Thousands of people have died and come “back to life”, in Ablaze’s Life Zero #1.
Stefano Vietti (Dragonero) writes this dark tale of future doom, when a cloud has descended upon the city, and among a zombie-apocalypse, a daring team is choppering in to perform a daring prison break! Captain Shako appears to be the only living and breathing survivor in the prison, and he is surrounded by walking dead! Talk about drama!
The story is tight and alright, but frankly I find it a little slow. Some scenes could be eliminated, some dialogue made crisper. The situation is tense, the stakes are high, and it’s a fine balance, but we want ‘terse, minimal dialogue’, not ‘descriptive’.
Artist Marco Checchetto (Daredevil, Avengers, Wolverine, etc) and colourist Andres Mossa lay on the doom, gloom and dripping blood, as the rescue team realizes that this flight is fraught with danger. The gnarled faces are rendered accurately, the action beats are cool and full of weathered depth. The smoky, damp surroundings are convincingly creepy!
It’s a good intro issue, and it’s leading somewhere. Let’s stay tuned for issue two, where we want the pace to pick up, and we’ll expect a tightly woven second helping of soldiering horror!
Ablaze Comics, Life Zero #1, $3.99 for 21 pages of story
Newsdesk