Marvel Zombies: Black, White, and Blood #1: A Gentle Rain of Severed Limbs

Undefeated

Words: Garth Ennis

Art: Rachel Stott

This vignette finds the remnants of Daredevil being set against opponents (both zombified and deep in debt) in cage fights run by some appropriately shadowy, very bad people. It’s unclear how much of The Man Without Fear resides within that shambling husk, but there’s enough hero left to want to cleanse what’s left of the world of at least one last brutal sin.

It’s a bit unusual to describe a zombie story as beautiful (piles of rotting corpses don’t tend to waft the most pleasant of bouquets), but this story definitely qualifies. Like all the best Daredevil stories, it is centered around the concepts of faith in the face of tremendous horror and the bleak redemption that such vile crimes often warrant.

Rachel Stott provided some truly astonishing art. Many zombie stories blur the rot or hide the tattered maws in deep shadows. Stott reveals it all: every frayed limb, every exposed nasal cavity, the tears gleaming on the face of a terrified child who will (it’s certain) meet an end that they don’t deserve. And she sets it all in a bone-scattered dungeon whose walls carry the clean lines of a church.

This story is (as I said) breathtaking in every sense. Will revisit it often.

Hope

Words: Alex Segura

Art: Javi Fernandez

Alex Segura has a deep and certain understanding of who Peter Parker is as a character. He knows what he wants, why he loves the people he cleaves to, and (most importantly) what fuels him and motivates him towards heroism. That understanding, that rootedness in character, is what makes this story work. It’s why we believe Peter will keep on going, standing up against wave after wave of horror and filth to save what he can.

It’s why his failure hurts so very much.

This story reads like a knife to the gut.

Javi Fernandez’s art is much sketchier than most mainstream comics. This scribbled quality sometimes makes the action a bit difficult to follow. At worst, it mutes the emotive quality of the acting in a way that is detrimental to the overall force of the story. But I must emphasize that he is very, very good at gore. If you want to revel in spilled intestines, Fernandez is your guy.

Deliverance

Words: Ashley Allen

Art: Justin Mason

It’s no coincidence that all three stories are rooted in faith. They all revolve around the beliefs that raise these former heroes above the ordinary mass of man. As such, it’s no surprise that Moon Knight’s particular take on the subject will skew a bit away from the metaphysical centerline.

The plot of this segment is a bit more complicated than the others. It covers too much distance too much time to truly be adequate. Narratives of this type require a poetic economy of line. Ennis and Segura managed it. Allen could have used a bit of editing. But the character voices were very strong and very true to form, and there was an appropriately trippy philosophical edge to this piece that I quite liked.

As for the art, Justin Mason can draw Moon Knight every day of the week, and I’d be happy to read it. His style meshes so well with this type of narrative that it’s difficult to imagine him drawing anything else.

This was a strong, oddly poetic collection of vignettes, dripping with horror that has as much to do with the heart as it does with the desire for braaaaaaaaiiiiiinnnnsss.