Ron Goulart - Vampirella 2: On Alien Wings

[dem bones]

Ron Goulart - Vampirella 2: On Alien Wings (Sphere, 1977)

Gino D'Achille

Blurb:

SHE MUST KILL - OR DIE

VAMPIRELLA the hypnotically beautiful alien is an animal of prey, doomed to stalk the earth seeking victims to provide her with food, with life. For her food is blood!

Now, trapped on a deserted tropical island, hunted by ravening beasts set on her by the devotees of the Cult of Chaos, Vampirella is pursued by the vampire-obsessed Conrad Von Helsing who has vowed to plunge a stake into her heart. She must fight against the call of her own bloodlust, but sustain her strength for the battle with implacable enemies…

BEAUTIFUL, MYSTERIOUS, DEADLY.. her name is VAMPIRELLA

One Massive Spoiler

We begin with two wretched youths, Josh and Lenny, trespassing on Old Man Horner's LA estate because they reckon he must have some treasure hidden away in the family vault. They're about to break in when .... someone - or something - opens the grill for them.

Cut to Nathan Horner himself, multi-millionaire retired movie producer, a blotchy, decrepit walking corpse of a man who is engaged in a frank exchange of opinion with his live-in physician, Dr. Zumler. Horner has a morbid fear of death and is intent on making sure that it never happens to him, so he has all his best hirelings on the case. One of them, Carolyn, a pale, witchy young woman confirms that she has been in contact with the spirits of the Nethervoid who've happily fingered his best hope of eternal life - their sworn enemy, and our heroine Vampirella!

Horner gleefully hobbles and creaks his way to the crypt. "I have a job for you" he calls into the blackness of the Vault and we're off on another terrif Vampi adventure!

On Alien Wings follows on directly from Bloodstalk. Vampirella is now working as the Great Pendragon's assistant and her debut at Pete's Rocket Lounge is enough for Norm Lane of Famous Bookings to approach the permanently pissed Pendragon with a proposition.

"I got a sudden empty spot on a Cruise ship, ... going from New York down to the Caribbean. Now, your magic act and the girl with the terrific pair, sound like just what we need to fill our entertainment package on the boat."

Only snag is, Vampi's been kidnapped and chained up in a dungeon by Horner's tame demon from the vault! The obnoxious old timer plans to deprive her of her blood serum until she's only too willing to suck his blood and make him an undead.

As if the terrific pair don't already have enough problems, there's still a deluded vampire-hunter to contend with. Conrad Van Helsing is on her tail while his clean-cut, square-jawed son Adam has his heart set on a piece of it.

All this, and still only on P.31!

Nathan Horner's fame and fortune are the fruits of his pact with the Netherworld. Also thrown in as a bonus, the winged demon, Nergal, contracted to do old Nate's bidding until the moment of his death whereupon he gets to claim his soul to torment through eternity. Nergal is very much looking forward to that moment.

Learning that the Van Helsings are in LA, Horner invites them over to talk occult; he needs reassurance that a vampire bite will make him immortal. When he smugly introduces the guests to his prize specimen down in the dungeon, Conrad is all for staking her on the spot. A scuffle ensues, a very thirsty Vampi breaks her shackles, and ....

So far, so undemanding, but the next episode is better. Pendragon and his assistant accept the gig aboard the S. S. Triton and look forward to a quiet time of it. Fat chance! Jack Trenton, debonair young owner of the entire shipping line, is another who owes his fortune to the Companions of Chaos and he intends to sink the Triton to placate his personal demon, Demogorgan, with hundreds of lovely souls. To this end, he's assisted by a crew consisting entirely of zombies raised from Davy Jones' Locker. The massive Demogorgan is an impressive beast, doubtless on nodding terms with Lovecraft's Dagon, and his attack on the passengers provides the novel's most exciting and only real violent moment to date with plenty of head-wrenching off and blood.

An enormous green shape had appeared on the other side of the glass wall of the theatre. It was a scaly thing, the size of a two-story building, dripping seawater and draped with tatters of seaweed. Its arms - there were six of them - ended in taloned hands, and each awful hand was pressed against the glass. The thing's palms looked like the underbellies of huge slugs, soft and slimy. Its head was a scale-encrusted, bloated globe, with staring eyes and a many-toothed fish mouth.

The ship goes down, but will there be any survivors? ....

To be ...

[dem bones]

..... continued



"Odd, isn't it .... how life often imitates the cinema. i recall seeing, in my distant youth, a motion picture wherein a young chap is hunted like an animal across a jungle isle much like this. The role of my youth was played by Joel McCrae if memory ..."

Learning of the shipping disaster, Adam Van Helsing, tiring of his father's obsessive hatred and homicidal intentions toward 'evil' Vampirella, cuts loose from the blind, barmy old codger, hires a private plane and persuades his old buddy from the services Tony Del Gado to fly him across the ocean to see if there are any remote desert islands where survivors may have been washed up.

Meanwhile on a remote desert island, Pendragon and Vampirella, sole survivors of the tragedy, learn that they are not alone in this tropical jungle when a half-man half-beast attempts to tear the magician to pieces, only to come off worst in a scrap with Vampi who guiltily uses the opportunity to take her nightly blood fix ( Pendragon, unhappily, will have to wait longer for his equally imperative gallon of Whiskey). Once Adam and Tony dutifully crash-land their plane and Pendragon rushes to greet them, all three find themselves held at gun point by their host, mad scientist Jean-Pierre Dargaud. Dargaud has been manufacturing werewolves as he seeks a cure for his beautiful wife, Monique's similar affliction, the result of a cruel trick played upon him by the Companions Of Chaos. His plans for the gents are simple: Adam will be let loose in the jungle to be hunted down by Monique, Pendragon and Tony will be injected with the beast-man serum. Surely even Vampirella can't help them this time!

This, the final story, is best as Dargaud proves himself to be an essentially decent man whose every dark deed has been committed only out of devotion to the wife he truly loves. Speaking of which, romance is very much on the mind of young Adam, but he's disheartened that the object of his desires seemingly hates him. Fortunately Tony Del Gado proves that his skills are not limited to crashing planes by providing some relationship counselling. "No woman is going to be as nasty to you as Vampirella has since you got here unless she's fond of you. That's what they call a sexist remark, but nonetheless true."