Infestation: Transformers #1
Written by: Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning
Art by: Nick Roche
Captain America: Hail Hydra #2
Written by: Jonathan Mayberry
Art by: Tom Scioli
The Rise and Fall of Zombie Storytelling
I have lived with an undeniable predilection towards the undead since my thirteenth year of existence. Considering that was 1987 a great many zombie stories, outstanding and awful, have passed me on the pop culture roadway of my life. It all started with my friend Pat telling me about Dawn of the Dead in eighth grade. His vivid description of a zombiepocalypse, featuring survivors hiding out in a shopping mall, lighted my curiosity to see this film. We had to wait for the weekend to go to the local video store and rent the flick. As amazing as Patrick made that film sound, it was even better upon viewing. All these years later, DOTD still resides as my favorite horror film and one of my two or three favorite films overall.
The love of that movie caused me to watch any zombie flick I could find in the intervening years. For the first decade the genre was mostly dead (pun!) so the video store remained the one outlet for my hankering. The turn of the century saw a rebirth of zombie stories thanks to the likes of Resident Evil, 28 Days Later, Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead remake, George Romero’s Land of the Dead, Shaun of the Dead, The Walking Dead comic, and Marvel’s unending undead Zombies miniseries.
Numerous other series and films of varying quality have populated the pop culture landscape in the first decade of the millennium. Comics have been inundated with stories of the undead. I have to tell you, for such a lover of the genre, it’s become tiresome to see so many. I love a entertaining zombie story, but so few are even worth reading, let alone actually good. This week the shelves offer two more comics with undead foes.
Infrustration
First, let’s take a look at IDW’s crossover series Infestation and its Transformers offering. The crossover began last week with the first of two bookend stories. My noble colleague (and brother-in-law) Skitch Maillaro reviewed the book earlier this week. He had a lot of interesting points to make, but I couldn’t say we are in agreement. The initial entry set up the Infestation saga with a sputtering tale that began strongly and basically died halfway through. There must be plenty of room in hell because this story won’t be brought back to life barring a strange cosmic phenomenon.
The bookender was a MacGuffin to send zombies to the world’s of G.I. Joe, Transformers, Ghostbusters, and Star Trek. I have no problem with a nitwit crossover idea that brings disparate characters together. Infestation #1 featured a group of characters that did nothing for me, since all I really cared about were the licensed oddities that would be fighting zombies. The bookend only contained characters from Zombies vs. Robots and CVO. I can’t speak of either of these series since I’ve never read them, but nothing that occurred in the bookend gave me the slightest interest in finding out more. Surely this concept would be saved once the world famous stars turned up.
Not so much.
So this week the dead are unleashed on the Transformers.
IDW’s Transformers comics have been outstanding as a whole. I’ve read the vast majority up through All Hail Megatron. The earliest stories were weak, but AHM was a stunning achievement. It’s probably the best Transformers story ever told. Transformers: Infestation #1 exhibits why so many TF stories just don’t work. It’s a mess without a coherent or remotely believable plot. It’s not even much fun to read. DnA don’t seem to have a handle on the robotic characters and the way the zombies are unleashed on Earth is weak. The thought of zombie “humans” and zombie “robots” is a muddle. The plot improves as the issue leads into a classic siege, but not enough to make this worth reading.
Artistically Nick Roche doesn’t offer his best work. Zombies need a horrific tone and that’s just not present. There are too many close-up shots of the robots and the backgrounds are non-existent. The story takes place in Las Vegas but you never really get the feel for the locale or the zombie menace. It’s not a well executed sequential story. Some of that is from script problems, but the art does not tell the story in a cohesive fashion.
Abnett and Lanning are two of the finest comic writers in the industry, but this is not coming together well. The thought of Joes, Robots in Disguise, the guys you’re gonna call, and those who travel where no one has gone before fighting zombies seems cool. On paper it’s not working out. In fairness, the previews of the other three “crossovers” all looked vastly superior to TF. I will pick up Star Trek: Infestation next week, but if it’s a mess I will save my comic dollars for something else. This is looking to be yet another badly thought out crossover.
Captain America: Hurl Kirby
Hail Hydra #1 was actually a good story set during Cap’s earliest encounter with the Hydra organization. Jonathan Mayberry’s story was interesting enough and Sergio Cariello’s artwork was perfect for the World War II setting. Cariello impressed me with his WWII artwork previously in Iron Ghost written by Chuck Dixon. He’s a talented artistic presensce who has continued to produce elite work such as Dynamite’s Lone Ranger.
Marvel miniseries can be a crapshoot when it comes to artwork. I’ve never had issue with different artists taking on single issues of a mini…in theory. Unfortunately, when the quality drops so far from one issue to the next any editorial integrity is lost. Jack Kirby is a legend of the industry and one of my favorite sequential storytellers. Erik Larsen has become a poor-man’s Kirby in the ensuing decades since his hot-debut. I have no problem, again in theory, with an artist aping a legendary style. This issue’s artist Tom Scioli is a distractingly bad Kirby-clone. Every character in the story is ugly and the backgrounds are busy and distracting. Marvel and DC do not feature the highest quality artwork in their books any longer, but this may be the worst mainstream comic illustration I have ever seen.
My biggest mistake this week was grabbing Hail Hydra #2 off the shelf without looking inside. I knew the comic featured an artistic change, but I could never imagine the difference in artistic talent from issue 1 to 2. Jonathan Mayberry’s story of “zombie” super soldiers has been decent to date but not good enough to read unless there is a vastly better artist telling the tale. Plenty of collections feature great Cap vs. Hydra stories, so don’t slum and buy this book.
Two comics featuring zombies this week and neither one is very good. The zombie renaissance is in full swing in comics and moving pictures, but that doesn’t mean the stories are worth reading. These two comics cost 7 bucks and I certainly could have spent that money on better comics.
