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Elvira: Mistress Of The Dark #6 (Dynamite Entertainment) Comic Review
Released by: Dynamite Entertainment
Released on: June 12th, 2019.
Written by: David Avallone
Illustrated by: Dave Acosta
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When we last left everyone's favorite Mistress Of The Dark, she'd been sent barreling through time by one Doctor Johannes Faust, and while she emerged from that battle victorious, the devil himself showed up to collect the soul Faust lost in their bargain… and managed to take Elvira's down to Hell with him.
When this six issue begins, Elvira stands before Minos, the Judge Of All Mankind (half man, half serpent!), who has little patience for Elvira's sense of humor and penchant for snappy banter. Regardless, he gives her what she wants, and soon enough she's sent down to the next circle of Hell where a man with a whip and a clipboard efficiently punishes the sinners in his charge. She asks for directions down, makes the obligatory sex joke (that we all saw coming and laughed at any way), but it turns out demons don't give the best directions. Regardless, Elvira figures if she can plead her case to ol' scratch he'll realize a mistake has been made and send her back to the land of the living. And so she soldiers on, coming across Cerberus, the three-headed guard of Hades, talks to a guy named Glenn (who doesn't give a last name but my money's on Milstead) who introduces her to Sisyphus, breaks the fourth wall with a dig at the writer over a gratuitous Albert Camus joke and eventually winds up in… a mall? Yep, a mall. Sounds like Hell to me. And it comes complete with a broken escalator.
David Avallone's writing continues to charm. It's funny stuff, wildly creative and wickedly funny, particularly if you pay attention the little things, the quips, the pop culture references, the occasional well-placed political dig. Clearly the guy's got a good sense of humor, and it shines through in a big way with this series. It also completely jives with that way that the real Elvira talks in her TV shows and movies. He nails that all-encompassing sense of sarcasm and wit that she brings to all of her work, and you can almost her Cassandra Peterson's voice in your head as you read Elvira's dialogue in this series. This time around, we get the obvious Dante's Inferno references, of course, some oddly effective philosophical musings and… Divine? Read 'Glenn's' dialogue in a slightly wispy, effeminate voice, like the kind the world's greatest drag queen spoke in, and the back and forth with Elvira as they travel together works incredibly well.
Dave Acosta's arwork, which is very nicely colored in this issue by Ellie Wright and Sheelagh D, is once again very good. He's been getting Elvira's likeness down since the first issue and this time around proves he can do a nice job with 'Glenn' as well. There's an impressive two-page spread early in the issue, where Elvira looks down into the abyss, that is ridiculously impressive and all of the denizens of Hell are nicely illustrated here. The backgrounds in a few panels could have had a bit more detail but otherwise, this book looks as good as it reads. And on top of that? Another one of Joseph Michael Liner's suitable for framing covers graces this issue and this one might be his best one yet.
Licensed books can be a tricky thing. Far too often they're done fast and cheap with an eye toward unnecessary fan service in an attempt to cash in on an existing property's fan base. That's not the case here. This 'feels' like Elvira in ways that I honestly never expected it could in comic book form. The series continues to entertain with each subsequent issue and the plethora of influences and ideas that Avallone and Acosta pull from keeps things fresh and interesting. This one, like those before it, ends with a solid cliffhanger - and we'll be back again to check it out next month when issue #7 hits.