GI Joe Volume VI By Larry Hama

 GI Joe Volume VI

By Larry Hama

“The Real Stealing is done on Paper” Cobra Commander 

(This is true.  Especially with wage labor!  Seriously, wage theft by the people who are already stealing your labor value is worth more than all other theft combined!  And it isn’t even an actual crime!  Steal $100 from the register?  You’re going to jail.  Boss steals $2000 of your wages? If you’re lucky you’ll settle for $500.)

Welcome to Part two of the glorious double header! Volume VI covers issues 51 to 60 of GI Joe, running from September 1986 to June 1987. Let's get back to the story, shall we?

Springfield is a burning field of rubble but the Joes are finding their victory to be more trouble than it's worth as the unit has been provisionally stood down and its members confined to barracks pending an independent investigation (Hehehehehehehehehe.). Worse before those orders arrive Zartan's siblings show up and break him out of the Pitt, whose location he promptly reports. This actually heads off a Cobra Civil War that starts brewing the moment that Serpentor sets foot on Cobra Island. Here's the issue, Cobra Commander is a genius, he was capable of launching a movement based on mass grievance that inspired fanatical loyalty, then converting it to a secret society and arranging infiltration into American society beyond the Soviet's wildest dreams He then created a paramilitary force as an outgrowth of that secret society that was able to operate across the globe with enough resources to field armored battalions and air wings. That he was able to do this and secure funding and backing at all levels of society without getting arrested or anyone realizing what was going on until masked troopers were screaming Cobra and launching attacks is the kind of administrative and logistical feat that is frankly superhuman. However, Cobra Commander frankly sucks donkey balls as a battlefield leader (Kinda needs division of labor like… well the vampire cabal in Castlevania.). His grasp of tactics is grade school at best, his ability to listen to subordinates is non-existent, he has a pathological inability to share credit or glory, and his level of personal courage isn't at the level of cowardice displayed in the cartoon but is still rather questionable at best (So what you are saying is that I would do a better job than him? {I’m saying our 7-year-old nephew has a good shot of out doing him}). Compare this to Serpentor who on his first day of life saved wounded troopers while under fire, got shot and sealed the wound with a hot knife and jumped right back into the battle and won his brawl with the Joes and you tell me who the average grunt Viper trooper is going to prefer for leadership? Ideally, everyone would realize that Cobra Commander is the best man to administer Cobra and oversee logistics, while Serpentor should lead from the sharp end of the spear.  Serpentor isn't gonna be willing to restrain his ambition to that however and Cobra Commander would never share the glory anyways (Wait, you mean to tell me that if you distill the essences of people like Ghengis Khan and Saladin, they won’t restrain their ambition?  Noooo! {I thought you told me that the result would be an average dude and not some mystical combination of all their qualities?} Yes, that is true.  But I am suspending disbelief.). So Good Old CC knows when his position is in danger and he knows someone like Serpentor is going to be ambitious but all of that is going to have to wait as there is a chance to burn the Pitt to ashes and kill all the Joes.

Too bad none of the Joes are home and this attack is going to run right into the independent investigation and convince the survivors that the threat is real and they need the Joes (You’d think Cobra Island would have done that, but okay! {There are… Other factors at play}). Assuming there are any survivors of course. The investigation itself being carried out by a committee of top brass is kind of hilarious. I mean Hawk shows them a video of the Joes being shelled by Cobra vipers in the streets of Springfield and loads of captured Cobra tanks and artillery only to be told it's circumstantial evidence! (What the hell do they want?) I mean I know the police have militarized to an absurd degree in this country but frankly, if 1st MarDiv got into a shootout in Reno and there were heaps of Soviet tanks being used by men claiming to be Reno PD, I WOULD HAVE QUESTIONS! SO MANY QUESTIONS! (And I would be laughing in Communist.  So Hard.  But yes, there would be questions.  Questions like “How did you get that many T-72s through customs!?  Where did the MiG-29s come from!?  Where are you servicing these vehicles!?) I mean what do you need at this point? A signed confession from Cobra Commander? Of course, Serpentor manages to play on Cobra Commander's vanity to get him to lead the assault into the Pitt and as a result, CC and Destro are lost in action. The two men who were best able to stop him from taking over Cobra. So as a result the Joes are left as a nomadic unit, and Serpentor is able to claim two victories in two engagements and takes over Cobra. He promptly turns to selling weapons to every dictator who can scrape up a spare million or five (How dastardly!  Moving in on America’s [and the USSRs] racket! {Don’t forget the UK, France, Italy and increasingly the PRC racket.  I mean India would be a huge exporter but they’re stunningly incompentent}). His biggest product? A combination of anti-air artillery and command complex he dubs the Terrordome. This was a Hasbro playset that Larry Hama turns into the center of a story of skullduggery and battlefield espionage (Wait, so… is this like one of the massive flak towers/air raid shelters used by Nazi Germany? {With a computer and communications capabilities to overlook an entire theater of deployment}). I'm honestly impressed at his ability to take what is honestly kind of ridiculous children's toys and have me take them seriously by creating political and industrial storylines around them. While the Joes conduct a series of missions across the world to get technical information on the Terrordomes and figure out just why Cobra wants them everywhere; we find out Cobra Commander and Destro aren't dead and while they're trucking across the US, they come across Billy. The young Ninja was severely injured when he decided to come to Springfield to confront his father and got involved in a battle between the Softmaster and Cobra security forces. At first, it seems that Cobra Commander is going to abandon his terrorist lifestyle and just try to be a decent Father to Billy but that doesn't last two issues and he's soon back in the saddle hunting Joes.

