Mississippi Zombie #2 [Part Two] - Caliber Comics

MISSISSIPPI ZOMBIE #2, November 2020

Setting up a strong second half for this corpse-laden compilation is “Return To Horn Island” by Marcus H. Roberts. Clearly penned as something of a sequel to “Zombie Attack On Horn Island” from this title’s previous volume, this twelve-pager rather neatly weaves America’s current obsession with building a great wall “to protect the country and its citizens” with the fate of a man whose great great grandmother somehow managed to survive the aforementioned assault on the nation’s earliest settlers by an old witch woman.

Dynamically drawn by Dan Gorman, this yarn doesn’t debatably contain any surprises for those fear-fans familiar with Roberts’ earlier adventure, as it seems clear from the very start that the military’s decision to turn the island into a safe haven for evacuees isn’t going to go down terribly well with its brain-eating inhabitants; especially when the General decides to split his forces so as to get the clearance job done in double-quick time. But it is still enormously entertaining watching as the elite seal team soon realise that their automatic weapons are no match for a horde of flesh-eating creatures who can tear a man’s still beating heart from out of his chest despite the soldier wearing advanced body armour.

Alfred Paige’s “C.H.E.S.S.: The Dead” is similarly as straightforward in its story-telling, with the Indie comic book creator penning a piece about a pair of super-skilled operatives being helicoptered into a crisis-hit chemical laboratory on a rescue mission to save a family friend of their director. Unsurprisingly, carnivorous cadavers abound throughout the ominously dilapidated facility, and need dispatching ‘toot sweet’ if Mary Maise is ever going to be located safe and well. However, it is the lead protagonist’s excellent interplay with one another alongside John Epple’s highly stylised artwork, which really makes this narrative’s opening instalment essential reading for zombie-loving maniacs.

Finally bringing this gore-filled graphic novel to an end is Jonathan Hedrick’s “Freakshow Princess”. Initially appearing to contain a quite simplistic tale of a woman and her pet dog somehow surviving the apocalypse inside their claustrophobic bungalow, courtesy of the now dead Chris’s procrastination in building the dwelling a functioning garden deck, this deeply demoralising story ends with a tragic twist which really pains the heart, and probably brought many within the book’s audience back down to Earth with a resoundingly loud bump; “The freaks found a way in! She’s starving. I have been so worried about feeding myself that I neglected her.”

Writers: Marcus H. Roberts, Alfred Paige & Jonathan Hedrick