So Vile and Foul

Eva, Daughter of the Dragon is one of the worst things I've read recently. The cover by Jo Chen is fantastic, and the interior artwork by Edgar Salazar is okay (and the reason why I bought the book), but the writing is beyond atrocious: horrendous plot, clichéd and expository dialogue --the works. Everything you shouldn't do when writing, it is showcased here.

I had never read anything by the "writer", Brandon Jerwa, and after reading this comic book, I will make sure I never again read anything perpetrated by this hack. And now, and even though we don't like spoilers in Sunny Jhanna, I'm going to tell you the story that unfolds in this comic book published by Dynamite. Reading the comic book is a joyless, painful activity, but hopefully reading my summary will be entertaining.

The ludicrous story puts together Dracula and Dr. Frankenstein, and while Vlad Tepes becomes a dark creature, the good old doctor creates his famous monster. Dracula is very sad because his wife died and she was pregnant, so she is buried with their unborn child… or so he thinks. Somehow, somebody removed the unborn child from her body before burying her, but Dracula didn't realize it (I guess they stuffed her with something so as to still look fat). At any rate, Dracula and the Frankenstein monster decide to search for the Philosopher's Stone (an obvious choice, I guess) to be immortal, and Frankenstein appears to die while reaching for it.

Suddenly, it's fifty years later, but Dracula's daughter, Eva, who has been raised by monks, has only aged twenty-five years, but we're not told why. She goes to a country fair in which a gypsy read her future and tells her she is Dracula's daughter (I guess it's more like she reads her past), something "she has suspected for a long time". Why she has suspected this is never clarified, but hey, she suspected it. As soon as she gets out of the tent and confronts the monk that went to the fair with her about this whole situation, a hooded stranger materializes out of thin air (and I mean, really) and says he knows she wants to kill Dracula and he has the weapon that will kill him, but she needs to get something for him first. So, instead of mistrusting this complete stranger who -I repeat- has appeared out of nowhere, is hiding his face, and seems to know an awful lot about Eva, she says sure, she'll do it. While she is receiving her instructions (she has to go to the mountains and find the Philosopher's Stone), a pack of wolves, sent by Dracula to locate his next victim, happen to identify Eva as the best target. Why she is the best bite around is never explained, so I guess it's just a big coincidence we have to put up with.

Eva goes to the mountains, where Frankenstein is protecting the stone, but then Dracula appears. And what do you think it's the first thing that Eva tells him? Well, she tells him that she's his daughter. Why would she do that? Wouldn't she like to keep that card hidden to play it later? I don't know, but she tells him, and he just accepts it and leaves. He doesn't question or doubt it. He just buys it and departs. Then Frankenstein asks Eva to protect the stone for him, and she agrees, but one panel later she's giving it to the hooded stranger, who, in turn, gives her a splinter of the spear used to stab good ole Jesus when he was crucified. Could we get some more clichés, please?

Then all of a sudden it's modern times, and Eva, who still looks twenty-five, has teamed up with Frankenstein, who acts as her mentor and has turned into a green Gandhi, refusing to be involved in any kind of violence whatsoever. Eva is still looking for Dracula to kill him (I guess she's been looking for him for centuries), but she can't find him… until she has a dream that night that tells her where to find her. Since when has she been having prophetic dreams? We don't know, but I guess we'll just have to accept it, because the writer couldn't come up with a better way for her to find him. And why was she sleeping in her clothes? Did she know she was going to need to wake up and leave in a hurry? We don't know, either.

Eva goes to the warehouse where Dracula entered in her dream, but what the dream didn't show her (how convenient) is that Dracula has been trapped by some kind of evil monster, and now she's become its prisoner as well.

The next panel shows both Dracula and Eva tied up and dangling over a monster that can only be described as the Sarlacc Pit Monster, but in red (I guess it's made of blood --this is a Dracula story, after all). And just when I'm trying to convince myself that this is not a shameless rip-off but a heartfelt homage to Star Wars, the monster sprouts a bunch of tentacles that shoot up and capture Dracula and Eva, just like in Return of the Jedi. Fighting my disbelief, I see both of them fall and start being digested by the monster (but not before we bear witness to Eva dangling from the edge of the beast's mouth, and Dracula dangling in turn from her ankle in yet another wonderful cliché). Eva, however, resists to die and starts stabbing the thing with the spear. All of a sudden, when everything seems to be lost, Frankenstein appears and, forgetting his oath not to fight, goes to town on the monster and saves Eva. This is when the monster becomes unstable and starts to pretty much self-destruct, something we learn because Frankenstein points it out, not because it makes any sense. The reader thinks he won't be given any explanation (as usual), but then Dracula appears with the monster's heart, and we understand that is what triggered the chain reaction. How he could get from the beast's belly to its heart is never explained, but that didn't surprise me at that point. At any rate, Dracula bites the heart and becomes an even uglier monster. Then he tells Eva he'll let her live this time (don't even ask why), but she should stop chasing him or he'll be forced to kill her (of course), and he flees. Obviously, this won't be the end, because Eva has sworn to kill him, but maybe they're saving that thrilling confrontation for a hypothetical miniseries. I, for one, will not read it, and I hope you guys do the same.