I admit I'm a little annoyed at this, I mean Cobra Commander does get a spiffy robot leg for his kid to replace the one that his own troops blew off but he's also willing to leave Billy behind alone to go chasing Joes when Billy is struggling with mental and physical trauma (Does this shock you?). What happened to being a better father CC? (Neglectful/abusive parents almost never actually change.  That’s what happened.) I mean, come on you could at least try to last a month in the lifestyle of a not-a-terrorist-leader! Seriously Billy would be better off with Darth Vader as his father at this point, at least Vader made his kids something of a priority when he became aware of their existence (He did prove he cared.  Literally offered Luke co-rule of the Galaxy, sacrificed himself, etc.  This shit is like… worse than Dr. Evil level parenting.). Cobra Commander doesn't make it to the end of this volume before deciding “Screw focusing on the son who I've crippled through my negligence and malice… The son who I outright lost at points in his childhood due to my focus on building a cult of personality to subvert and destroy my homeland and make war on the very concept of democracy!  I'm retaking my fascist terrorist organization back! Because that's fatherhood!”.  You know at least Vader offered to include Luke.  I’m just saying.  Involved in all of this is Fred VII, a member of the Crimson Guard who for right now plays enabler for Cobra Commander’s desire to get back into terrorism by providing equipment, a place to stay, and calling in local Cobra assets.  Like Raptor, an accountant who likes to dress up like a giant bird and attack government agents with large mutant hawks.  Look, it was the 80s, don’t ask questions. (Look, the cocaine flowed like the spice of Arrakis.  That is all the explanation anyone needs.  There was so much cocaine, that one didn’t even need to use cocaine to be affected by it.  It was everywhere, getting the culture itself high as balls.{It gave us the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Robocop, David Lynch’s Dune, and Transformers… I say we apologize for nothing!})

Meanwhile, the collection of missions to get intel on the Terrordome ends up embarking on a grand GI Joe tradition, Snake Eyes getting captured by Cobra and plugged into one of their Brain reading/scrambler machines. Only sort of on purpose this time by disguising Snake Eyes as another Joe, it takes Cobra hours to figure out that Snake Eyes isn't even really wearing his real face (I am getting Hannibal Lecter vibes here.). Which I have to admit is kind of hilarious to me. You’d think, knowing that one of their enemies is a mute ninja who has a collection of fake faces, they would be instantly suspicious of any prisoners who are on the quiet side and don't sweat while being tortured in the tropics, but noooo (Intel briefings:  Not their strong point.)! This graphic novel also has Serpentor getting increasingly cranky and given performances like these from his High Command, I can understand why. I mean, imagine you're a genetically engineered warlord whose dreams are filled with having subordinates on the level of Subutai, but instead you got people like Dr. Mindbender or the Twins. This confrontation takes place in the fictional country of Sierra Gordo as Cobra and the Joes use Revolutionary and Counter-Revolutionary Forces against each other in the pursuit of profit and intelligence The Joes are working as field advisers for the Counter Revolutionaries and Cobra working for the Revolutionaries, as well as selling them weapons. I can't call this a win for the Joes or a loss, as they get a lot of information but once again lose Snake Eyes. Seriously, I'm thinking this is going to give Scarlet a complex; she's spending a lot of time in this series watching the man she's in love with getting captured or injured right in front of her and not being able to do anything to stop it. She's not going to be able to send him out to buy milk without having a panic attack at this rate. Imagine being the VA psychologist who has to deal with this in about 10 years. Assuming we have a psychologist who has a security clearance high enough for this shit! (Come on now, that would require veterans actually getting decent psychiatric care.  What’s actually going to happen is that she’s gonna file all her paperwork for disability benefits due to crippling PTSD, wait three years for a decision, be declined on the spurious grounds that it’s not service-related, then spend another few years in appeals.  And that’s if she gets the right person’s discharge paperwork when she musters out.{I got the right paperwork… Eventually!})

Volume VI is tense and full of intrigue here but lacks the full-scale clash of arms that we saw in Volume V. Interestingly enough there are no real clear victories for anyone in Volume VI. The Joes gather intelligence and get vital information but don't score a decisive victory and Cobra takes out the Pitt but since the Joes weren't in it, it's not a knockout blow. So both groups are left circling each other with the stakes rising. That said I like this a lot better than Volume IV, which is comparable but left a lot more hanging threads and cliffhangers. Volume VI gives you the feeling of being a complete episode in a large story which is what it is. Still, it's not up to Volume V's level if you ask me. So I'm rating Volume VI by Larry Hama a B.

So our ever-wise patrons voted for GI Joe Volume V but I threw in Volume VI to celebrate Veterans Day and of course the Marine Corps Birthday. Our December polls are open for those who would like to join us, and get a vote for as little as a dollar a month. Patrons also discuss possible theme months and ideas for extra reviews. Next week we return to the world of the Dwarves series with Elves Vol II. Until then, stay safe and Keep Reading.

Red Text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen

Black text is your review Garvin Anders

GI Joe Vol V By Larry Hama

 GI Joe Vol V

By Larry Hama

“The best swords are kept in their sheaths” Storm Shadow

GI Joe Volume V covers issues 41 to 50 running from November 1985 to August 1986. Now I feel like I've said everything I could say on Larry Hama, but I'll repeat my cry to let him achieve his ambition of writing Scrooge McDuck! I also feel I've covered quite a bit about the writing process itself, and discussing Marvel comics is a bit outside the scope of a review. So let's just jump into it, shall we? Since this comic book is around 35 years old... Expect spoilers.

Volume V picks right off where Volume IV left us, in the middle of a story. Cobra had built an underwater bunker in the Gulf of Mexico with the express purpose of getting the US to blast it with heavy firepower. Which is something the US government and armed forces do quite well if you ask me and I suppose Cobra Commander agrees. Well, this causes a new island to form right in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico and Cobra claims it as sovereign territory (Interesting…). This is a rough process as the island's emergence causes a massive tidal wave that swamps a good amount of the Joe assets in the area. Now, I'm pretty sure this is unrealistic, so I've asked a geologist I know to weigh in. Some say he can identify rocks by smell, others that he is a result of climate change, all I am cleared to tell you is, my patrons would know him as Anonymous Reviewer Number 4  (In my professional opinion as a geologist, I could think of a few very specific sequences where a fault is loaded in such a way that a small amount of added energy could set off a larger earthquake. A metastable equilibrium, in other words. Earthquakes do tend to change stress fields of surrounding faults, and there have been cases of potentially sympathetic earthquakes in a region or along a larger fault zone (see something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Ridgecrest_earthquakes). However, even very large earthquakes like the 1964 Alaska earthquake resulted in vertical displacement on the order of tens of feet, and the energy released in that quake was approximately 5 gigatons, give or take.  The additional issue is that for an island to "rise" you would need a compressional tectonic environment where rocks are being squeezed together by the collision of plates.  The Gulf of Mexico is an extensional environment where the earth's crust is relatively stable, albeit being loaded over time with sediments from continental North America and Central America So if anything it would be more likely to see the formation of grabens, where faults are pulling apart and the earth's crust is stretching out. Cobra would be more likely to set off a new rift valley like the Mid-Atlantic ridge, rather than uplifting an island in the middle of nowhere [I love you so very much Comrade Anonymous Reviewer Number 4]). That said, it is entertaining to watch. What is slightly more realistic is that Cobra deploys an army of diplomats and lawyers to the UN, DC, and around the world to wrestle up enough recognition of their sovereignty to deter a US response. Now I think this tactic would be vastly less effective today, as the UN wouldn't be able to take any action in support of Cobra due to US Veto powers in the Security Council and no one in their right mind wanting an openly fascist terrorist group having such a secure base of operations (Um.  Provided this happens prior to January 2021, are you sure about that? {Governments react poorly to other people bringing armored battalions into their territory} An artificial Caribbean island is not US territory. <Grins> {Two points, a: prior to this Cobra led an armored assault on Fort Knox.  B that artificial Caribbean island isn’t US Territory… Yet.}). Recognition or no Recognition the USMC would storm that island and announce it a US territory at bayonet point. Besides, there aren't even any natives to worry about! It's a photo-perfect military op. At the height of the Cold War though? With plenty of nations willing and in this case vastly more able to support Cobra for reasons of realpolitik and sticking it to Uncle Sam? There's also Cobra's infiltration of the US to consider as Cobra assets in American society and the government would all be working to prevent overt action by the US

