This is not your typical brotherly adventure.
Putting a strangely hilarious twist on blood, gore and violence makes it difficult to take anything serious, but in “Blood Brothers: Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas†by Etan Cohen, Mike Gagerman and Andrew Waller, you get a little bit of both.
“Blood Brothers,†Nick and Tree, have witnessed historical moments in history thanks to their vampiric curse. These moments come up naturally into their conversations as they reminisce about similar crazy and most likely vulgar situations to what they’re current dealing with. Sometimes they flashback to their past and how wild it was just because talking about it seems like it will never get old.
As Nick and Tree discuss historic moments they have experienced together, they speak so frankly that it’s funny. This obviously comes from knowing one another for thousands of years. No need to beat around the bush. The two lost the concept of awe as they treat almost everything in a flippant nature. It’s almost as if they’ve been alive for so long that they seem to find it difficult to feel intense emotions, though it doesn’t help that the two constantly banter about random subjects.
The story line follows these two vampire best friends who have been together for a thousand years whose current jobs are bounty hunters. Both of them, for the most part, keep the fact they’re vampires hidden by those around them and try to keep inconspicuous lives. That was proven quite difficult once they had the attention of a psychopathic human-hater vampire.
Between being hunted and actually fighting there’s a huge mystery involved that makes the book like a constant car chase. Once the secret is out, it doesn’t seem to bother either one of them too much. Even the humans who find out about it reacts less than expected but it could be due to the constant life threatening dangers that are continuously being thrown at them.
This aspect about them never really changes as they are forced in life endangering experiences and fight to prevent the apocalypse. Though, in this adventure, they manage to get help from some unlikely people in unexpectedly humorous ways.
What adds to the light-hearted nature of the series is that life, death and pain doesn’t have a strong impact on emotions because of the constant humor. Then suspense keeps readers turning the page due to the constant high speed intense excitement.
This is where the art shines. The action scenes are really brought out by the art seems to zoom in and out from scene to scene adding to the humor and action. There are two types of art in the comic.
Tree is shown as easy going and wild where as Nick is shown as a straight-laced good guy ready to battle evil. She gives a preview in her pictures as well on what’s about to happen in the story.
The rest of the comic book done by Evan Shaner is toned down in comparison to the covers so that the characters look more like normal people that can blend into society. There doesn’t really need to be such exaggeration in their features nor in the story line since the action scenes makes everything crazy enough.
The crazy fast action-packed parts of the comic keeps the reader at the edge of their chair, yet the slap-stick humor breaks up the intensity. Not everything makes sense all of the time so when reading the series it’s best not to question anything and just enjoy it.
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