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American Vampire #3
Publisher: Vertigo Comics
Writers: Scott Snyder & Stephen King
Art/Cover: Rafael Albuquerque
Variant Cover: Andy Kubert
Pages: 40
Price: US $3.99
Release Date: May 19, 2010

***CAUTION: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS!***

A storm is coming.

July, 1925.  Los Angeles.  Pearl Jones finds her friend Hattie.  She gives Hattie some money and tells her to leave town for a little while.  It’s not safe for Hattie to be around.  Pearl’s going after the vampires that left her for dead, lying in a ditch.

The big movie studio big wig vampires are starting to stress out a little bit.  There’s been actions taken against their own kind.  They fear that Skinner Sweet is behind it because, after all, he’s too arrogant to make more of his kind.  They think the treaty has been broken.  Treaty or no treaty, they decide that it’s time to take Sweet out.  He’s a disgrace to the  fancy Euro vamp.

Hunting Skinner Sweet is going to be tough though.  The sun has no effect on him.  He needs no umbrellas or sissy sunscreen lotions, so me moves by day.  They still don’t know his weaknesses, either, but they do know that he rests when the evening sky is moonless.

The moonless sky starts tonight.

Two vampires and a human driver are dispatched into the day to clean up after the last spot Skinner has been reported. Vroom!  Vroom!  Pearl’s on a motorcycle.  Oh, yeah!  A motorcycle.  She’s caught up to the three looking for Sweet.  She takes care of them.  Two of the vampires she’s after are down.  It was wicked.  It was so spectacularly wicked, that I’m not going to spoil these exterminations for you.  You’re gonna have to pick this issue up for yourself.  These killings alone are worth the $3.99.  Just know one thing…PEARL.  IS.  A.  BADASS!

Pearl stays the night with her friend Henry.  She feels so weak and she doesn’t know why.  The next night, she’s wakened by a phone call.  The Euro vampires have Hattie.  It’s on!

A storm is coming.

Lakeview, Colorado, 1909.  Skinner Sweet is out of his pine box and freshly fed on the diver that was dumb enough to open it.  Living in a box for the last three decades, he’s surfaced in a whole new world with telephones, picture shows, and the Mayor of the town just happens to be the father of  Pinkerton Agent Book’s deputy.  Agent Book…the man who arrested Skinner Sweet decades ago and put him on that train where he ended up meeting his human demise at the hands of the pissy, sissy Percy (well, we now know that Percy is sensitive to the sun because he’s a vampire, but I started out calling him a sissy so I’m sticking to it.).  Agent Book…just the man he’s looking for.

Skinner Sweet hits a candy store and overflows his pockets before ripping through the town of Lakeview, leaving a long trail of bodies in his wake.  One of those bodies happens to belong to Mayor Camillo.  It’s headless.  Yeah, Skinner’s lugging that noggin around.  He also found a mining supply warehouse full of dynamite, so you can imagine all of the fun he’s having!

The citizens of Lakeview aren’t the only ones terrified by Skinner’s seemingly impossible return.  Percy and his old world vampires are also scared.  They set out to find Skinner and make a deal.  Sweet sends quite the comical telegraph out to New Mexico to Deputy Felix Camillo, concerning his father and tells him to ride out to the old Bakersville mines.  He tells Camillo to bring Book with him.  It’s on!

Motorcycles and explosives!  I LOVE these American vampires!  Scott Snyder and Stephen King have started to open the flood gates on the blood, violence, and action. What still amazes me is how Rafael Albuquerque can keep up with all the madness and mayhem that these two gentlemen have put him in charge of.  From cover to cover, there are 40 pages of time-contrasting beauty!  FORTY pages!  At $3.99, this book is a steal!  Let me not forget to mention the colors by Dave McCaig!  McCaig puts the pretty bow on this package I can’t wait to tear into each month!

Comic Attackers, American Vampire is rapidly becoming the Vertigo gem that I was hoping for.  The first issue went into a second printing and even that is becoming hard to find.  If you are not reading this book, you need to have your head examined!  Run, don’t walk, to your local comic shop (LCS) and get what you can.  If you are one of the unfortunate ones who can’t get your hands on the first issue, tell the clerk at your LCS that you want your name on a hardcover when it hits shelves in July.  I promise you will not be sorry.

Forget Team Edward!  I’m on Team Skinner!

Aron White
aron@comicattack.net