By: Michael Alan Nelson (writer), Alejandro Aragon (art), Nolan Woodard (colors), Johnny Lowe (letters), Ian Brill (editor)
The Story: We enter the final issues that bridge the gap between the films 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later.
What’s Good: What a masterful job Michael Alan Nelson has done to position this story where it is. All along during the comic series, I had wondered if this series had any relation to the 28 Weeks Later film. During the last couple of issues, we saw that the events were taking place during the opening phases of 28 Weeks and that was really cool. I’m generally not a huge fan of licensed property fiction, but I do love the novels or comics that explore a film from another point of view without changing anything.
And, that’s what we get in this issue. While Selina is off settling her peace at her old house where she was force to kill her husband during the initial outbreak, Clint finds himself locked in a parking garage along with most of the other human residents of London. If you saw 28 Weeks, you would immediately say, “OH NO!” When we saw this scene in the film, we saw it from the perspective of the people who were immediately overtaken by the infected that broke into the parking garage. The comic shows the scene from Clint’s perspective on the other side of the crowd: There’s a noise, the lights go out, there are sounds of struggling, people start pushing as panic sets in and Clint knows he needs to get out of there.
For this point, the issue follows Clint trying to survive as the military attempts to sterilize the city by killing everyone. Of course, Selina comes back for him just at the right moment, but the cliffhanger leaves it very ambiguous whether they will live or not. Clearly the final two (?) issues of this series will cover Clint and Selina’s attempt to escape and the fun thing is that we could have a good ending whether they survive or not. While I’m sad that this series is ending, it is really nice to see a comic series that had an ending in mind. I almost hope they do another series after the 28 Weeks film. 🙂
Aragon does a nice job with the art. In some places he gets a little murkier and the lines get smudgier than I’d prefer (and that’s mostly from comparing to Declan Shalvey who was the original series artist), but you never have any doubt about the story and the characters all look alive.
What’s Not So Good: Ya know, I really don’t have any complaints with this issue. Maybe you can throw some rocks at how believable it is that Selina could find Clint in all the mayhem going down, but sometimes you just have to roll with the story. If you’ve read 28 Days for this long, there’s nothing to do but enjoy the finale.
Conclusion: A really strongly plotted story is coming to an end. Even if you don’t hop on now, the two films and the series this comic series that bridges the gaps are well worth your time.
Grade: A-
-Dean Stell
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