All of this is on the Joes mind as they decide to assault an island being held by a battalion with tanks and air support with a half platoon of men, some of them injured, to physically remove Cobra from the island reasoning that if Cobra has no physical presence on the island before the diplomats and lawyers can finish wrangling... Well, possession is nine tenths of the law they say. This is the first battle of Cobra Island and yes, we're gonna need more numbers. They do really well and are able to fight their way deep into Cobra's defenses but in the end, fail to beat the clock. Which is a great example of Mr. Hama's writing. By showing us the Joes losing and having Cobra achieve victories, he kept the menace of Cobra believable and maintained a certain level of realism in the comic. Which I'm sure was a struggle given that he had to balance the demands of a toy company among other things. Of course, this also shows that Cobra's main strength isn't its own military power but the people embedded in American society willing to help or stay neutral and thus hamper their nation's resistance to a terrorist fascist movement and let's be honest Cobra is a fascist organization. It's built around a personality cult welded to a sloppy ideology that the common man has been cheated of his rightful due by a nebulous group of others and only by brutal militarism and direct action can the common man take it back (Someone read their Eco.  Good.). Members of Cobra are encouraged not to think but to obey Cobra Commander to the last detail. Now that said, Cobra is interestingly free of the racism and sexism that plagues fascism but I'll also admit Cobra high Command is a very white bread affair which suggests a glass ceiling of sorts in the Cobra administration. Compare this to the Joes, which are made of men and women of all races and creeds and with women being given high positions fairly often, despite being a military organization in the mid-80s and well... I guess the Subtext is barely sub at this point, is it?

The story continues as personal issues push things forward. As some of my readers may remember, a Joe by the name of Ripcord became involved with a girl named Candy. Whose father turned out to be an officer in Cobra (This is gonna make the day she brings her boyfriend home to be threatened by her father a bit more harrowing…). In fact, he came up with the plan that started all of this. Candy disappeared when she was kidnapped when Buzzer, a member of the Dreadnoughts, a mercenary biker gang that does a lot of work for Cobra, escaped military custody kidnapping her along the way. Ripcord figures that the best thing to do is to get onto Cobra Island and basically do a live-action replay of Assassin's Creed until he finds out where his ex-girlfriend is and how to get her to safety. Now I'm gonna be honest with you folks, this is not a plan. This is a fever dream of wild hopes and ambition pretending to be a plan but Ripcord is committed to it (Not the brightest tool in the shed, clearly.{He jumps out of planes for a living}). Meanwhile, Snake Eyes gets information from a former leader of his ninja clan named the Soft Master on who killed his old master the Hard Master (There are jokes I can make here.  I won’t make them.). Leading him to promptly desert and go running to find Storm Shadow, who also loses his shit and the both of them decide to storm Cobra Island to find the killer and well... Kill him back. Ninjas tend to deal with their grief in very direct kinetic ways you see. On top of this, a Joe team comes running in to save Ripcord. What follows is a very unpleasant day for Cobra troopers as they have to deal with two ninjas in a killing rage (And the optimum number of Ninjas under the Inverse Ninja Rule is two.{It gets worse, they’re two ninjas with distinct uniforms, full names and backstories!} Marx’s Beard!  They’re invincible!), a team of Joes with orders to steal all the intel they can and get Ripcord out. Meanwhile, Ripcord ends up switching places with a member of Cobra high command, Zartan, and getting sent back to the US by Candy's Father when the two of them realize that no one has any idea where Candy is. While Zartan, due to his shapeshifting abilities, is mistaken for Ripcord and taken directly to the Pitt.

The entire graphic novel isn't devoted to the main plot however, we also get Dr. Mindbender introduced into the story, the Mad Scientist who also lifts and is responsible for creating another character that gets introduced in this volume, Serpentor. Now, Serpentor is pure pulp science, created by using the DNA of a dozen great warlords of history (although some of them have been dead for over a thousand years so I really doubt there would be any DNA left to use [There would be.  In the roots of the teeth, possibly marrow.{I review corrected}] That said, everything else about this origin story is a steaming pile of bullshit.  They would mix those genomes together and get… an average dude.  This is some strange eugenicist propaganda going on here!). In the cartoon, Serpentor is depicted as a mad man megalomaniac whose biggest advantage over Cobra Commander was having a respectful amount of personal courage. The comic Serpentor, who is created in much the same way, is a bit different and I'll get to that in the battle of Springfield. We also get the introduction of Sgt Slaughter! Sgt Slaughter was a wrestler who had the gimmick of being an ex-drill instructor and he was inducted as a Joe because Vince McMahon was making action figures for his wrestlers with another company and Sgt Slaughter had just left the WWE. Hasbro, looking to undercut their competitors cut a deal with Robert Remus, the man who played Sgt Slaughter and he signed over the rights to his likeness and for several years Sgt Slaughter would be the public face of GI Joe (This is some cursed shit.). Although he would be a bigger presence in the cartoons than in the comics, only really showing up for two issues, issue 48 and 51.  Here he shows up and quickly takes charge even taking out Zartan with a single punch.

