Scarlett – Volume 01 Issue 01

“Blood Of Innocence”

One hundred sixty miles east of Phoenix, Arizona, a family of four had just pulled into the dark parking lot of a small Route 93 gas station. The sounds of two young children could be heard complaining from the backseat of the suburbanites’ station wagon. A nearby group of men dressed in biker leathers begin to cackle as they overhear the kids ramble on about hunger and having to go pee. What did they know about true hunger? 

As the father shut off the headlights and moved to open the driver side door, six grotesque white faces peer through the glass of vehicle’s windows. The mother lets out a blood-curdling scream as the men contort their mouths into unnatural wide grins. Fangs! Those animalistic fangs dripped with a thick saliva only seen in the most rabid of dogs. An uncontrollable wail arose from the children as the monster men began assaulting the wagon with fists and hooked claws where human fingers once lay. 

In a panic, the father slammed down on the column shifter, putting the vehicle in drive. With adrenaline rushing through the veins of the man’s leg, he floored the accelerator, sending two of the creatures flying over the hood of the station wagon. In a split second, the bikers’ limp bodies slammed into the sandy ground like rag dolls under the moonlit sky. The other creatures peeled off to the sides of the wagon as the family vehicle rocketed out of the parking lot in a full flight of terror. After a few moments, the father looked back through the rear-view mirror only to see three of the “things” chasing after them on foot at supernatural speed.

Thursday afternoon, Bly Pharis and her girlfriends had just left the school grounds of McClintock high, when a strange man dressed in what looked like a creepy Dracula costume, approached them from the sidewalk near Main Street. He looked very odd in the attire, but it was Halloween, and other people were carrying on in various other getups. Bly thought nothing more of it until the man approached them and asked if she would like to take a picture with Dracula “for the charity event” at the nearby Halloween Festival.

The man and his weird looking assistant set all three girls into defensive mode with his request. Creeper much? Bly nervously agreed to be in the photo, but her friends quickly excused themselves from her side. Typical. After the small Asian cameraman snapped off a few shots, Bly walked away to find her friends. She turned briefly to look over one shoulder, and the Dracula wannabe, along with his assistant, had vanished from the crowded sidewalk where once they stood.

Why are so many weirdos suddenly interested in an adopted girl living in the boring suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona? Who just offed the homicidal vampire biker gang at a rest stop on the cold desert highway? Are the recent slayings of two archeologists tied to the New York cult known as the “Clave”? Collect the series to find out!

Vampire Lore

• Vampires can direct the elements (rain, thunder, and snow).
  • In this issue a vampire was able to create a small tornado of dust and sand.
• Vampires can survive being engulfed in flames, but require serious recovery time.

Reviewer Notes

Until two months ago I never knew this DC character existed, then I spotted a couple of the books at a local comic book convention. The Scarlett covers totally reminded me of another horror series I enjoyed from DC Comics called ‘Scare Tactics”. Release in 1996, just two years after the final issue of Scarlett, Scare Tactics arrived on the punk music scene with a unique take. The band was made up completely by monsters on the run from a shadow arm of the American government called R-Complex. In that series writer Len Kaminski helped fleshed out vampire and werewolf lore within the DC Universe. It is my hope that the world of Scare Tactics is somehow tied to the work written by Tom Joyner and Keith Wilson for the Scarlett.

I did some research on the character Scarlett and several articles and reviews stating that this series preceded Buffy the Vampire Slayer by four years. This is simply not the case. Yes, Scarlett was release before the television adaptation of Buffy debuted, but the show was based on a movie release in 1992 starring Kristy Swanson. In fact, it appears that the writers on Scarlett borrowed different elements from the movie character for there own purposes. I have not read the entire Scarlett series as of this review, but I have no doubt, with the cult popularity of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie, others borrowed from the premise.

With that said, I did thoroughly enjoy this introduction to Scarlett. There is a lot going on here. With a very large opening cast, and several plots running alongside each other, I believe this will be a very robust series. I’m giving this forty-eight-page introduction five out of five stars. The art style is of the time, and the writing is very Pretty in Pink versus Lost Boys. I love all those things. So if you are interested in obscure DC horror books definitely check it out!

Tag(s)

Character(s)

Writer(s)

Penciller(s)

Inker(s)

Colorist(s)

Letterer(s)

Cover Artist(s)

Editor(s)