WARNING – this primer contains SPOILERS regarding previous issues!!! ROUGH PRIMER on ISSUE #24 of AMERICAN VAMPIRE (PART 3 of 4: “DEATH RACE”) by Scott Snyder TRAVIS 1955. 19 year old punk TRAVIS KIDD is a vampire hunter. One of the best. He’s a rogue. He doesn’t belong to any organization (like the VMS, the secret group in our series that has been tracking and eliminating all species of vampire for centuries). He has been approached by the VMS on many occasions, but he has always turned them down. He drives a 1955 Fury, and keeps an arsenal of vampire killing weapons in the trunk. He likes to dance alone his room to race records/rock and roll. And he keeps a set of wooden fangs in his bag – fangs he puts in himself when he takes down a vampire so he can “bite them back” before they die. Here is Travis fighting your vampire mom: RECAP: ISSUE 22 (part one of this arc) began with two cars careening through the California hills… locked in a death race. Behind the wheel of one car (the black one) was Travis. Behind the wheel of the other, we learned from Travis, was a mysterious vampire, one whom Travis claims killed his family and is responsible for every misery in his life. As the race barrels along, though, in the California hills, the story cut back to show scenes from Travis’ troubled past. So far, we know that he was institutionalized at a young age, in a psych ward. We know that days ago, he stole files on the main vampire he’s after – the one in the other car - from the VMS to learn the vampire’s location. And we know that a girl Travis was dating in order to learn more about vampires in the area – Piper – is tied up in the trunk of the car. In the final pages of our last issue, #23, we discovered the identity of the vampire in the rival car – the one Travis ha been hunting his whole life: Skinner Sweet. One of the stars of our series, Skinner is a new breed of vampire – an American Vampire – with powers and abilities different from Carpathian (classical) vampires. As for his bio, he was a vicious outlaw in the Old West, until a run-in with classic vampires accidentally left him infected. But instead of coming back as one of them, he came back as something new, something more powerful. And he has been causing mayhem throughout the 20th century ever since. Last we saw him, though, he was dying on a cliff on an island in the Philippines during WWII (see AV 13-18 in Vol. 3). How Skinner survived that ordeal is a mystery. As is his connection to Travis. All we know is that Travis wants him dead, and Skinner is always up for a challenge. So check out AV 24, out today. Don’t be a goddam square. Here’s the opener. The brunette is Travis. The blonde is Skinner. Root for your favorite. S