Writers: Leah Moore & John Reppion
Artists: Hugo Petrus, Ivan Nunes (colors)
Publisher: Dynamite Entertainment
Dynamite Entertainment jumps right into the zombie craze with its latest title, Raise the Dead. The first issue does not stray too far from the formula set down by the mythology of the movies. This is a little surprising considering the advertising that Dynamite has put out, promoting a twist that purportedly puts the “living” in the living dead. Not entirely sure what that means, but it isn’t evident in this first issue. However, as a setup, the book is fun, even if it doesn’t really have anything new to offer.
Rather than messing around with some sort of dull exposition, the book immediately puts the reader into one of the living dead genre’s classic situations: the characters are in a claustrophobic situation, surrounded by the undead. Rather than a mall or house though, this time around the locale is a bus station in an undisclosed urban center. If you’ve ever traveled long distance on a bus, then you know that there are worse places than a bus station to be trapped in if such a situation ever came up. Their doors are usually sturdy, locked from the inside and most of the time there is some kind of concession stand about, providing for provisions in case you’re there for awhile. However, the protagonists face the dilemma of being surrounded by zombies. This brings up the classic zombie genre question, which almost always comes up in such a situation: should we stay or should we go? While the bus station may be safe for now, one character points out that she works for a lab not far away that has an underground complex with food and its own power source. Wait, you mean there’s a secret scientific laboratory with an underground complex located not far from a zombie outbreak? What could possibly go wrong by heading out there?
The first issue of Raise the Dead employs an interesting narrative technique by flinging the reader right into the middle of the outbreak, then flashing back to how some of the characters arrived there. This is well done as it breaks up what could have been a boring and standard beginning. A few scenes have some good moments, such as when two children, trapped in their home, watch a zombie listlessly bang on a barred window as it stares at them through the glass. There’s just something about the scene that conveys a certain inevitability, which is one of the scarier things about the zombie genre. They're coming to get you, Barbara.
Alternatively, there a few things that don’t make sense, such as when the same said children’s mother turns. The two wee ones manage to fight off this adult-sized zombie, secure a firearm and then somehow make it to the bus station where the rest of the story takes place.
All in all, the first issue of Raise the Dead is a decent, if not great, setup for the rest of the story. It should be interested to see where this goes.
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