This means that Ripcord ends up in Springfield, while Zartan is in the Pitt. What follows is basically a spy speed chess match, as both of these men posing as the other try to escape and inform their own side about the location of the top-secret base their side has been looking for (Is their fieldcraft any good?{Zartan’s fieldcraft is decent but limited by the fact that he is surrounded by suspicious highly trained and motivated people who know about his abilities.  Ripcord is dealing with the Dreadnoughts who are mercenary Australian bikers}). Ripcord manages to report first causing the first battle of Springfield. The first battle of Springfield is gloriously written. Cobra's leadership, realizing that they're outgunned and outnumbered since the Joes brought everyone, decides to evacuate the city but need someone to lead the defense. Destro is about to volunteer when Serpentor literally crawls out of his clone tube and demands the right to spend his first birthday (tube day? Clone day? I need a call from a biologist here {Decantation Day.  If he survives a year, it will be Decantiversary}) locked in brutal street by street mortal combat against a heavily armed and armored opponent. What follows is a damning indictment of Cobra High Command without Mr. Hama saying so much as a word about it in the comic or out of it. As the blocking forces of Serpentor not only hold the Joes but are often able to push them back as Serpentor leads from the front inspiring fanatical and energetic action from his Viper troops. Quite often we see that the Vipers cave quickly when running up against the Joes, but this frankly suggests they cave because they know their leaders (who are often very, very far behind him) are busy looking for the exits (Military Science peeps would call this Poor Vertical Cohesion.  Simply put, they don’t trust their officers.{We just call this bad leadership on the ground} Yes, an NCO would, but the USMC has a manual on this.). Give them a leader who runs out into the field of fire to retrieve wounded troops as Serpentor does and they're able to slug it out with the very best of the US military. Serpentor is even able to break contact with the Joes and get his men off the field of battle leaving the Joes nothing but a burning American City that has been wiped of all actionable intelligence, few if any Cobra prisoners, and a lot of the Pentagon and the Government openly questioning if Cobra was in charge of the town at all (And this is why you equip cameras.). Not bad for his first day alive huh?

Volume V is one where the Joes take a lot of hard knocks but give out a good number in return. It firmly reminds us why Cobra is so dangerous but makes the point that Cobra's greatest weakness is its own leadership, which is unable to sacrifice for a greater cause or act for anything but their own very limited interests even if that means the Cobra organization suffers (I am in fact reminded… of the Wehrmacht in 1945.  I almost pity them.  Almost, death to all fascists.  Their line officers and NCOs were excellent and they had fantastic horizontal and vertical cohesion which prevented their collapse before the glorious Red Army in 1944.  Seriously, they took 2.3 Stalingrads of deaths - not including all casualties, just deaths - in three months, and kept fighting.  However, as things got desperate and the brass became selfish and delusional - more so than thinking they could successfully invade the USSR in the first place, that was always delusion - it got really really bad to be in the Wehrmacht, and their cohesion collapsed.). Meanwhile, the Joes can come together as a unit and take incredible risks for one another and achieve the mission. Mr. Hama can make this point without having anyone give us tiresome speeches or long author soapboxes, he does it by simply showing it in the story. Which frankly makes him a great writer. There are also other stories in this volume that make it worth the price of reading. Such as the struggle of Wade Collins, a Vietnam Vet turn Cobra commando to decide just what he's going to do with his life; the final fate of Candy; and the continuing story of Billy, Cobra Commander's estranged son who has now been trained by Storm Shadow to be a ninja (That’ll make family get-togethers awkward.). With Volume V we're back in the groove I feel, I'm giving GI Joe Vol V by Larry Hama an A.

This is part one of a glorious doubleheader for Veteran's Day. Go ahead and head to the next installment for Volume VI.

Dwarves Vol III By Nicolas Jarry

 Dwarves Vol III

By Nicolas Jarry

This is my fourth review in the series, so I'm just gonna hit the highlights before jumping into the graphic novel itself. This is a French comic series with each graphic novel adopting a new main character, in an interrelated series of stories set in the same fantasy world. Dwarves take place in the same world as three other series who run under the titles of Elves, Orcs, and the most recent release Mages. As you might imagine Dwarves focuses on the Dwarven people of this fantasy world and tells the story of Dwarvish protagonists. Now that we've refreshed that, let's jump into it (Thank Azathoth.). 

Volume III focuses on Aral, a recently graduated engineering (What?  Journeyman?) focusing on obtaining his mastery. His biggest desire is to succeed at building a suspension bridge (That is… probably going to be a tall order.  And next week’s episode is the Tacoma Narrows Bridge Disaster.), find a wife, start a family, and put his past behind him (Oh here we go!). In what has been a firm tradition for Dwarvish main characters in this series, he had a troubled relationship with his father (What the… look, it’s almost like Monsieur Jarry was taking his cues from Spielberg with the daddy issues.  Not that I can throw stones, what with my massive daddy issues.). In this case, an experiment he conducted as a child started a house fire that killed his Mother and his Father never forgave him (This is why you always supervise your mad-scientist/engineer children!). His father would go on to die in a quarry accident with that division between the two of them never healing (Ouch.   Also, these people need OSHA, because that quarry was certainly not up to code.). Aral interestingly enough isn't consumed with angst over it. He makes it clear in the story that he wishes that he had listened to his Father, stopped experimenting at home and his mother was alive but he can't change the past only focus on his future. It's a suspiciously healthy outlook for a main character in this series, so I firmly suggest that none of y'all get too attached to it (Oh No…). It's also one that's going to be very challenged in the story itself. Before I get into the weeds, let me fill in the back story of this because it actually explains a lot about Dwarven society and the current state of their civilization. 

