Mass Movement Magazine

Requiem: Vampire Knight – Volume 3: Dragon Bites & Hellfire Club – Volume 4: The Convent Of The Sisters Of Blood & The Queen Of Dead Souls – Pat Mills & Olivier Ledroit (Panini)*
At, it’s time to return to the world of Resurrection, the hell world where everything is reversed, and the damned spend their afterlife as monsters of folklore and legend, a world where chaos reigns supreme, where normality and civilisation are nothing but memories of the life that condemned the residents to their fate, where the Vampire rules over the zombie, the ghoul and every other creature from the stories and fables of old. This is the world in which Requiem, the vampire knight, a German soldier called Heinrich, killed on the Eastern Front, finds himself reborn, caught in a seemingly endless quest to save his lost love Rebecca, and across these two volumes, Requiem finds himself drawn into the machinations of Vampire society as he becomes increasingly important (due to him being the reincarnation of Thurim, a battle that rages as both Requiem and Thurim fight for control of Heinrich’s body and soul) to those drawing up plans to overthrow the eternal ruler of Resurrection, Dracula, King Of The Vampires as Resurrection teeters on the brink of war, nations preparing for conflict with the Vampires. In the middle of all this political upheaval, Requiem struggles to make sense of his fate and destiny in an utterly alien world that thrives on evil. Requiem’s creator Pat Mills, widely credited as being the godfather of modern British comics, has fashioned a fully formed world, that’s a nightmare vision of horror, a fear fuelled psychotic trip to the depths of the human psyche that draws it’s readers in, and thanks to the sumptuous, incredibly detailed artwork of Olivier Ledroit, presents Resurrection, fully formed in all it’s magnificent, terrible glory. The vampires and creatures that fill the world of Ledroit and Mills aren’t the vampires that have bene popularised by teenage romantic fiction, the teenage heartthrob, tortured by the weight of their own emotion, these are Vampires as they should be. Creatures that revel in cruelty, delight in mayhem and feast on perversion, and Requiem isn’t for the faint hearted, pulling no punches in it’s often graphic portrayals of sex and violence, creating a unique story that both rewards and challenges it’s readers and is proof positive that Mills is still at the fore front of the comics industry, his imagination and storytelling maturing like a fine wine, getting better with time and age. Be warned though, trying to enter the world of Requiem at this point (that is Volume Three) would be like trying to dance barefoot on broken glass. That is, it’s damn near impossible. Due to the books nature, and the ongoing story arcs, you’ll need to read Volumes One and Two first, both of which are still widely available, and like Volumes Three and Four, are thoroughly recommended. Take a trip to Resurrection, it’s the journey of your lifetimes… Tim Mass Movement

* Volumes Three and Four available separately.