Infestation #2

April 29, 2011

Writers: Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning
Art: David Messina
Art Assist: Claudia Balboni
Inks: Gaetano Carlucci
Colorist: ScarletGothica
Letterer: Robbie Robbins
Cover: David Messina
Editor: Chris Ryall & Tom Waltz
Publisher: IDW Publishing

The Infestation has come back home. The Undermind back in the world of Covert Vampire Operations is calling back the aspects of itself that infested the worlds of TransFormers, Star Trek, G.I. Joe and the Ghostbusters, building its power for one more bid to take over this world. But at least one member of CVO is willing to go to any lengths to stop that from happening. I’m a little disappointed with the end of this crossover, to be honest with you. The four different worlds into which the zombies reached don’t really have any impact on the conclusion to the storyline. I didn’t really expect to see Optimus Prime and Peter Venkman leaping through the dimensional portal and kicking ass alongside one another, but it seems like there should have been something gained by the Undermind through its contact with the other worlds. Instead, the four crossovers feel simply superfluous, without having any real impact on the world of the CVO. I am glad to see lasting implications for CVO itself, as the new series spinning out of this crossover seems like it will have been very heavily influenced by the crossover. If you’re not really a fan of the CVO franchise, though, it doesn’t give you much to cling to. Messina’s artwork isn’t bad at all, fortunately. The final confrontation looks really cool, with great color effects to help with the whole interdimensional doomsday thing. In the long run, the crossover was fun, but it doesn’t feel… significant. And that’s a shame.

Rating: 7/10

Ghostbusters: Infestation #2

April 17, 2011

Writer: Erik Burnham
Art: Kyle Hotz
Colorist: Dan Brown
Letterer: Chris Mowry
Cover: Kyle Hotz
Editor: Tom Waltz              
Publisher: IDW Publishing

Between the storm of zombie energy loosed from the Infestation and the leak in the Ghostbusters’ containment unit, things are getting pretty heated in the great city of New York. The Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man has been cut loose and is tearing through town again, but Egon has a plan. Zombies seem to act as a natural ghost containment unit.. what if they combine Stay-Puft with the marauding zombies?

Well, it ain’t nothing good.

Erik Burnham and Kyle Hotz have come together to give us hands-down the best installment of the Infestation crossover. The Ghostbusters are great characters in their own right, of course, but this particular creative team is really adept with them. They depict the characters in a way that’s perfectly consistent with the films, tremendously funny, and just a little bit menacing in the first place. Hotz’s artwork is just what this title needs. He managed to evoke the original actors very nicely, and the zombie Marshmallow Man is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. The book is great, and I’m tremendously excited by the news that a new ongoing series is in the works for later this year.

Rating: 9/10

G.I. Joe: Infestation #2

April 17, 2011

Writer: Mike Raicht
Artwork: Giovanni Timpano
Colorist: J. Brown
Letterer: Robbie Robbins
Cover: John K. Snyder III
Editor: Andy Schmidt       
Publisher: IDW Publishing

The Baroness has captured the Joe named Psyche Out, and with him has managed to seize a bizarre piece of technology, both of which have gone with her to a deep sea Cobra base. The strange tech, though, is beginning to infect animal and technology alike, turning them into a horrible, all-consuming swarm of death… and freeing Psyche Out may be her only chance to stop it before it destroys the base – or even worse. The story here is okay. It works mostly as a reverse of a plot we’ve seen plenty of times before, where the good guys may have a villain in captivity and need their help to stop a greater threat. This time around, it’s much more about the villains, and that probably makes for a more entertaining story in the long run. I’m also surprised that this issue ends in a way that does, in fact, leave some lasting repercussions for IDW’s G.I. Joe franchise. (I suppose it shouldn’t be that surprising, since a lasting change happened over in the TransFormers section of the crossover as well.) The action is strong, the gore isn’t over the top… all in all, it’s an okay comic. It’s lacking something, though, some sort of jolt that’s needed to make it more than just okay. Entertaining, but I can’t help feeling like it could have been more.

