Xombie Reanimated, by James Farr
Format: Six issues collected into a trade paperback/graphic novella. There's an expressed desire in the afterword to make it a series, but I won't classify it as such yet since that hasn't happened yet.
Content Rating: A soft PG-13, for zombie violence (though not as much as you'd probably think for a series that's, y'know, about zombies), and very occasional mild language.
Plot: Picking up several years after the events of the original Xombie (a series of flash cartoons released on the internet, until they were put into a DVD compilation--now you can only find the occasional scattered episode on video sites like YouTube), our story kicks off with the world still feeling the wake of an absolutely catastrophic zombie apocalypse. The undead vastly outnumber the living, and have for some time now. Trouble comes when one of the largest remaining human settlements, known as The Acropolis, fails to recieve a new power cell for its electrical generator on time. Without the power supply, The Acropolis' impressive anti-zombie defense systems will slowly power down, including special devices that mask the smell of living bodies, and one of the world's finest defenses against the undead will suddenly find itself as an oversized lunch box. Enter Zoe, the heroine from the cartoons, now grown into a teenager, who was considered delerious as a child when she raved about being rescued and brought home by a group of undead who were completely sentient, made no effort to eat her, and were relatively friendly to her (the titular "Xombie" concept). The Acropolis' army, having recently experienced some encounters with a similar zombie, are ready to believe her and recruit this mystery "talker" to get the power cell back to the settlement, since a zombie won't attack one of their own unless provoked. While they do find the creatures from Zoe's stories: Dirge, Nephthys, Cerberus, and Chimeara--the clock keeps ticking on how long The Acropolis can hold out, everyone other than Zoe is wary of how long these intelligent walking corpses will remain loyal, and the appearance of another sentient zombie with substantially less charitable views towards humanity may cause even larger problems...
Thoughts: Unfortunately, this is a hard series to get into if you haven't watched the original cartoons. There is some effort made towards getting new readers on the level with who the characters are, but I feel it was made with the existing fans in mind first. And yes, if the picture didn't clue you in, it's a slightly ridiculous series--you have to accept that there's a zombie mummy (wrapped in electrical tape no less) that's better-preserved than the lead, as well as the entire concept of a trained zombie attack velociraptor. And I do have a few other complaints--the writing does lag in a couple places (Dirge sounds slightly...off somehow in a lot of his dialogue, and Nephthys' is downright atrocious--she was quite eloquent in the cartoon, but here they felt some odd need to try and give her a sort of "mystical" speaking style filled with various references to Egypt. It's pretty painful), and there's a couple characters that just weren't needed. Chimeara, the aforementioned raptor, seems there mostly for fanservice as she doesn't actually do anything in her brief panel time and newcomers will just be confused at why she even accompanies Nephthys. There's also this priest figure within the human colony that...really has no purpose other than to show up every so often and remind us that zombies are evil and we shouldn't trust them, an idea that was already pretty well carried by the settlers themselves and could have been communicated exclusively through them. New readers will also be utterly perplexed when the Xar Gothua (a race of Lovecraftian...things) show up, which is upsetting since they're a significant part of both stories. And as long as I'm complaining...why, oh why, James, did you have to give Zoe booty shorts? It's just kind of creepy, considering we spent the cartoon with her as a child, and the situations she finds herself in would probably find longer pants more helpful. It's unneeded.
All that aside, though, it's a very fun follow-up to the cartoons and I do hope James continues it, it's a universe with some interesting concepts and there are still some plot threads that were left (intentionally) dangling. The villain, Gallows, also works exceedingly well as a dark counterpart to the whole xombie concept. If you were a fan of the cartoons, I recommend picking it up to continue the story. If you never saw them, but are still curious about the book, give it a go, you may just need a Xombified friend to explain some bits to you (there's also the DVD compilation, but I haven't personally seen it, so I don't know how substantial the touted animation-quality updates are). Zombie aficianados of any stripe, though, may appreciate this as a very different, fun approach to the now-cliche "zombie apocalypse" setting.
[Holden Out.]
No comments:
Post a Comment