Review — ‘Vatican City’ #2 Maintains Its Breakneck Pace

Welcome to the table,

I’m a big fan of monster stories where the monsters are allowed to be monsters. When you toss in some strange hidden history and the downfall of society, you really have all the components for something I’m going to get excited for. Dark Horse Comic’s Vatican City is a three part mini series. While I could easily kick back and enjoy scores of stories set in this apocalyptic setting, I’m currently content to enjoy what the team of Mark Millar and Per Berg are offering.

The story moves quickly, showing us brief glimpses of Russia and China, confirming that the Americas have fallen. It then kicks us back to where we left off last issue, with Vampire minions trying to unearth a giant Vampire Queen from beneath Vatican City.

The pace of this book is frantic but impactful enough I have read it three times and am not tired of it. There are moments where Berg’s art is little more than scribbles, but the way he balances his colors and inks creates this chaotic design aesthetic that works perfectly for the story being told.

There are some fun hidden history moments. We get to learn about the Age of Nosferatu that lasted twenty thousand years and was kept secret from humanity by the Vatican. The Vatican is also apparently keeping secret books, wonderful artists, and a mirror that may or may not have been able to see through time all locked up along side the giant vampire queen in their secret vaults. The vampires want their queen back and will do pretty much anything, including global domination, to get her back.

There are some human resistance story beats that work and are well executed, but with the shortness of the comic’s run the human bits kind of feel disruptive. All I really find myself wanting is more information on the giant vampire lady and the strange ancient era where vampires ran the Earth.

Vatican City is such a cool story full of moments of absolute brilliant world building. It’s a really thrilling story about the rise of a hidden society of monsters who are reclaiming the world they once ruled over for thousands of years. My only real criticism is that the pace of the story itself is ramped up to eleven due to the small number of issues the story has to play out in. We are already entering the third act and I feel like I have so many questions I know can’t be answered in the third and final issue of this run.

This is the kind of story I would have loved to see get ten to fifteen issues of to really explore some more motivations and lost history of the Vampires and how they remained hidden, built their forces up, and tore down everything in a few short hours.

Until next time, man… I love vampire-themed end times stories.