Friday, February 05, 2010

For Zombie Lovers: Sword of the Atom Special #3

This is a strange, strange book. It was released years after the Sword of the Atom miniseries and Specials, and it features Pat Broderick pencils rather than Atom mainstay Gil Kane. It is also standalone story with only a tenuous connection to what has gone on before. All of that being said, this is a very entertaining book that should be of particular interests to fans of the zombie genre. This story involves a village suffering from a mysterious ailment. Citizens are dying of a horrible fever. The problem is that they don't exactly stay dead. I know that zombie stories are everywhere these days, but they were relatively few and far between in 1988. There is some truly creepy gore here and some nice suspense as Ray and his lady friend, Princess Laetwen attempt to escape. One scene in particular got deep under my skin. It involves a couple mourning their dead child, and it really brought to mind that little girl from Romero's Night of the Living Dead. Good, ghoulish stuff.

1 comment:

Argo Plummer said...

This is a fun book. It was the second Atom book I ever owned--I bought Sword of the Atom # 2 off the rack at 7-11 because of the cool cover.

Although I enjoyed the individual issues, I always thought Atom was a really boring character so I never pursued his appearances.

Skip ahead 22 years. I now own all of Sword of the Atom (mini and specials), a complete run (minus one issue) of Power of the Atom, most of the All New Atom, the 34 issue run of Teen Titans which should have been called Atom and a bunch of future cannon fodder, and the first Atom archives.

I still feel Atom is a boring character, but most of what I listed above are enjoyable comics which I have found in bargain bins. Good stories by Gardener Fox, Roger Stern, Jan Strnad, Gail Simone, and Dan Jurgens and some fun art by Gil Kan, Graham Nolan, Dan Jurgens, John Byrne.

Moral of the story--even a boring character like the Atom can be enjoyable in the right hands and for the right price.