Operation: Iron Coffin #1
Writer: Kenny Porter
Artist and Colorist: Tyrell Cannon
This might be the most metal thing I’ve seen in some time.
You can’t see it, but I’m throwing up devil horns right now.
No Ticket
The core premise of Operation: Iron Coffin is beautifully simple and completely insane.
It’s World War II. A British bomber drops its payload on the Nazis. That payload is a coffin. And that coffin holds Count Dracula.
That’s right. The British are using Dracula as a bomb. Sheer carnage follows.
While the colorist restocks their red ink, the story shifts gears and explains how Dracula is undead again, instead of just dead like at the end of Bram Stoker’s original novel. I won’t spoil it here, but it’s very cool with some more gnarly images. It's not all gore and violence, though—there's some real pathos behind the bloodletting, but I want to let you read that for yourself.
The issue wraps up with some more violence and bloodshed, because who doesn’t love seeing Nazis get theirs?
No Reflection On
I’m not a big horror guy. I can respect a lot of it, but it’s not really my thing.
So it’s funny that I’ve been checking out a lot of books in that vein lately (no pun intended).
This book definitely has horror elements—it stars Dracula, the daddy of all vampires, after all—but it’s also a violent, bloody, pulpy romp. There's also a strong emotional core, thanks to the circumstances of his resurrection and how it's changed him. Let's just say that Angel and Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer might have more in common with the Count than they thought.
Dracula gives a speech late in the book that I think summarizes his new mission statement pretty clearly. The short version is, monsters are driven by hunger, but devils do what they do for pleasure. In his past unlife, he was a monster. Now, he is a devil who takes pleasure in hunting his chosen foes. The real speech is longer and much cooler, but that's the gist of it.
Just be glad I didn't kill you right after, as the Count does to his audience in the issue. (I wouldn't do that. I like you.)
There's just so much going on in this book. It's extra-length—I think I counted around 38 pages of story, and the creative team makes full use of every one of them. As we get into the latter half of the issue, Dracula encounters a more challenging foe in the form of a Nazi Man of the Cloth, and something is revealed that makes the stakes even more personal for our antihero. We're left with the promise of so much more to come, and I'm sitting here wondering just how they're going to keep raising the stakes month after month.
Monsters and Devils
All of the heavy-metal-pulp-horror madness comes our way from the duo of writer Kenny Porter and artist/colorist Tyrell Cannon, who are leaving it all on the page.
Kenny Porter nails the pulp-movie pacing here, with the script easily gliding from one setpiece or action scene to the next. He intersperses the emotional character moments, such as the reveal of Dracula's resurrection and what happened after, throughout the issue to give the proceedings a bit more gravitas. This also serves as a bit of a breather between the gore-splattered grindhouse moments, which are plentiful and awesome.
Tyrell Cannon draws the heck out of those grindhouse moments, as well as everything else. The two-page spread at the start of the issue, where the titular iron coffin is dropped on a Nazi train, tells you right away that this isn't going to be your standard fare. Dracula's emergence, in a cloud of mist and dead Nazis, just screams for heavy metal entrance music. From here, Cannon seems to test himself with how many different gory deaths he can squeeze into a single issue. And the scenes of Dracula's resurrection? There are some amazingly horrifying images there.
Cannon also handles the color work, so as you can imagine, it's perfectly in tune with the art. Many panels are heavily shadowed, with the light source being muzzle flashes of Nazi firearms. The sickly green of Dracula's mists is another standout within these pages. And there is no shortage of red ink—there is so much blood in this issue, comics like Marvel's Red Band books are looking at this and going "Dude, did you save any for us?"
A New Lease on (Un)Life
Operation: Iron Coffin #1 is a pulpy, blood-soaked romp with a surprising amount of pathos that needs to be read with heavy metal music blaring through your headphones. The idea of dropping Dracula on Nazis like a bomb is gleefully insane, and the creative team makes full use of the ridiculous premise. The stakes continue to rise throughout the issue, and we're left with the promise that there's still plenty of blood to spill before the sun rises again.