Post by Meriades Rai on Jun 29, 2009 4:06:23 GMT -5
For the uninitiated, an important distinction: Anthony Crute’s M2K Zombies is NOT Marvel Zombies. The regular series is based on the premise of an alternate world where a virus has transformed all the heroes into flesh-eating fiends with an insatiable hunger, and is saturated with black humour. It’s pretty sick, but it’s funny, if you like that kind of thing (which I do). M2K Zombies instead deals with a virus/plague that has turned the majority of the regular population into zombies, with a small band of heroes struggling to survive the onslaught, and is played out far more seriously. This is a paranoid thriller, far more in keeping with Night Of The Living Dead (without the social satire) and Robert Kirkman’s Walking Dead series for Image, and I have to say it’s highly effective.
I can’t remember what the specific issue was but I remember reading something of Anthony’s a while back (a year ago? Two?) and - to put it kindly - not being overly blown away. That’s probably why it’s taken me this long to get around to Zombies. I’m happy to report that this series is a world away from whatever I read back then, with terrific, flowing writing and the kind of narrative style that draws you in and wants to keep flicking on the next issue. This is definitely one of the better series I’ve read in the past twelve months, and that’s a credit to the writing itself even more than the intriguing story. Hell, it almost makes me wonder if I’m confusing the poor guy with someone else…
I’m loving the current cast of characters, especially the use of Chase and Old Lace from Runaways and Colleen Wing and Misty Knight. It’s sometimes easy for writers to use second-string characters just for the sake of it (I know I’ve done it) and then struggle to know what to do with them but Anthony doesn’t fall into that trap. The cast are credible and interesting and Anthony manages not to stumble into cliché at any point, especially with Hawkeye and Venom, two tricky propositions who are handled here with craft and subtlety. I also like the fact that there are some non-powered characters in the mix, although it would be nice to see more of them; in the past couple of issues the heroes have dominated centre stage when I was hoping that one or two of the other characters (such as the little girl, Sarah) would receive more development. One of the big draws of comics back in the 60s and 70s were that they weren’t shy about utilising non-powered supporting cast to cast the heroes into different kinds of perspective, and there’s great potential for that here.
I only have two criticisms, the first of which is along these lines. The series has the potential for some incredible depth that, as yet, has barely been touched. This is because the story, for all its undertones of horror and tension, is mostly being played as a straight action thriller rather than anything more complex. There’s nothing wrong with this in itself but Anthony hints at a far greater well of emotion in a couple of instances - most notably the opening issue, where Chase loses his companions, and then again in issue #4 in the Iron Fist flashback, and finally in issue #6 after the death of one of the heroes - and it then becomes a shame that most other scenes forego more internal characterisation and development to concentrate on zombie bashing. The concept of heroes struggling against a losing battle with little chance of being able to ‘save the day’ is decidedly bleak, and it would be nice to read how the heroes are dealing with this on a personal level. These are guys and gals who used to routinely win, whose existence was determined by their capacity for saving lives, and they’re now in a situation where they’ve already lost the war and everything is secondary to surviving another 24 hours. How do Clint and Colleen and the others deal with that? A few personal scenes here and there would work wonders to take these characters to the next level, and issues #1 and #6 show how well Anthony could do it. It’ll be especially important now that the cast has grown so widely (and perhaps a little too quickly) in the past couple of issues.
The second niggle is small (read: pedantic ) but it’s something that drives me mad. Anthony’s writing - grammar, structure, all of it - is pitch perfect apart from one consistent mistake. The contraction it’s. “It’s” with an apostrophe should only ever be a contraction of it and is - as in, it’s a lovely day, or it’s not ham, it's bacon. The other "its" - as in a possessive, such as it held out its hands or the zombie lost its head - should never have an apostrophe (which is a direct contradiction to usual possessive rules I know, like Jane looked at Steve’s ears and laughed, but it’s true). This contraction is used incorrectly ten or more times an issue and, probably because everything else is 100 per cent perfect, it drags me out of the story every time. Gah. Oddly, Anthony never makes the mistake of putting an apostrophe in plurals (such as He put a dozen cat’s in a bag or He started putting the fire’s out) which is a far more common error, so that’s something - but, for the luvva all things dead an’ stinky, please sort out the it’s and its! ;D
Otherwise, this is a great series - and, even better, I see that it’s due a new issue sometime soon (right? Hint hint). I’d say it’s one of the fanfics I’m looking forward to most, and I can’t praise higher than that. I also have to say that building a series (in one sense) around a character like Chase is genius, and exactly the reason fanfic exists - the developing friction/friendship between Chase and Hellion will hopefully be very interesting indeed. Also, Tony Stark? Glorious bastard!