So, long ago after a war with the Elves, a powerful warlord named Fugor Greathelm established a Dwarven Empire that dominated the eastern regions of the world. Now, Fugor had taken certain injuries that left him unable to father children, so it's perhaps no surprise that he turned to adoption. He adopted a dark-skinned, black-eyed dwarven boy found one day by one of his servants and named him Forgrim. While Forgrim grew quickly and grew well, Fugor died before his adopted son could reach adulthood, an event I suspect was helped along by those elvish wounds (That is what war wounds tend to do.). Fulgrim put himself forward as his adopted father's successor to the title of Emperor but the various lords of the fortress-states rejected him completely. Each one of them decided that he would rather be a King of a city than a Lord in an empire and used the fact that Fulgrim was adopted as a convenient excuse (They’d have done it anyway.). Being soundly rebuffed by the nobility of the empire and lacking the military strength to really contest it, Fulgrim decided to attempt an alternate strategy. Gathering scholars and adventurers from across the empire, Fulgrim founded the Dragon's Lodge, an esoteric society devoted to gathering and compiling the knowledge of all races and using them to the benefit of Dwarven kind. They learned arts and secrets both arcane and scientific. They began to spread out to the different Fortress-states and made themselves indispensable. The Dragon Lodge was also a center for innovation and experimentation, soon their secrets and processes were powering a new Dwarven Golden Age. They began to draw devotees to themselves from across the Dwarven world promising mastery of secrets beyond anything Dwarves had achieved before and the possibility of eternal life (Because that is always part of it.  Then you’re giving yourself mercury poisoning and inventing gunpowder…{You think he’s kidding but this is so common that the EPA has a task force on the ritualistic use of mercury, you can look up the report and read it or even buy it on amazon}). Fulgrim himself had taken the title of Immortal Dragon and he lived up to it as four centuries passed and he seemed untouched by the years. Fulgrim stood on the brink of retaking his Father's Empire, rebuilt into something even grander and greater than his Father's wildest dreams, and doing it without firing a shot or fighting a single battle. This would have been the kind of victory that military strategists since Sun Tzu have lauded as the highest ideal, the kind of victory you win without fighting. Fulgrim however, had other ideas. For reasons I won't spoil but instead will encourage you to read the book to find out, Fulgrim had his followers turn on the rest of Dwarven kind in an orgy of slaughter and mayhem (That is just so… Stupid.  I get that there are reasons but WHY!?). This (Surprising no one {Fulgrim seemed surprised}) caused many members to defect and the Dragon Lodge was thrown down and split into four orders. The Forge, the Shield, the Talisman, and the Temple; those who maintained their loyalty to Fulgrim were ejected from Dwarf society becoming clanless and casteless (See where loyalty to emperors gets you!). However, the surviving masters of the Dragon Lodge gathered together and wrote down the knowledge they hadn't shared with the rest of DwarvenKind in a book. A book they made 12 copies of and hid in ancient underground cities. One of which has been found, under Aral's ancestral city-state. 

This means Aral, his master, his master's niece Senna and a group of the Temple's best must get into the underground city, destroy whatever is guarding the book, and then destroy the book before someone reads it (But… nooooo). Because there are dark secrets in that book, the kind could rip apart nations (Why on earth would they get written down then!  Jesus, stop taking notes in the cabal meeting! {I’m going to suggest the last loyalist masters of a cult who are willing to murder their fellows on the word of their leader might not care about the effects of their secrets on outsiders}). The kind of secrets that the Temple has a duty to contain and destroy. This isn't going to be easy though because it means Aral is going to have to confront his Father's family and the bad blood between them, his father, and him. He's also going to have to do it in a city-state slowly but surely going mad, as Dwarves lose their grip on reality and turn on each other in violent rages (Wait a minute... ). Is this a spell triggered by exposing the book? Something that guards it? Or something to do with the King of the city-state, who is a distant relative of Aral's and seems to be losing his grip on reality (If it ends up being a King and The Land Are One thing I am gonna lose my shit!  Down with monarchist propaganda! {I’ll just note that Dwarven kings are never presented that well in these comics}). For that matter are the Dwarves of the Temple going to be in any better state or will they succumb to infighting and hatred or worse will they find the book and fall into temptation? 

Volume III is told completely from Aral's point of view and is told using the framing device of him writing this down in a journal as an old man. This honestly robs it of some suspense but the story makes up some ground by making us feel a bit of concern about the fate of Aral's companions (It’s the problem with epistolary formats, yes.). It's an interesting story and it fills in a lot of lore about the Dwarvish people in this specific world setting. Although if you ask me Aral isn't as interesting or compelling as Redwin or Ordo, I think part of that is while Redwin and Ordo were pursuing their own goals and dreams, for most of this book Aral is basically working for other people and towards their goals. On the flip side, this does make him more like the average person (Insert commentary about the class struggle here.{insert sniping here}Insert Lyudmila Pavlichenko reference here.{Annnd that’s enough meta for this week!}). Senna, the niece of Aral's master is an interesting character but is thrust pretty firmly into the background and we don't know much if anything about her. The rest of the characters get even less attention. So if the plot and Aral don't grab your attention, it'll be a complete miss. That said the plot is good and compelling and Aral isn't a terrible character, just not as good as prior protagonists. Dwarves Volume III by Nicholas Jarry gets a B- from me. 

    So this review was chosen by our ever-wise patrons. As a patron you get a vote on upcoming reviews, themes, and more starting at a dollar a month. As well as every review open for discussion. If you'd like to join us, feel free at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads Next week to celebrate Veteran's Day and the Marine Corps Birthday we'll be running a double feature of GI Joe V and VI. After that is Elves Vol III. Until next week, stay safe and Keep Reading.

Red text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen

Black text is your review Garvin Anders

Castlevania Season III By Warren Ellis

 Castlevania Season III

By Warren Ellis

So before we begin, let me just admit that I found Season III the weakest of the three. Not that it's terrible, I had a lot of fun watching it. That said, Season III plants our characters in what is basically a side quest while our villains develop and gather their armies. Season III is very busy planting seeds for future seasons and as a result, the story of season III feels very incomplete. Season I worked as a story about the heroes coming together and realizing they're the heroes. Season II worked as the climax of the crisis that had to be been formed by Dracula's decision to attempt global omnicide as a sort of massive murder-suicide. Season III shows the aftermath and keeps the ball rolling but doesn't really wrap up its various stories very well. I think part of the problem is that Season III is telling four separate stories that don't intersect at all, let me explain. Fair warning, there are spoilers ahead.

The first story it tells is of an Alucard that is... Frankly not dealing with his grief and isolation well. Travis and Sypha had basically turned over Castle Dracula and the Belmont mansion to his keeping and left him alone. They did this because Sypha was now addicted to adventuring and asked Travis to come with her. Travis for his part liked the idea of exploring a relationship with her over rotting in the memories of his destroyed childhood home and moving around, doing good is normal for him anyway (They’re a cute couple, but this whole thing would have been better for everyone as a poly trio.  I will die on this hill.{I’m generally in favor of heterosexual pairings because that’s just how I’m wired.  That said I do find the idea of the three of them trying to work out a relationship interesting.  It would be a novelty in this kind of series at least} And I get that.  On the other hand, this was definitely three-way-thirst from the beginning, or at least, Alucard and Trevor clearly want to bone.  Trevor and Sypha do in fact bone.  I see no reason why everyone cannot be happy.  And yes, it would be rather novel.). Now Alucard does get company in the form of a pair of Japanese twins named Sumi and Taka. They came chasing a Vampire Lady named Cho, who was serving in Dracula's court as a general and was killed in the general bloodbath at the end of season II. To be honest, teaching seems to suit Alucard fairly well and human company helps him move past his grief and loneliness. I honestly found the idea of Alucard founding some kind of monster hunting school really interesting, unfortunately, the arc doesn't go that way. Which was kind of wasteful and I was left asking if we even needed this in Season III?

