The Strain: Mister Quinlan – Vampire Hunter #1

 Halloween Post-A-Day 2020, Day 24

Tie-ins

The Strain: Mister Quinlan – Vampire Hunter #1

 

Not what I thought this was about

 

 

Story – Guillermo Del Toro & Chuck Hogan

Writer – David Lapham

Penciller – Edgar Salazar

Inker – Keith Champagne

Colors – Dan Jackson

Letterer – Nate Piekos

Assistant Editor – Kevin Burkhalter

Editor – Spencer Cushing

September 2016

 

It’s on the shelf.

 

That’s what I say when some property comes out that looks promising or is by a writer/director/actor that I enjoy. It’s on the shelf. I’m going to get to it. Eventually.

 

The Strain TV show is one of those, although this comic did dampen my spirits for it greatly.

 

And by on the shelf this time, I mean that literally. Season one was on sale last Black Friday and I picked it up for a song. And there it sits. On the shelf.

 

I like del Toro’s works. He has a few misteps (not a fan of say... Crimson Peak), but his hits are far and away good enough to keep blind-buying his horror properties. And The Strain looked like some kind of weird Slither meets Contagion type thing.

 

Then I pick up this book and find out it is vampires. Again.

 

Now there is nothing wrong with a good vampire story…I just had hoped for the other. (course now that seems like we got the “live action version”, I’m pretty much virus-storied out.).

 

And this book (like one of my other tie-ins that didn't make the cut this time: Grimm) doesn’t really deal with the television series much at all. It deals with one person on the series, who I assume is like Blade, some kind of half-vampire that hates them and tries to kill them.

 

We begin in the Roman empire under Caligula. Seems Caligula had this boy called THRAX…(just like that, in all capitals and everything).

 

Thrax…er, sorry…THRAX was carrying the vampire known as the Master inside him and he was a favorite of Caligula, so nightly he got seven virgins to suck dry.

 

Only one night, one of the girls wasn’t a virgin. She was pregnant. THRAX had to kill her kid before it could be born because…something, something …it’s a problem. Or I don’t know. It’s Blade. He had to or the kid would be Blade. But then the guard broke in because someone tried to assassinate Caligula, so THRAX left the girl guarded by humans and she “transmorgrofied” (don’t ask me, it’s on the page) it a killer vampire, and overpowered her guards.

 

She gave birth in the Roman sewers to a bouncing baby vampire.

 

They lived off stray people who got too close to the sewers, mother caring for her child. Meanwhile, Caligula was finally killed and Claudius chased THRAX away with some silver weapon carrying warriors.

 

This allowed our nascent Mister Quinlan to mature for the next decade…

 

…however, he still had to feed. He wasn’t injured by the sun like his mother because the writer of this mess had Blade comics as a child. Oh, dear god this is such a rip-off. Ha!

 

But he did get cornered by some warriors and then his mom had to come save him.

 

Only she did this at the cost of her own life but he did learn how to chuck a spear. (so, yay?)

 

Thus, his dying mom sends him away to bring back blood from the unknown eastern realm.

 

What our protagonist doesn’t realize is that his mom sends him away because THRAX is BACKX! And he is stalking her so he can rid the world of another rival.

 

 

When Son makes it back with lunch, THRAX has decapitated his mother, but due to the daylight, he can’t snag the son. Sonny gets away

 

But stops to snack on this small child. Not much of a meal, if you ask me. More like a lite snack.

 

Anyhoo…this gets Sonny caught…

 

And naturally he is sent to the arena to train at fighting alongside the other X-Men. Or whatever you call these freaky looking guys.

 

Sonny makes friends with the super tall NBA player that wandered on set that day…

 

…who trains him well enough for our boy to become a super slick arena champion.

 

Thus, it should come as no surprise that THRAX hears about this pale-skinned gladiator, and pays his fellow freaks a visit.

 

Sonny and Basketball Jones are awakened by the ruckus and step out to find the cast of the first four Resident Evil games populating the arena hallways.

 

And that’s where our prequel’s first issue ends. I made fun of this, but truly it is a solid story. Just not very original. Enjoyable and has me looking to check out the show now. Once I can find which shelf I put those blu-rays on.