Death Vigil #1: Back for Seconds

As soon as the first issue of Death Vigil’s second volume opens, we are introduced to a world of creatures both familiar to fantasy readers and those that feel distinctly like something created by Šejic. We open with a recap that is instantaneous, reads easily, and is effective at grounding the reader in the tone of this series. The most important of these introductions are the characters.

A lot of the characters in Death Vigil are surprisingly up front with just who and what they are. None of the Death Knights fill a broody trope or a specific archetype beyond their individual roles in combat. They each have their own flavorful elements to them, such as Sam’s likable “run in, think later” attitude or Clara’s teasing personality.

The dialogue between these characters feels natural in the scene and is easily readable on the page. Only one scene, where Sam explains the Vigil to a group of rookie Necromancers, reads like the author was talking through the characters. It lands a bit exposition-heavy but is brief enough that it doesn’t interrupt the pacing for long.

Pacing is the strongest point of Death Vigil’s first issue. With 56 pages split across a recap, prologue, and the rest of the story, it’s a long read, and that puts extra pressure on the pacing, compared to something like a standard 20+ page book, to remain as rhythmic as possible so the readers don’t feel dragged along.

The artwork is splashy and indulgent. The action scenes move quickly, and each page turn is a turn of the tide. It’s hard to make action in some comics genuinely engaging because we don’t actually expect our heroes to lose. Death Vigil does not have that problem, as the heroes constantly face consequences, especially in action scenes.