The second story is about Trevor and Sypha who come to the large village of Lindenfield, a fortified settlement run by a Judge with a priory, which is basically the religious home of people who've taken religious orders but are not necessary monks, that is run by Sala, a fallen priest (Subtle distinction here.  Friars are also found in priories, but they’re mendicants.  Different order from monks, but it’s a very fine line.). Lindenfield has problems, it's priory is full of friars, monks, and priests who have basically gone mad under the stress of Dracula's war. The fact that the Church is at fault for provoking it and then basically sitting on its hands the whole time has also gotten out and isn't helping their mental or emotional state. As such under the leadership of Sala, they've basically become a cult that worships Dracula, instead of worshiping Christ, like the good peasant's tax dollars intended (This is not a good thing.{In a world where priests can legit create anti-demon and vampire weapons, I can see a reason for them to be supported by the government, but the Wallachia Church went off the rails by a good degree} No no, I mean it’s bad that now they worship Dracula.  That’s gonna end poorly.). To make matters worse, the cult is hiding something in the depths of the priory and plotting dark deeds in some mad pursuit. Trevor and Sypha aren't alone in trying to figure out what's going on here though, there's also the charming and tricksy Saint Germain who is desperate to get into the priory because he believes that what's hidden there is the infinite corridor. The Infinite Corridor is a system that links together many different worlds and time periods and traveling through it is from what I can see fairly dangerous but possibly very rewarding. Saint Germain also has an intensely personal reason for trying to get back in there as he left someone important behind the last time he attempted it. Now, this is a fairly interesting and well-told, dark story that adds depth to the setting and reminds us of the consequences of Dracula's war. The problem is it's basically taking off to the side of the more impactful events of Season III and kinda feels like something that was set up to keep Trevor and Sypha from getting involved with the villains before they've had a chance to build their power bases (That is exactly what it is.). Let's talk about those villains, shall we?

Carmilla has survived and withdrawn to her home nation. There we learn that Carmilla shares powers with three other vampires that she calls her sisters. There's the warrior Striga, who serves as Carmilla's general, and Striga's lover Morana who is the administrator. The sister that takes center stage this season is Lenore, the diplomat of this sisterhood. Lenore has a tough job in front of her. When everything went to hell, Hector, one of the human forgemasters, decided he had enough of Carmilla. Carmilla disagreed and beat him into submission with her bare hands and then kept beating him the entire way back to her nation (In Stygia.  It would be fair to say that calling her angry and frustrated is a bit of an understatement.). However, all the beatings in the world aren't gonna get Hector to make an army of monsters for Carmilla and she needs that army. Because with Dracula fallen and the sheer amount of damage that he's done, there's a massive power vacuum in the region (Read: Eastern Europe) and Carmilla is thinking that an empire ruled by her and her sisters would fill that vacuum perfectly. So Lenore is going to have to persuade Hector to overlook his brutal treatment and cooperate. So let me just say watching Hector and Lenore interact is terrifying, she is very good at sounding so reasonable and sincere. She is also very clear that this is her operating diplomatically and trying to cut a deal with Hector but figures out how to press his buttons to the point that Hector ignores all of that to let himself get manipulated... Again. I'm starting to wonder if Hector has some sort of learning disability honestly (Probably more like an attachment disorder.{would you mind expanding on that?} Okay, so growing up is basically an exercise in taking risks and when they don’t go well, you run to a comforting figure for reassurance and advice.  If that relationship is toxic, it can fuck a kid up in all kinds of ways that affect them later.  They can become avoidant of emotional investment; anxious and afraid of rejection inside relationships; compensate by being way too trusting because they crave what they never actually got etc.  Alfred Bester for instance has an avoidant attachment disorder.).

For me, the most compelling story is Isaac taking a walk. You see, at the climax of Season II, Isaac was fully prepared to give his life for Dracula, and Dracula decided that Isaac was too gifted and intelligent to die like that. So he hurled Isaac through a portal into North Africa. As you do when you want to save your friend's life. Alone, embittered and at first unsure of what he should do with himself, Isaac starts walking, looking to find a way back to Wallachia. I assume because Isaac hasn't realized that Wallachia is something of a shithole and he could do better anywhere else (He is also looking for revenge.{yeah but how well has that gone for anyone in this show so far?}). ANYWHERE ELSE. Isaac's encounters with humanity and his grappling with the fate of the human soul in the afterlife are for me some of the best moments in the show. Although there are times I want to grab Isaac by the shoulders and shake him. For example, he throws a fit when he shows up with a small army of monsters and is told no, you can't bring a company of man-eating abominations into our town! I kinda want to scream at him “Dude, you are literally showing up to these people's homes with creatures that can and will eat them if left to their natural impulses! Their fear is completely justified here, especially since you keep flying off the handle and ordering the monsters to kill and eat people!” It's not that Isaac is sadistic or completely lacks empathy here, it's that he is utterly unable to grasp that other people find his horde of hellspawn alarming and have good, rational reasons for doing so (They are his friends and pets, clearly.  They’re under his command, why be afraid of - oh.). For example, whenever he runs into someone who treats him with respect and doesn't give in to their natural instinct to scream and run, Isaac is polite, and respectful, at times almost gracious. But given that few people are willing to roll those dice, each leg of Isaac's journey leads to the expansion of his horde and a deepening of his contempt for humanity. At the end of the season when he confronts a dark wizard in a battle for a kingdom, you kind of realize that Isaac has become a dark lord almost by accident and there's grim humor here I enjoy.

