The Scourge - Review

 

The Scourge Vol One from Aspen Comics and available at DrivethruComics. 

The story for this one is pretty straight forward. Your basic zombie outbreak with a twist. This time instead of regular zombies they turn into gargoyle/demon looking creatures that can fly. But it follows all the same beats as any other zombie story. Outbreak occurs, massive havoc as it spreads, scrappy group of survivors trying to fight back, lots of violence.

I tore into this one really wanting to like it. I mean the writer is Scott Lobdell who has a really good track record of quality. The art is by Eric Battle it looks top notch. Even the color by David Curiel and Jorge Fares is fantastic. But in the end I just did not like this. Let me go into why just a little bit.

These gargoyle zombies (zombgoyles? Yeah I'll call them that) are all claws and teeth, evidently agile and strong as hell to boot. A scratch of bite from them transmits the infection. They pile onto their targets in drove sometimes. But somehow, while being tackled and tossed around by these bad guys the main protagonist doesn't get a single scratch... while wearing a simple long sleeved shirt and a Kevlar vest. No extra protection besides the vest, just street clothes. Nothing on his head or hands. Not a single scratch. Actually all of the scrappy survivor group are wearing very little protection, some even going around bare armed.

Then we have the zombgoyles ranging from absolutely bad ass and tearing into folks to being taken down rather easily by the scrappy survivor squad at times. Even the effect of bullets on them varies from one to point to the next. There is never an explanation as to why they are suddenly weaker when in the vicinity of the good guys we are following along in the story.

That little scrappy group of survivors doesn't even fill out well. We have SuperCop and his unending supply of firearms and explosives, captain not very useful but never gets scratched, Ms. Pure Plot Devicium who exists only to solve the problem and the ever so exciting carrot on a stick kid to keep the SuperCop on his toes.

For a comic with as many action and fighting scenes as this has it sure wasn't that exciting to read. Really, at one point you just realize that the main four characters are in no danger. They aren't going to kill them and they're going to solve the problem. You see that coming a mile away and the big action scenes with teeth and claw aren't really going to do anything except show us zombgoyles being killed by gunfire, getting cut up or an occasional slightly more interesting death.

Also top it off with the most effective military in the world EVER. The suspension of disbelief is even more impossible to keep in check by this. Within an hour or less of the outbreak they have the entire island of Manhattan locked down and are planning a final solution in very short order. Damn, not even the Romans were this good and precise.

So in the end I'm sorry. But this is getting a two out of five stars from me. It wasn't exciting, it wasn't all that original and even for a comic it wasn't all that believable either. But if you are still interested it's only 9.99 on DrivethruComics.