The Battle of Three Kings
by
Sudeep Menon, Deepjoy Subba (Illustrator), Mauricio (Colorist), Mandar Gangele (Letterer)
Picked this up at the 2023 Delhi Comic – in point of fact I picked up the “Directors’ Cut English – Variant Homage Cover” which is a great cover that homages the O-G Marvel “Tomb OF Dracula” issue #1.
Sudeep is a really nice guy and a good writer and I was happy to see him working on this among several comics with the folks at Bullseye and this was a concept that was very much what I would expect from this writer.
The artists however were all new to me but at the risk of judging a book by its covers, I really liked what they artists had done for the various different covers and this appeal carried over to the interior art which is very strong! The art team of Deepjoy Subba and Mauricio really have a nice thing going with moody panels full of gravitas mingled with nicely savage action panels and the kind of blood and gore you’d probably expect in a solid horror action-adventure tale. There are some weaker moments and a few pages in the edition I got where the printing added a bit of a blur to the whole page here and there, but overall I found both that the art was solid and that the comic production quality (paper, size, etc) were really quite good!
As for the story: This is the first of two parts (so far at least) that posits that Vlad Tepes, a.k.a, Vlad the Impaler, a.k.a, Dracula finds himself after his early years to be in the Indian sub-continent instead of prowling the European forests and hills. I was a little confounded at the start as we kick off with a wonderfully bloody battle sequence wherein the armies of Alexander the Great face-off against the armies of India (specifically those of King Porus of the Pauravs) for the first time but I felt that perhaps based on the chronology of Stokers original origin, that was well before what should have been the birth of Vlad – but hey, this is a fun story and a unique idea so I was fine to roll with it! Thereafter Vlad tries to mind his own business but of course gets entangled with power plays and such because it is in his nature and somewhat inevitable.
Overall a solid story and a nice take on an all-too familiar character for which I give credit all around as the narrative and the look is both familiar but with just enough uniqueness to keep it interesting. Leading into a nice finale that is an end in and of itself but also sets up future stories well – I read the second one too but sadly it’s not here on Goodreads so I’ll have to review that as and when!
You can also view all my reviews of Goodreads
One Happy Monk 
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