The climax of Season III is a montage of warfare and sex as we cut rapidly between each of the 4 stories which give you a bit of a feeling of whiplash. I would have preferred maybe each story getting a final episode to itself maybe.  All in all, I would give the Castlevania series as a whole a B, with Season II as the strongest and Season III has the weakest. I do recommend it highly if you enjoy a Gothic horror fantasy. While the creative team is experiencing upheavals with Warren Ellis leaving the show. That's honestly for the best and I'm kinda interested to see what happens in Season IV.  I hope you'll be watching it with me. 

This wraps up our official Fangsgiving offerings and I'd like to thank everyone who joined us, provided commentary or guest reviews. Next Friday we'll be returning to the world of the Dwarves as voted for by our ever-wise patrons. If you'd like a voice in our deliberations, join us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads where for a dollar a month you get a vote in upcoming reviews and themes. Next week, for Veteran's Day we'll be celebrating with a GI Joe Doubleheader reviewing Vol V and Vol VI. Until then stay safe and Keep Reading!

Castlevania Season II By Warren Ellis

Castlevania Season II

By Warren Ellis

So I ended Season I's review a bit early I'll admit but I wanted to devote some real space to Alucard, Dracula, and Lisa's son. Trevor and Sypha find him slumbering away at the bottom of the crypts of the city of Gresit, where Dracula planted him after kicking the crap out of him (He may also have gotten there under his own power.). Alucard doesn't think his mother would approve of wiping out her entire species for the sins of a single group of corrupt old men and made the mistake of telling his father that to his incredibly old, powerful, and increasingly unreasonable face (He’s a good kid.). Which led to the whole getting the crap kicked out of him bit. So when Alucard wakes up he's a bit... Cranky. So after a fight session that also qualifies as a bout of heavy flirting (Seriously, hate-thirst. I was getting kinda hot and bothered.), Alucard agrees to join Trevor and Sypha in their quest to stop a genocide by committing a murder (Honestly, that is often how it has to happen.). Specifically to kill his Father, to honor his Mother by protecting the people who killed her, which strangely enough is exactly what she wanted. Shockingly he's deeply conflicted about this and still has a lot of unprocessed emotions bubbling around in regards to his mother's murder. It doesn't help that despite having the body and intelligence of a full-grown man, he's bloody 10 years old. There's a certain lack of life experience here that only makes things harder for him and even someone with three times his life experience would find mourning his mother while plotting his father's death a little hard to handle (That he manages it at all is remarkable.). This kind of explains his relationship with Trevor and Sypha, as Trevor and he engage in belligerence and name-calling (Plus really obvious sexual tension of the urge-to-hate-fuck variety.) at each other (Remember Trevor's not much better off, having been more or less on his own since he was twelve.) while alternating between coldness and reaching out for emotional support to Sypha, who is experiencing a role shift into the adult in the room (Which she handles very well because while the Speakers seem to have a gerontocratic society to an extent, she is a grown-ass woman.). This is hazardous since up til now she's been the gifted but younger member of her Speaker family. This creates an interesting dynamic because Sypha doesn't become the team mom, nor do the boys settle down into snipping brother roles. Things are too raw for that. Especially when they return to Belmont's ruined manor and start tearing at Trevor's wounds. However, Trevor is just mature enough to handle this and stay focused on the job.

Which is good, because Dracula has recruited a small army of villains to aid him on his mission of massacre. Since Season II is longer than Season I, we get to spend a good amount of time with them, so let's take a look, shall we? First up is the simplest but honestly one of the most fun members of team evil, the Viking Vampire Godbrand! Godbrand is here to give someone we can just flat out be entertained by while being an utter beast (Of all of the Villain Set, he is by far the most fun.). He also helps reinforce that in the end vampires are predators who view us as something to hunt and devour because Godbrand accords humanity zero respect or recognition as worthwhile persons or creatures. He's forceful and cunning and is the first to really see the flaw in following Dracula's plan, but he's also a straightforward, simple creature. In Godbrand's ideal world there are only three types of other beings, the ones you eat, the ones you screw, and the ones you make boats out of to go off and do Vikings things to the other two types. He is underestimated by the people around him and I think he prefers it that way. Of course, that doesn't stop him from underestimating others in turn, which bites him rather hard (Yeah, not respecting the humans will do that.).

Speaking of being underestimated, we're introduced to Hector and Issac who are humans but working with Dracula as his chosen conductors in this symphony of slaughter. There are several reasons that Dracula has recruited them as his generals (Fucking species-traitors. Normally it's class traitors but sometimes…). First, from what I can tell he simply doesn't trust other vampires (I can’t blame him.). Second, they are both gifted and talented men who have suffered heavily at the hands of society and are therefore as isolated from humanity as he is in a lot of ways (They are in fact a cautionary tale in a lot of ways. How someone can be so cut off and alienated from Society that they are easy to radicalize into destructive ideologies. Fascists, terrorist groups, cults. They all preferentially target those who lack communities.). Lastly is their mastery of an arcane art that earns them the title of forgemasters. Using human (and animal) corpses they can create monsters, which may be empowered by demons or perhaps even human souls from hell. There's some debate on that between me and others I'll admit (It’s entirely possible they can use both.). This makes the two of them a vital resource, as Dracula can use them to build large, expendable armies of monsters that can overrun even the most heavily fortified position. This also drastically simplifies his logistics. This is an interesting shift as in Season I, it's heavily implied that he's summoning creatures directly in hell but I'll get to the reasons behind that shift in a bit. Let me discuss our forgemasters separately, Hector is the more social of the two. In fact, he seems to crave acceptance and validation, perhaps because his own parents reacted to his arcane gifts in the field of necromancy by trying to beat the devil out of him and he responded by burning them alive in their house (Can’t blame him for burning abusers alive. But it also leaves him incredibly isolated and needing that connection, which makes him very easy to manipulate.). Dear readers, let this be a lesson to those of you who are parents or are considering it, if your child shows unorthodox gifts, it is important not to react from a place of fear, hate, or rage. Calm acceptance and attempts at positive mentoring will save lives! Possibly your own! Consider this a PSA. This leaves him rather easy to manipulate and willing to believe lies as long his belief buys him that sense of acceptance. It's kind of easy to pity Hector even as you're driven into spasms of frustrations with Hector and his passiveness and willingness to be manipulated (He’s almost child-like in his ability to be deceived.).

