The advertised premise of the new comic book series entitled The Vain is intriguing enough to draw new readers in, but it turns out the new series has a whole lot more to offer that will undoubtedly keep them reading throughout the centuries that take place in the series. The comic by Eliot Rahal, Emily Pearson, Macy Kahn, and Fred C. Stresing tells the story of an eponymous group of four vampires in the early 1940s whose ostensible only means of survival is by robbing blood banks for sustenance (the first issue never actually shows these immortals sucking the blood from their victims). The Vain has gotten so proficient in their criminal enterprise that their string of robberies soon catches the attention of an FBI agent and is compelling enough for FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to send the agent into the field to investigate these crimes in person.
What makes the foursome so appealing is that they seem to be driven by some sort of loose moral code that prevents them from sucking blood from humans, but still resort to robbery as well as breaking and entering. However, this isn’t to say that them succumbing to a life of crime is the only questionable ethical pastimes they participate in. During one of their looting operations, all four members of the Vain seem to relish in the act of tormenting their hostages mercilessly. The most twisted of these highly suspect activities transpire near the end of the heist when a policeman bravely insults them, obviously triggered by the smug attitude of the looters. One of the vampires decides to take this as an opportunity to mess with him by bending down to his level, tilting her head down towards the floor so he can see the back of her head, sticking her pistol in her mouth, and blowing her brains out, a highly traumatic display for any mortal that causes the policeman to yell out, “Jesus Christ!” as her brain matter jettisons towards the ceiling (and on his face).
Then there’s the time the FBI agent finds the remains of a man lying beside the same car that the vampires were last seen driving. As he looks at the mutilated body, the agent wonders why these petty thieves would escalate to murder. He soon finds the answer when looking for clues on the victim’s property. Countless bodies are buried in his backyard. The four criminals had murdered a serial killer who would have most likely continued killing without ever being caught.
But were the Vain members aware of this? Based on the flashback, all readers know is that the serial killer pulled out a rifle on four people whom he thought were just regular mortals. Little did he know that he was up against four vampires who would momentarily take it upon themselves to react to this form of aggression in a much more aggressive way than he ever could.
But no matter how compelling these plot points may be, the story really picks up at the very end of the first issue after the four vampires attend a movie theater to watch the news. There, they see a reel where the narrator reveals how America has been forced into the war with Germany, Japan, and Italy while listing the countless casualties and fatalities that have come as a result of the war. This news undoubtedly resonates on some level with the members of the Vain, for it doesn’t take long before they find and lock Hoover in his own office to confront him. As he demands to know who they are, one of the vampires says, “I thought it was obvious. We’re vampires. And we want to kill some Nazis.”