“Bloodborne: The Lady Of The Lanterns #2” ~ And Now For Someone Entirely Different [Review]

You would think that Bloodborne: The Lady of the Lanterns #2 would continue the storyline from issue #1. If you did though (like I did), then you would be wrong. Because apparently, this comic book is more of an anthology than it is a serialized comic book with an overarching storyline.

Bloodborne: The Lady of the Lanterns #2 ~ Details

Bloodborne: The Lady of the Lanterns #2 is the 2nd issue of this horror fantasy comic book series (you can read a review for #1 here) based on the 2015 gothic horror fantasy action RPG game Bloodborne by FromSoftware (Armored Core, Dark Souls, Elden Ring). Cullen Bunn (The Sixth Gun, Harrow County) remains the writer, with Piotr Kowalski returning as the artist, Brad Simpson returning as the colorist, and Andworld Design returning as letterer. Alison Sampson drew the main cover, with Arief Rachmad, Jeff Stokely, and Piotr Kowalski himself responsible for the two variant covers and the FOC cover. Lastly, Titan Comics is the publisher behind this comic book series.

Bloodborne: The Lady of the Lanterns #2 will go on sale on September 14, 2022 for a retail price of $3.99. You can preorder it directly from Titan Comics. The comic book is available in both print and digital forms, so you have your pick of which one you want here.

Warning: spoilers for Bloodborne: The Lady of the Lanterns #2 below. If you want to read the gothic horror for yourself, then stop here, and come back once you’ve cleansed everything with fire.

Bloodborne: The Lady of the Lanterns #2 ~ Plot Summary

As I mentioned before, Bloodborne: The Lady of the Lanterns #2 does not continue where we left off in the previous issue. Instead, this issue focuses on a priest (presumably of the Healing Church) named Father Frederic. Frederic preaches to a bunch of people taking shelter in his church, but they’re more concerned about the lack of food than anything else. Irritated by his captive audience’s lack of religiousness, Frederic heads down to the basement to take a nap. This results in Frederic getting a visit to the Hunter’s Dream, with the Plain Doll watching unseen from nearby. Unfortunately, he has zero desire to be a Hunter, and rejects the Dream’s advances. Not even having some Messengers come to him in the waking world to beg him changes his mind. If anything, the little guys only harden it.

Frederic then returns to his still-captive audience to try to calm them down, as well as try to calm himself down in the process. Unfortunately, some Beasts choose that moment to break into his church. Presumably because of all the noise coming from both the people and the sermons. The Beasts begin to rip into and devour the crowd amidst Frederic’s rather useless prayers. Fortunately, actual help is on the way.

No One Ever Expects the Hunters!

A pair of Hunters named Gretchen and Abraham show up, and start blasting and hacking away at the Beasts. Unfortunately, the Beasts outnumber them by a lot, and there are too many people for them to protect. Furthermore, that ghostly siren from the last issue keeps summoning more of them. Frederic, finally putting his man pants on, tells the Hunters to evacuate everyone out of the church before dashing downstairs. As it turns out, the other priests had been stockpiling gunpowder down in the basement. Frederic tries to set off that gunpowder to kill the Beasts feasting on the people they’ve already killed.

Unfortunately, a Winter Lantern reaches him before he could set it off, and tries to kill him. Said Winter Lantern also turns out to be the source of the creepy siren singing. Fortunately, Frederic’s struggles cause him to knock over a lantern onto the gunpowder. The result is the entire church going up in flames and explosions, taking the Beasts inside with it and saving both the Hunters and the surviving refugees. Unfortunately, the Winter Lantern somehow survives completely unharmed and wanders away into the night. Who will that Winter Lantern target next? Well, that’s what we’ll presumably find out in Bloodborne: The Lady of the Lanterns #3.

Bloodborne: The Lady of the Lanterns #2 ~ The Good

The story of Bloodborne: The Lady of the Lanterns #2 is still the best part of this comic, despite its flaws. Cullen Bunn really knows how to write a good horror story, which you would expect from the writer for Harrow County. The sudden switch to a different character also offers new perspectives on the story and gives us a variety of more stories to read.

The artwork of Bloodborne: The Lady of the Lanterns #2 is the next best thing about the comic. The dark tones really fit the gothic horror setting of the comic book. Not to mention that all of the monsters, from the common Beasts to the Winter Lantern, look appropriately horrific. Piotr Kowalski really did a good job there with the art.

Bloodborne: The Lady of the Lanterns #2 ~ The Bad

Unfortunately, the story of Bloodborne: The Lady of the Lanterns #2, while good, is part of my main complaint about this comic book. The lack of focus on any one character (aside from the Winter Lantern) is really jarring, especially if you were expecting some kind of overarching storyline focusing on the main character. Granted, the Winter Lantern could be that in an antagonistic way, so it could be interesting if the plot focuses on that Winter Lantern. But for now, it’s just jarring more than interesting.

Related to the above, I don’t like how the story just left Lucien’s fate as a cliffhanger. I was hoping to at least find out what happened to him in this issue. Guess either we’re going to find out in the next issue, or never. I would be a bit disappointed if we never even find out his ultimate fate.

Source: Titan Comics