Our second Forgemaster is made of more dangerous trauma and emotional fallout. Issac, who seems to be a Sufi mystic (Sufi mysticism is a particular subset of Islam, mostly Sunni, but some Shiite. It isn’t really a sect, but rather a mode. Unlike the externally directed practices of most of Islam, Sufis tend toward inwardly directed contemplation of the nature of Allah, renunciation of worldly things, and purification of the soul.) of some sort into self-flagellation may in fact be the most dangerous individual in Castle Dracula (He absolutely is.). If not, he's certainly in the top three. Raised by an abusive master (And we mean this in the bad-BDSM way. Not the good-BDSM way. In that he both loved his master possibly in a gay way, but was also in a very much non-consenting actual-slave arrangement that violated his agency. He broke free of the Stockholm Syndrome and regained his own agency by, rather predictably, killing said master which both liberated and deeply traumatized him.), Issac has long ago decided that there's nothing worth saving in humanity and is perfectly happy to throw us all in the trash pile. To be fair, it seems that the only person in his life who treats him with any respect is Dracula, who openly considers him to be one of the most intelligent and gifted human beings alive. A fact that humanity may come to deeply regret in the future. Isaac is driven by a need for control and order in the world around him and inside of himself, what's interesting is he doesn't seem disrespectful of others until he is disrespected. It would be easy to dismiss him as a misanthrope but his willingness to open up to people like Hector and Dracula who treat him with respect and dignity suggest someone who doesn't loath his fellow man but is exhausted by the disappointment he suffers every time he interacts with them. Issac is honestly one of the strongest people in Castle Dracula in that he is unshakable in his loyalty, firm in his convictions, and willing to confront the truth whatever it may be. If you're like me, you find yourself both respecting Isaac and honestly afraid of the guy because people like him have no breaks when they commit to something. Which might be why he's not considered an ally but a target by our next villain.

Carmilla is a magnificent queen b- (You shouldn’t use gendered insults.) bastard of a villain. From the minute she walks into Castle Dracula like she owns the place to the last minute of Season II. While Dracula has summoned basically every vampire in the world to his bastion of butchery, Carmilla took her damn time showing up basically being the last major Vampire to arrive. The moment she shows up, she takes one look around and decides that what this campaign of carnage needs is new management and she's available (She is certainly sufficiently competent.). She starts plotting and working every side she can find against the other to undermine Dracula, break apart Hector and Isaac and subordinate the vampire officers to her whims. She also does it with style and aplomb. Part of this is Carmilla's own mental and emotional baggage that leaves her associating following a male with being helpless. Another part is the fact that she is legitimately a gifted and talented woman who is tired of watching people who are frankly less than she is in every way taking the lead because of their birth, their gender, their age, or whatever other reason that gets her passed over (I can certainly understand that. Though no one should go mistaking her for some sort of feminist hero. She is definitely not one of those. I’d make a joke about bourgeoisie feminism - as opposed to proper intersectional leftist feminism - and needing more woman drone pilots, {y’all can’t see it but I’m rolling my eyes} but she’s even worse. She’s an aristocratic feminist and there is nothing she deserves but the guillotine.{certainly can’t disagree with that}). She frankly doesn't care about Dracula's genocide or his reasons, all she is here for is to take charge and pursue her own goals, and if that means burying Dracula? So much the worse for the old man in her view. Because she will kill, lie, cheat, steal, and do whatever it takes to get on top of this heap. Carmilla serves as a hidden danger and complication to everyone in this season because she is utterly and completely hostile to both heroes and villains alike and is damn good at it. That said she needs to be careful because if she rouses Dracula with her actions, he is still capable of utterly wiping the floor with her. Now I do have to make a quick note, Carmilla is actually the name of the oldest vampires in Anglo fiction. The novelette Carmilla actually predates Dracula, being published in 1872, about a vampiress who preys on young women going by the name Carmilla. That said the show's Carmilla doesn't share much with her namesake beyond a willingness to use lies and manipulation, since in the book Carmilla uses those tools to be invited into the homes of her targets as a guest and in the show, Carmilla is all about using lies and manipulation on what she considers a pack of children, animals and dying old men. Which leads me to Dracula.

When we last saw him in Season I, making the sky burn and thundering out with the voice of an angry god, Dracula was full of rage and hate. Since then, all the demonic destruction has done nothing to fill the hole in his heart, rent even larger with the loss of his son. Which was likely made worse by the fact that his son is lost to him due to his own actions. In most of Season II, the fire has utterly gone out of Dracula, we only see some brief embers of it when someone foolishly challenges him to his face but for the most part, he is lost to despair (I mean…). Reacting with barely any energy to his own murderous mission and for the most part only able to gaze into the fire and think about what it has robbed him of. It's here you realize that this rip-roaring rampage of revenge? Is nothing more than an excessively drawn out and brutal murder-suicide as Dracula is practically doing everything he can to dare a Belmont or some other vampire hunter, or someone, anyone to come along and put an end to him! Not that he intends to make it easy for any would-be hero though. Because whatever else he is, he is still Dracula the Prince of the Night and if he's going to die, he's going to do so on a mountain of bodies belonging to his victims. Because how else can he die? (And even if he wins, this isn’t the culling he has promised the others except Isaac. Pairing humans back to reservations where they will be kept in their place as cattle. No no. He plans to exterminate all of humanity, not just Wallacia. He’s had some mission creep. And that means no food. So even if he wins, he and all the other vampires will eventually starve. {When Dracula takes everyone with him, he takes everyone!})

During all of this, the heroes are also scheming to rob Dracula of his advantages and pin him down and kill him. The intrigue is complex, the violence is bone-jarring and no punches are pulled here. When our heroes confront Dracula we are forced to see the sheer emotional impact of the battle between Trevor, Sypha, and above all Alucard against Dracula. The stakes are world-shattering but that's not what takes the forefront in the mind of any of the characters. Because the world is too big, too abstract, and too complicated in the feeling it invokes for any of these people to be willing to kill or die for it. Instead, everyone is here for intensely personal reasons. Trevor is here to prove everyone wrong, live up to his family legacy, and maybe prove to himself that he can have a measure of self-worth after all. That he can live like a human being. Sypha is here to protect her people and her family as well as to fulfill her promises to her friends. Alucard is fighting for his Mother and his memories of family. In what I can only consider a tragic twist, Dracula is fighting for the same person, Dracula is fighting for his wife and his own memories of family and it's those memories of families and what they mean that will decide the victor of this fight, not any magical lore or brute strength but what breaks first; the bonds of father and son or the demands of vengeance for a murdered spouse? Join us tomorrow when I talk about Season III which covers the fallout and sets up what happens next.