Zombie Shuffle

iZombie #4

Gwen the gravedigging detective zombie and Ellie the ’60s ghost have discovered the killer, Amon, a man who claims to have died and risen from the dead in ancient Egypt. He says he only kills because he has to from time to time, and he only takes those whose deaths would benefit society. Gwen isn’t sure whether to believe him, so he takes her on a psychic journey through his life and explains the esoteric origins of various different monsters and supernatural powers. Elsewhere, Horatio and his fellow monster-hunter try to capture Claire the vampire before she can kill Spot’s friend Ashok. Spot, meanwhile, has been outed as a wereterrier to another of his friends — and he takes it in stride so they can play video games.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I especially enjoyed Amon’s descriptions of the undersoul and the oversoul, and how their presence or absence creates everything from zombies and werewolves to poltergeists and possessions. I’ve been praising Mike Allred’s artwork and Laura Allred’s colors, but Chris Roberson’s writing is also a ton of fun. This series has been a lot of fun so far — make sure you pick it up.

Crossed: Family Values #3

Adaline has discovered that her family’s completely rotten to the core — her survivalist father has raped and impregnated his daughter Kayleen, who’s chained up in the barn because she’s become one of the psychotically murderous Crossed. And dad has decided he’s God’s prophet so he can do whatever he wants, which includes beating Adaline down and locking her up. Her mother has gone at least as crazy as her dad, and she’s willing to excuse anything he does — you don’t go against God’s prophet, right? And a horde of the Crossed have just discovered the family compound, which sets Dad off even more. He declares Adaline to be of the Devil, beats her, rapes her, and prepares to expose her to Crossed blood, which would turn her into a monster, too. This is finally too much for Mom, so she locks herself in a cell with her husband, pours a jar of the Crossed blood on herself and kills Dad. Adaline makes it through the compound, now mostly overrun by the Crossed, kills her sister Kayleen (who’d just cut herself open so she could eat her unborn baby), and escapes with the few survivors of the compound. Oh, hey, did I just spoil the entire issue for you? Yes, I do believe I did!

Verdict: Thumbs down. I can deal with a lot of death, depravity, nudity, gore, and perversion — but only when there’s a good story to go along with it. And while the story here has actually managed to go farther on the gore/depravity/nudity/perversion scale than Garth Ennis ever dreamed in the first “Crossed” series, it’s also gotten nowhere near Ennis’ storytelling prowess. While I still recommend the first “Crossed” series for any adult fan of bleeding-edge horror, I can’t recommend this series for anyone, and I’m dropping it as of now.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Here’s an impossibly awesome Eisner-award-winning comic by Mike Mignola and his seven-year-old daughter.
• I don’t normally think much of cosplay weddings, but this one seemed cuter than normal.
• You’re actually hearing foolish people talking now about repealing the 14th Amendment. Aside from being nothing more than a dim political stunt (the Republicans couldn’t even pass a flag-burning amendment when they had the presidency and both houses of Congress — so this is just some red meat to throw to the Know-Nothings), this is about a heck of a lot more than “anchor babies.” The 14th was passed because some states were passing laws keeping blacks from their rights as full citizens, and it prevents any government from arbitrarily taking away your citizenship. That’s what political dimwits are talking about when they say they want to repeal it — they’re talking about getting rid of a lot of the stuff that really keeps you free.