American Vampire #15

"Ghost War," Part Three
written by Scott Snyder
art by Rafael Albuquerque

From Skinner Sweet's re-birth as the first American vampire out of his unceremonious burial in the territorial West, American Vampire's central metaphors have rooted themselves in the idea of autochthonous origins.  Vampires have a strong geographic affinity, as though emanating from the very earth itself.  When Preston observes "that dank earthen smell, like they'd come scrambling strait out of the dirt" (American Vampire, Volume 3: 75 [American Vampire #15: 1]), it seems more than appropriate that their ambush would be perpetrated by unknown creatures born literally from the Taipan soil.  War and invasion have disrupted the long-standing balance these creatures held with the local population, and a mysterious Japanese military base on the island appears to have stirred them once again.

In the finest installment yet in the "Ghost War" arc, Snyder clarifies some of the series' ambiguities in vampire mythology and injects some thrilling character moments into the war drama.  It's been clear for a while that different vampire species exhibit different physical characteristics and are therefore vulnerable to different materials—the premise is reliant on it, actually—but the psychological aspect of vampire transformation has always been opaque.  But as Lants describes it, the effects of infection on the host's personality are a widely varying.  The Taipan vampires are entirely feral, none of their humanity remaining after rapid transformation.  Pearl, on the other hand, has kept herself.  Sweet was already predatory in life and seems no more so in un-death.

But Sweet is the wildcard in "Ghost War."  He's insinuated his way into the band of vampire hunters as soldier Bill Pike, killing a few American troops to do so, but in the melee following the ambush he takes on the horde of Taipan vampires alone.  They, it seems, are one of his weaknesses.  And despite his continued anonymity as a vampire, he seemed ready to tell Henry Preston all.  Wounded and not healing as he normally would, Sweet is carried off at the end of the issue by the same Japanese troops as his uniformed peers to their ominous compound.

[July 2011]

As collected in American Vampire, Volume 3 (ISBN: 978-1401233334)