DC Universe Presents #10 - Savage

Vandal Savage is been held in a high security prison, under the guise of The Cherry Blossom Killer (serial killers do love their nicknames) he murdered several people including an FBI Profiler. In his defence Savage did claim he was just making sacrifices to his gods of old, not the best defence I have ever heard but at least he was honest.

16 years later Savage's daughter Kass is now working for the FBI and has come to him for help, a copycat killer who may have super powers is using Savages MO and has taken the daughter of a senator as his next victim. Kass gets her farther released under heavy guard and manacles so they can visit the place the senators daughter was taken, which just happens to be on a campus near a wooded area with an old abandoned church in the vicinity, am I the only one that can see something going wrong here?

After checking the area and the stars with a sextant Vandal works out where the Killer is taking his victims (see abandoned church), however he is quickly dispatched to the awaiting helicopter to be returned to his cell. Its at this point he realises he may have made a mistake and put his daughter in grave danger, but given that he is a killer who claims to be immortal no one will believe him.

Like the previous issue of this story there is great interaction between Vandal and his daughter, she clearly has nothing but disdain for her farther and blames him for her mother’s early death. He despite been an unfeeling killer shows signs of love for his daughter, he also has a sense of old fashioned values around respecting your parents. After one two many sarcastic comments from Kass he tells her ‘’respect me or I'm trough here’’, its a fascinating glimpse into how the little things matter to him but life and death don't.

Once again James Robinson is crafting a great story proving that you don’t always need all out action to grip the reader, character building and interaction can be just as effective. That's not to say that the story doesn’t have its share of action it does, none more so as when the copycat killer silently take out the FBI agents (kills them) leaving him with Kass at his mercy. And not to be left out we see Vandal who was on a ride home take out his guards and throw himself out of a helicopter to make his escape, as he realises he's led his daughter into a trap.

Is Vandal’s concern for his daughter based on fatherly affection, or is he just annoyed that someone else is copying his killing style is anyone’s guess.

I have a few minor niggles with the story one is Kass’s denial of her fathers immortality, surely she can tell he looks exactly the same as he did when she was a 10 year old girl. If not then the training in the FBI is seriously lacking, the other is parts of the story (mainly issue 9) do come over as a little bit Silence of the Lambs.  Female FBI agent check, serial killer check, glass cage check, copy cat killer, well you get my point. But as I said these are only minor complaints and they didn’t affect my enjoyment of the story, Bernard Chang’s artwork is good if not spectacular and his Savage looks like he has been pulled from the pages of Demon Knights, which is not a bad thing when you are depicting someone who is an immortal.

However its Robinson's writing of Savage that I particularly enjoyed as we see how he has evolved from those distant days in Daemon Knights, this is a Savage with intelligence, cunning and patience honed over centuries of self preservation.

 DC Universe Presents is fast becoming every thing I had hoped it would be when it was first solicited; using characters that may not be able to sustain their own book and telling stories about them that would expand on the DC Universe.

Long may it continue to do so.