Image Comics reviews 5-24-23 – Ambassadors #5, Night Club #5

 

Night Club #5

Last issue didn’t work out so well for the club. In the aftermath of their confrontation with another pact of vampires, Danny and his friends were humbled and humiliated. That was before they had a building collapse on them. Things go downhill as Det. Laskaras is pissed Danny’s actions have threatened his cover.  And somehow things manage to get even worse.

Laskaras explains how he got caught up with the main vampire crew led by Gunner John. Writer Mark Millar is always good about establishing menacing villains and Gunner John’s gang might be some of the baddest bad guys he’s created in the Millarverse with creepy and disturbing origins.

Laskaras is running out of options and getting desperate enough to consider bringing Danny’s group in his plot to take down Gunner John — unless things go completely sideways. If you’ve read a Millar book before you know how bad that can get for our neophyte heroes and their mentor.

Juanan Ramirez’s art is very clean and packed with emotive characters as they make sense of their latest predicament. Ramirez brings a certain horror movie sense of direction to his art keeping characters in shadows for maximum dread effect and otherwise fostering tension in a way that would make for an easy transition to a Netflix series. Colorist Fabiana Mascolo has to use restrain for a gory, blood-filled title so it doesn’t lose its impact. That restraint pays off to make the issue’s big moment highly effective.

The rest of the issue finds Millar fully stacking the odds against the Night Club, who are so outmatched and ill-prepared for this showdown it’s almost laughable. Only thing is instead of laughing people are dying. It sets up a heck of a mini-series finale and with Big Game imminent there’s bound to be some ties to the huge Millarverse crossover.

Rating: 9.5 out of 10

Photo Credit: Image Comics