Rating: 7/10

Ghostbusters: Infestation #1

March 27, 2011

Writer: Erik Burnham
Art: Kyle Hotz
Colorist: Dan Brown
Letterer: Chris Mowry
Cover: Kyle Hotz
Editor: Tom Waltz
Publisher: IDW Publishing

The zombie invasion has made its way into the world of the Ghostbusters, and it couldn’t have come at a worse time. There’s been a rash of poltergeist attacks that have the unfortunate ability to defy the containment unit. It’s not a good time for zombies to attack – especially zombies that have a tendency to explode when blasted with a proton pack, spewing noxious, zombie-spawning goo all over everything.

I’ve read all of the Infestation books to date, and I really think this is the best one. Erik Burnham has mastered the voices of the Ghostbusters, seeding the book with just the right doses of comedy and terror in a perfect balance. The approach to the zombies, naturally, is also different for these characters than you get in the worlds of the TransFormers, Star Trek, or G.I. Joe. These guys are used to the supernatural. When your job is catching ghosts, dealing qith zombies really isn’t that much of a stretch. In fact, Egon pulls out a flawless examination of the plague of the undead that shows their relationship to the usual terrors the Ghostbusters deal with. Kyle Hotz helps boost an already-strong script with artwork that’s just as strong, again blending the horror and the humor in just the right doses. Infestation has been okay, but if all the crossovers had been like this, it could have been great.

Rating: 9/10

G.I. Joe: Infestation #1

March 27, 2011

Writer: Mike Raicht
Art: Giovanni Timpano
Colorist: J. Brown
Letterer: Chris Mowry
Cover: John K. Snyder III
Editor: Andy Schmidt
Publisher: IDW Publishing

The most bizarre crossover of the year continues. The Baroness is planning an attack on a ship full of new G.I. Joe members on the cusp of their “final exam.” When she takes one of the heroes into custody she gets an unexpected bonus – a cyber-organic arm that she brings back for study. The arm carries a nasty secret of its own, one that threatens not just Cobra, but the entire world.

While perhaps the most well-written of the three Infestation crossovers so far, this is also the one that seems to have the last direct link to the main storyline. The zombie angle seems secondary, and in fact, this could easily be a story about any number of other threats – hell, even a malignant computer virus would work just as well, the way things are presented. That may change in part two, of course, but as of part one, this almost doesn’t have to have zombies at all. On the other hand, it’s a really solid issue of G.I. Joe. The Baroness is a nasty, manipulative bad guy, and Psyche Out is well cast as the “last Joe standing” in the depths of the Cobra submarine.

Giovanni Timpano puts together a dark, dirty set of pages that works fine as a military thriller, but also will easily acclimate the horror movie aspects of the larger storyline. It’ll be interesting to see if part two brings this miniseries more in line with the overall story thread, but for the time being, it’s pretty good on its own.

Rating: 7/10

TransFormers: Infestation #2

February 26, 2011

Writers: Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning
Art: Nick Roche
Colorist: Joana Lafuente
Letterer: Robbie Robbins
Cover: Nick Roche (Cover A); John K. Snyder III (Cover B)
Editor: Andy Schmidt
Publisher: IDW Publishing

As Bayonet stands revealed as a manifestation of Britt, the CVO operative who unleashed the Infestation on the Multiverse in the first place, she proceeds with her plan to conquer this universe. With the zombie-fied Kup as her lieutenant, she begins her plans to use Las Vegas as the launching point for a virus that will destroy the world. Autobots and Decepticons find themselves having to work together to save not just the human race, but all mechanical life as well.

The fact that this particular zombie infestation also works on robots is a stroke of luck for the story – the TransFormers could make quick work of any typical zombie plague. Putting them at risk as well makes the story more compelling, and the way one of them rises up and stands against the plague makes for great reading. The ending of this issue isn’t all that surprising, and I find myself suspecting we’re going to see similar conclusions to the rest of the Infestation crossovers as well, just to set things up for the finale. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but it could get a little repetitive.

