By: Mark Sable (writer), Paul Azaceta (art), Matt Wilson (colors) & Thomas Mauer (letters)
The Story: A zombie outbreak during the present day Afghan war.
What’s Good: Good zombie stories aren’t really about zombies. Zombies are just a cool narrative device to do things like confine a bunch of people in a desperate environment and see what happens. Who’s actually a nice guy? Who will sacrifice others to save their own skin? Who’s a bigot? Who will take advantage of the situation to achieve a position of authority? Who will abuse authority?
What’s great about this issue is that Sable and Azaceta set up the human element so well. The zombies don’t even appear until the final pages, but before then we have a very frank look at a bunch of Marines based in present day Afghanistan. The typical old saying about war (“long stretches of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror”) is very true in this issue. They’re dealing with a nasty insurgency who is willing to use unwilling civilians as suicide bombers, language barriers with the local officials, local customs that they aren’t familiar with…it’s just a wholly foreign world and the creators beat that into your head. These Marines don’t always even know who the enemy is and that causes a LOT of stress. They also show us the boring down time: cleaning weapons, lifting weights, getting tattoos, looking at porn, wrestling, etc.
Another element that really comes into play is the combination of the gung-ho new officer who get’s his Marines into a really bad situation and all the death and mayhem that can happen from a few seemingly innocuous decisions. Seeing how fragile life can be in a location like this makes the Marines more three-dimensional characters. Of course, along the way, we’re learning how incompatible some of these Marines are. Good thing they aren’t trapped in a confined environment, huh? Oh wait, that’s exactly what a zombie situation will do. I can’t wait to see how the pressure cooker affects these guys.
It’s a really nice looking comic too. Paul Azaceta had these pages with him at Heroescon a few weeks ago in Charlotte, NC, so I knew this would be a really awesome looking comic. Beyond all the great storytelling, you can tell that Azaceta really did his homework on drawing all the Marine’s equipment. Too often artists get lazy on this front, but if you want to set a zombie story in a military setting you need to get this stuff right and he nails it. The weapons, helicopters, helmets, etc… All look the way they should, right down to the fact that when the Marines call in some attack helicopters to help them out, Azaceta draws Cobras and not Apaches since the Marines fly the old-school Cobras and not the newer and sexier Apaches. Super well done.
What’s Not So Good: The only thing holding this back from getting a higher grade is that I got a little confused about who all these Marines were. It is a really tall task in a military comic because they’re wearing helmets half the time and tend to look the same. Azaceta does a pretty good job of coming up with some different looks: black guy with shaved head, red beard guy, glasses guy, etc. but I still got confused, especially in the middle of the issue when the team gets divided during a chaotic patrol. Some of that may have been intentional because not knowing who was who added to the feeling of chaos, but I still don’t feel like I’ve got a great handle on who the main characters are.
Conclusion: This was a really strong first issue. It’s hard to escape comparing this comic to 68 (Image’s current miniseries focusing on zombies during the Vietnam War), but this is a superior comic to 68. The characterization is spot on and the art is really strong. I highly recommend this comic!
Grade: A-
-Dean Stell
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