that was more of a reflex reaction than an actual expulsion. Speaking of Constantine, he just produces a mean-sized hatchet from the recesses of his trench coat. That kind of preparedness begins to rival the utility belt.

Page 11. Zatanna again references her father Zatara.

Page 14.

Panel 1. This is Cain. The primal vampire that Tig awakened when she killed Andrew Bennett. However, he is not literally the Biblical Cain. Joshua Hale Fialkov told io9 that:

Panel 3. Batman you probably know. The man with glasses is Professor John Troughton, an academic and vampire hunter, who Bennett has known since he saved him from vampire hippies some 30-years ago. Troughton may be the closest thing that Bennett has to a friend.

The girl with green hair is Tig, the impulsive teenage vampire slayer who causes this entire mess. She first appeared in I, Vampire #3 and it is possible that she is a latent vampire herself, she seemed to sense their presence — a known vampire trait.

Page 20. The Astral Plane of the Crystal One.