Nick Roche’s art is pretty good. I especially like the look of Britt/Bayonet, and the way he “zombifies” some of the robots looks very nice.

This was okay. I hope the other chapters spice things up more, though.

Rating: 7/10

Star Trek: Infestation #1

February 20, 2011

Writer: Scott Tipton & David Tipton
Pencils: Gary Erskine
Colorist: Luis Antonio Delgado
Letterer: Chris Mowry
Cover: John K. Snyder III & Jason Wright
Editor: Tom Waltz
Publisher: IDW Publishing

We join second of four universes invaded by the creatures of Zombies Vs. Robots in this issue. Set in that little-explored time between the first and second original series Star Trek movies, Admiral Kirk is travelling with Spock and McCoy to a colony world where McCoy is being honored for curing a deadly disease. After the Enterprise drops them off and heads away on a supply run, Kirk and company discover that a much deadlier disease has gripped the planet – a plague of the living dead. Unlike the TransFormers chapter of this crossover, the Tiptons don’t actually spend any time this issue discussing the backstory of the plague. There’s no reference to the CVO or alternate dimensions at all. If you were to pick this issue up independently of the other books, you’d just get a classic Star Trek series where they find a planet that’s full of zombies. Which, c’mon, is a cool enough idea by itself, right? The works out, although it does smack a bit of fanfic to see the three greatest icons of the original series facing off against a swarm of the undead. But as I’ve noted elsewhere, most of these “expanded universe” stories have kind of a fanfic flavor to them anyway, so there’s not really any harm in that. It’s weird and incongruous to see Spock shooting a phaser at a zombie, but it’s also a lot of fun for all that. This crossover is working for me.

Rating: 7/10

Infestation #1

February 3, 2011

Writers: Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning
Art: David Messina & Elena Casagrande
Inks: Gaetano Carlucci
Colorist: ScarletGothica
Letterer: Robbie Robbins
Cover: Gabriel Rodriguez (Cover A); John K. Snyder (Cover B)
Editor: Chris Ryall & Tom Waltz
Publisher: IDW Publishing

IDW Publishing is finally bringing us their first-ever crossover, bringing together two of the company’s original properties and putting them on a collision course with four of their licensed properties. It’s an unprecedented sort of story, and the first issue is a lot of fun.

In the world of CVO: Covert Vampiric Operations, a team of vampires protect the human race from supernatural threats. They run into the greatest threat of all, however, when an interdimensional portal leads them to a world where a zombie plague not only is sweeping the human race, but has somehow gained the ability to infect electronic entities as well. That’s right: it’s the world of Zombies Vs. Robots. As CVO attempts to hold the line against the infestation, one of their own gets overwhelmed by the plague.

If you know anything about this series ahead of time, the end isn’t too much of a surprise. The dimensional rift splits, sending both the infected CVO member and the plague itself into four different dimensions, worlds we’ve seen in comics, movies and TV shows for years: TransFormers, Star Trek, G.I. Joe and the Ghostbusters. It’s a screwy idea, but we don’t quite get into that this month. The whole book is taken up with the CVO vs. Zombies routine, which is actually pretty good. I’ve never read either of the two original IDW titles that lead into this book, but the first issue makes me very much inclined to give CVO in particular a try. The concept of an “undermind” – a sort of controlling consciousness that propels the zombies and gains power the more undead there are – is a clever one that makes this story more than just your standard zombie fare. Abnett and Lanning, the masters of the cosmic adventure, bring a nice amount of horror story to this book. The assorted artists do have a solid, unified style, one that serves both the horror elements and the sci-fi.

I loved the idea of bringing these four properties together for such a strange crossover to begin with. I’m really glad it got off to a good start.

Rating: 7/10