I know I usually reserve Wednesdays as Walking Dead Wednesdays, but I feel I had to share another zombie story with you from our friends at Marvel. It seems that Marvel had a stroke of brilliance and hired the great George A. Romero to write a classic tale of horror the way it should be told, in comic form. This beautiful creation is called Empire of the Dead.
Empire of the Dead is not your traditional Romero script. It is also not your typical zombie story. Empire of the Dead #1 takes place in New York, five years after the dead first walked. We are first taken to the Lower East Side of Manhattan where we meet up with Penny Jones and Paul Barnum on a zombie”hunt”. I use the term hunt loosely because they are not killing them, but merely catching them for the Zombie Games that the people have come accustomed to.
Fast forward to the Central Park Zoo which is now a zombie “prison” for the fighters in the Zombie Games. Penny is then told that it is the mayor himself who sets up these gladiator style fights for the people. After taking in a match or two, Penny and Paul start talking and he wants to know why she believes that the zombies can be trained to be civil. She recalls a night when she lost her brother to a zombie. You see, her older sister and brother where out when the dead first rose and as far as she knows, their brother was the first victim. Well, her sister made it to an old farmhouse and barricaded herself in with some other survivors. They held off the zombie herd as long as they could, but there were too many and the farmhouse was overrun. It was her brother who dragged her out of the house. Even though he was now part of the “living dead” he still managed to control the cannibalistic urges and protected her from the others. When the sheriff and his men came to the rescue, they killed her brother but not before he saved her life. As she was finishing her story, they got into a tense zombie situation of their own.
I could tell you more about the book but I feel I have already said too much. What I love about Penny’s story about her brother, is that as you are reading it, you cannot help but think back to one of Romero’s classic tales of the living dead. The writing of Romero is of course brilliant. I mean, he is the creator of zombies for crying out loud. You cannot go wrong with that. The illustrations of Alex Maleev are amazing as usual and help tell the tale that needs to be told. I strongly give this book an 11 out of 10 rating. Oh, and for those of you who have not read it yet, there is a nice twist at the end. A little clue, the zombies aren’t the only dead you have to fear.
Well, what are you waiting for? Get your copy of Empire of the Dead #1 while you still can and make sure to add issue #2 to your order. Until next time, get your READ on!
