Christopher Golden assembles a myriad of assorted tales about the walking dead, all of which combine to form one of the strongest combinations of excellent authors and variations on zombies and the undead. While the entire book isn’t a complete success in adapting visions of the walking dead with engrossing characters, “The New Dead” will make a great time filler with some truly strong stories and mini-epics in one compendium. I had a great time sifting through each story and I think most fans of the walking dead will, too. These are only a few of the ones we thought warranted mentioning.
For the first story John Connelly offers up his twist on the Lazarus pit with “Lazarus” the story of a man who dies and is kept in a cave only to be brought back to life a few days later thanks to the will of his loved ones. When he discovers he’s completely lost his place in a world he’s left, he longs for death in the face of loved ones he barely recognizes anymore. Connolly’s writing is vivid and awfully sad and makes for an interesting look at the undead in more tragic form.
Okay so I didn’t love the first mini-series/graphic novel from Mark Millar, and sure, I thought “Kick Ass” the movie was pretty crummy, but overall I was pretty interested in seeing where Mark Millar and John Romita Jr. would go with volume two, the highly anticipated follow-up to the comic book series that proved to be most controversial. I mean sure it’s fishy that this came along right after plans for a sequel were talked about, and fine, many of the new characters seem oddly capable of being…oh… put in a movie with a big star at the helm, but nonetheless I was open minded to the first issue of volume two that sticks true to the first arc of the comic book and thankfully doesn’t adhere to the events of the live action movie.
