Writer: Fred Van Lente
Artist: Marco Finnegan
Colorist: Ellie Wright
Letterer: Jeff Eckleberry
Cover Artist: EJ Su, Godtail, David Cousens & Will Robson
Publisher: Dynamite Entertainment
Price: $4.99
Release Date: November 5, 2025
Jennifer races through the ruins. When she reaches a fence of sharpened wooden poles, she utters a desperate cry. Warriors spring into action. The women attack the males transformed into shambling corpses with a taste for Human flesh. They rescue Jennifer and bring her inside. What will the newcomer find in this enclave of healthy Humans? And what of the inhabitant who isn’t Human? Let’s grab our weapons, leap into Die!Namite Blood Red #1, and see!
Story
When the X virus struck, it attacked males, cutting short Humanity’s future. As in Y: The Last Man, healthy males are in short supply. Women must stick together to defend themselves and protect the few males who can ensure Humanity's survival. But preserving these remnants of civilization demands ruthlessness wielded by an iron hand.
In Die!Namite: Blood Red #1, Vampirella’s voice guides us through this apocalyptic tale of Deadmen hunting, swarming, and hungering for their next meal. Inside the enclave, Vampirella hides a dark secret. She was an ambassador for her planet. Now, she is a refugee, forced to take on detective work to survive.
Fred Van Lente’s story puts Vampirella on the back foot. She needs the safety of Purgatori’s enclave to survive. Yet she wants to protect someone from her ruler’s harsh justice. So Vampirella plays things cool. She asserts her importance by pursuing investigations vital to the enclave’s future. Vampirella knows that if she displeases them, her hosts could throw her outside to become the Deadmen’s next meal. Or worse, she could lose her last link to her homeworld in Die!Namite: Blood Red #1.
Art
Dark figures stumble down a broken road between tilted telephone poles. Crumbling tower blocks rise in the distance, their exposed infrastructure a reminder of the collapse of civilization. The Deadmen stumble or crawl after a woman fleeing in jeans and a string top. A small purse holds her few possessions. When she reaches the gates, a diesel truck with a grapple bucket on the front roars into view. Warriors cling to each door, while a third fires the roof-mounted machine gun.
While Marco Finnegan reveals the essentials of this brutal world, Ellie Wright lavishes bright colors on the silhouettes and thick inks in Die!Namite: Blood Red #1. The colors glow as the women radiate vitality in this dying world. The face of their benefactor emerges from a smudged, dirty billboard rising above the barbed wire barriers. Vampirella’s cosmic route back to civilization juxtaposes with a glowing gladiatorial arena.
Jeff Eckleberry fills these spectral glimpses of the wasteland with black uppercase letters in white dialogue balloons and narrative boxes. Words grow bold for intonation. They swell and threaten to burst balloons when danger threatens. Sound effects fill the hazy air and silhouetted backgrounds in this Mad Max zombie apocalypse. Yet Vampirella strides through it all in her long red coat and dark boots, seemingly impervious to the dangers surrounding her, in this futuristic sci-fi noir. Thanks to Dynamite Entertainment for providing a review copy.
Final Thoughts
In a bleak future, an alien who can never return home helps her foreign hosts eek out each new day of existence, so that someday, somehow, a brighter future can dawn in Die!Namite: Blood Red #1.
Rating 8/10
For more cover art see my review at Comic Book Dispatch.