I can’t remember what the specific issue was but I remember reading something of Anthony’s a while back (a year ago? Two?) and - to put it kindly - not being overly blown away. That’s probably why it’s taken me this long to get around to Zombies. I’m happy to report that this series is a world away from whatever I read back then, with terrific, flowing writing and the kind of narrative style that draws you in and wants to keep flicking on the next issue. This is definitely one of the better series I’ve read in the past twelve months, and that’s a credit to the writing itself even more than the intriguing story. Hell, it almost makes me wonder if I’m confusing the poor guy with someone else…
I’m loving the current cast of characters, especially the use of Chase and Old Lace from Runaways and Colleen Wing and Misty Knight. It’s sometimes easy for writers to use second-string characters just for the sake of it (I know I’ve done it) and then struggle to know what to do with them but Anthony doesn’t fall into that trap. The cast are credible and interesting and Anthony manages not to stumble into cliché at any point, especially with Hawkeye and Venom, two tricky propositions who are handled here with craft and subtlety. I also like the fact that there are some non-powered characters in the mix, although it would be nice to see more of them; in the past couple of issues the heroes have dominated centre stage when I was hoping that one or two of the other characters (such as the little girl, Sarah) would receive more development. One of the big draws of comics back in the 60s and 70s were that they weren’t shy about utilising non-powered supporting cast to cast the heroes into different kinds of perspective, and there’s great potential for that here.
I only have two criticisms, the first of which is along these lines. The series has the potential for some incredible depth that, as yet, has barely been touched. This is because the story, for all its undertones of horror and tension, is mostly being played as a straight action thriller rather than anything more complex. There’s nothing wrong with this in itself but Anthony hints at a far greater well of emotion in a couple of instances - most notably the opening issue, where Chase loses his companions, and then again in issue #4 in the Iron Fist flashback, and finally in issue #6 after the death of one of the heroes - and it then becomes a shame that most other scenes forego more internal characterisation and development to concentrate on zombie bashing. The concept of heroes struggling against a losing battle with little chance of being able to ‘save the day’ is decidedly bleak, and it would be nice to read how the heroes are dealing with this on a personal level. These are guys and gals who used to routinely win, whose existence was determined by their capacity for saving lives, and they’re now in a situation where they’ve already lost the war and everything is secondary to surviving another 24 hours. How do Clint and Colleen and the others deal with that? A few personal scenes here and there would work wonders to take these characters to the next level, and issues #1 and #6 show how well Anthony could do it. It’ll be especially important now that the cast has grown so widely (and perhaps a little too quickly) in the past couple of issues.
The second niggle is small (read: pedantic ) but it’s something that drives me mad. Anthony’s writing - grammar, structure, all of it - is pitch perfect apart from one consistent mistake. The contraction it’s. “It’s” with an apostrophe should only ever be a contraction of it and is - as in, it’s a lovely day, or it’s not ham, it's bacon. The other "its" - as in a possessive, such as it held out its hands or the zombie lost its head - should never have an apostrophe (which is a direct contradiction to usual possessive rules I know, like Jane looked at Steve’s ears and laughed, but it’s true). This contraction is used incorrectly ten or more times an issue and, probably because everything else is 100 per cent perfect, it drags me out of the story every time. Gah. Oddly, Anthony never makes the mistake of putting an apostrophe in plurals (such as He put a dozen cat’s in a bag or He started putting the fire’s out) which is a far more common error, so that’s something - but, for the luvva all things dead an’ stinky, please sort out the it’s and its! ;D
Otherwise, this is a great series - and, even better, I see that it’s due a new issue sometime soon (right? Hint hint). I’d say it’s one of the fanfics I’m looking forward to most, and I can’t praise higher than that. I also have to say that building a series (in one sense) around a character like Chase is genius, and exactly the reason fanfic exists - the developing friction/friendship between Chase and Hellion will hopefully be very interesting indeed. Also, Tony Stark? Glorious bastard!