2 out of 5
Vertigo, in its constant attempts to reclaim its prior fame – either the Sandman-ruled years of its early era or the Preacher / Y / Scalped successes of the late 90s / early 00s – has been rejiggering its lineup every few seasons this past decade, in a constant “this is what YOU want!” baiting rather akin to Marvel and DCs constant reboots, with an inevitable one or two titles nabbing some attention but nothing really lasting to resecure the line’s once reliable position.

The most recent version of this – which has mimicked the older-era trick of roping in notable UK creators (to the extent that the move was highlighted in the Judge Dredd Megazine) has, alas, resulted in the same outcomes as the recent pushes: Some headlines, but nothing that’s going to carry them to a new reign.  However, some of the titles do read spiritually closer to classic Vertigo, so that’s something.

Dark and Bloody is one such title.  In part that’s because it’s a limited series – Vgo otherwise fell into a nasty habit of wanting everything to be an ongoing – and in part because it embraces the somewhat schlocky genre-fied style of yore, wherein the books read like direct-to-cable flights of fancy.  That’s the rub, you see: Classic Vertigo actually wasn’t all that great most of the time, but it was its willingness to indulge those fancies that made it worth checking out, to occasionally stumble across something that actually turned out pretty good.

So: Zeitgeist represented, but still on the ‘not so great’ side of the fence.  Creator Shawn Aldridge knocks out a worthwhile first issue, setting up a folksy vibe with “daddy always said” wisdom that precedes something particularly dark or gruesome, and hinting at the voodoo-esque curse comin’ down the road for moonshine-brewin’ Iris, his wife, son, and their soon-to-be second child.  But the second issue makes it clear that that setup will be a template – dad wisdom, Southern chatter, plot-related flashback – and thus soon becomes repetitive, and with the introduction of wartime atrocities in Iris’ past, that ‘straight to cable’ vibe rears its head and you spot the plot beats miles out.

The charm wears thinner with the mismatched art.  Scott Godlewski’s work is absolutely competent (if a little bland in terms of detail or layout), it’s just lacking the darkness or Southern character the title needs.  All of the characters’ twangs end up sounding mighty cultivated when done up in crisp pencils (lacking the grit of, say, Southern Bastards or the undercurrent of detachment in Dillon’s work in Preacher), and the spooks and creeps are too cleanly rendered to be spooky or creepy.  The same goes for the colors: Bright and warm, just like a horror book oughtn’t be.

Let’s toss in some odd horizontal page layouts and minor lettering confusions (lacking clear reading order of dialogue bubbles), and the classic Vertigo spirit can’t raise Dark and Bloody up above being rather humdrum in story and execution.