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If
Stefan Hutchinson and Robert Kirkman ever teamed up
it would be such an unbridled wave of creativity, I
don't think my heart could take it. Current favorite
writer Stefan Hutchinson continues his spree of
paying homage to horror classics with "Day of the
Dead: Desertion." Meant as part-prequel/introduction
to Romero's "Day of the Dead," this one shot is an
attachment for the upcoming Blu-Ray special edition
of "Day of the Dead," and it is pure quality from
page one. Hutchinson, never one to half ass it,
gives us a full fledged story that sets down in the
middle of the zombie apocalypse focusing on the
origins of the one and only Bub! You know him, you
love him, he's the zombie anti-hero who becomes the
central focus for the Romero masterpiece. Stefan
Hutchinson and Barry Keating are given the task of
providing a creative and interesting origin for the
character, and they simply do not fail in paying
proper respect to the Romero creation. With
excellent illustration by Jeff Zornow, "Desertion"
is the tragic story of Bub, the man who led a life
of misery and woe that spiraled in to even more
misery involving his wife and son. What the appeal
of "Desertion" is, is that Hutchinson and Keating
explore the origin of Bub while not giving
everything away.
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What
we learn is in increments and enough to allow us
to get in close enough for a more complex look
at an already unique character in the Romero
lore. They don't change things drastically but
stick to the norms of the Romero universe while
also adding their own touches on the side. They
never give Bub an actual name, and we never
quite learn why he deserted his unit, we only
know that his primary focus is his family. When
he and his son come across a survivor willing to
do anything (read: anything) to survive, they
end up the victims of an ambush by a group of
desperate survivors. Witnessing the horrific
implications of being attacked by the desperate
group, the man only known as Bub resorts to
desperate measures to inflict equal amounts of
pain on them, and Hutchinson and Keating show us
how primal the human can be once all meaning and
purpose have been erased. Bub becomes a monster
before he's even turned in to one of the walking
dead, and the transformation is pretty
compelling. As you may have guessed by the brief
intro of Bub in the film, the story of the
zombie who was once human is about as
heartbreaking as the creature he became to be
and he's only one out of a billion of the
walking dead who managed to retain some form of
his kindness and humanity. And like everyone
else, even after death he's a victim of human
cruelty now and forever. Hutchinson and Keating
bring their A game, and create the perfect
companion piece to the "Day of the Dead" Blu-Ray
release.
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