Making Use Of Time

So, this is going to be first my first post really dedicated to those Bloodrayne comics I typically enjoy so much, primarily focusing on a tactic the authors are taking I highly approve of. What I mean is, they're taking advantage of the fact that Rayne is old, at least 80 by now (based off the introduction in the instruction manual for the first game, which describes her as a teenager in 1932). One of the perks of being half-vampire, I suppose. 

What the various writers (I think there have been five between the various one-shots and mini-series) have done is something similar to a suggestion I had for Wolverine Origins long ago. The gist of it is that each writer is setting their story at a different point in Rayne's history. Plague of Dreams was in the present day, Skies Afire on the Hindenburg, Tibetan Heights in her early days with Brimstone, Twin Blades before she'd even heard of the Brimstone Society. 

How much each of those stories reflects a specific time period varies, but the point is that Rayne is at different places psychologically in them. It gives the reader a look at different aspects of her personality, because we get to see her at different points of her life, in different situations - though they pretty much all wind up involving her cutting things in half - and how she acts and reacts to them. It builds the character, fleshes her out, that sort of thing. 

 Even better, the writers seem to carry over certain themes from one story to another. Rayne's best friend in the Brimstone Society is Michaelus, an elderly fellow who first appeared as a young boy Rayne encountered during her mission in Lycan Rex. His family was gone, and Rayne appears to have convinced Brimstone to accept him into the group, and so he's become a reoccuring character. Dark Soul introduced the idea that Rayne has a dark half, one that seems much older than her, and had been imprisoned by mages, and she made a brief cameo in Plague of Dreams. It's just a lot of little touches, lightly tying the books together, and as a result, building up something kind of neat. Well, it's neat to me anyway.