G.I. ZOMBIE No. 3, December 2014 |
There have been a number of
‘Zombie’ comic book titles published which address the cause of their
respective outbreak or pandemic. Perhaps most well-known and arguably the most outlandish
being that of “Marvel Zombies”, where an infected superhero from another
dimension infects The Avengers initiating a viral zombie epidemic which spreads
throughout the entire Marvel Universe. Others have actually purposely steered
away from any explanations, such as “The Walking Dead” by “Image Comics”,
preferring instead to simply hint or tease at the possibilities.
The storyline
of “G.I. Zombie” is most assuredly in the first camp, as the start to “Small
Town Welcome” sees Sergeant Jared Kabe literally clinging on to the contagion’s
cause as the biological warhead strikes the Sutterville Animal Hospital in
Tennessee. Indeed “DC Comics” have actually published a lengthy build-up to the
terrorist attack ‘which started it all’ by exploring the American extremists’
motivations in the previous two issues. With this edition however, whilst
co-writers Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti continue to provide more insights
behind the fanatics who launched the chemical missile, most of its twenty pages are concerned with the
infection’s initial impact upon the local population. And bearing in mind it’s
a contagion able to turn “… anything organic into a mindless zombie” you know
things are not going to go well for the authorities, despite their prompt presence
and intervention.
However this outbreak is rather novel in that the zombies first
encountered by Kabe, and as a result the earliest living creatures to actually
be infected, are in fact animals not humans… and quite the menagerie they form
as the secret agent faces an attack by an undead python, dog, cat and frog.
Slowly though the human victims start to mount up as the animal-loving members
of the emergency services fall foul of their rabid pets, and so it isn’t long
before G.I. Zombie finds himself confronting a veritable horde of hungry
flesh-eating fiends.
Disappointingly much of this action is poorly
illustrated by Scott Hampton, whose unique style and colouring, seems to worsen
as the story progresses. His pages depicting Kabe fighting off a ‘spooked’
snake and then the fate of the virus’ first human casualty are competent
enough. But as the pace intensifies, and the number of the Undead needed to fill a
scene increased, the American comic book artist’s pencilling starts to badly
suffer as he leaves out any sort of detail to his figures and simply
block colours them in. As a result the issue’s epic conclusion, which sees the
Sergeant buried under an army of clawing zombies, is simply illustrated by a page load of featureless, somewhat indistinguishable, coloured blobs pressing upon a single partially submerged monotone arm.
The variant cover art of "G.I. ZOMBIE" No. 3 by Dave Johnson |
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