THE DEAD TIMES

RATING:

ZOMBIE RATING:

DESCRIPTION:

In Berlin, 1944, the Nazi war machine is surrounded on all sides by the Allied forces - defeat seems inevitable. In one final, desperate attempt at victory, Hitler - the leader of the German army - authorises a diabolical scheme to bring fallen Nazi soldiers back from the dead, stronger than they were before, to continue fighting, requiring no rest, no food and no water, servitude to Germany being their only prerogative. To thwart this new menace, the Allies have dispatched sergeant Franklin Rock and his unit, Easy Company. They have been issued superior weaponry and new tech but still, the fight against this strange and deadly new enemy will be far from easy.

MY VERDICT:

This comic book written by horror-legend Bruce Campbell, is a bit of a strange one in that you never feel satisfied after reading it - it's good or, at least, average, it just never really gives you enough, it never fully realises it's potential. First off the bat, coming from DC - the home of famed superhero material such as Batman and Superman -, the "hero" of the story, Sgt. Rock, is not all that heroic compared to anyone else in the story; he is just the gruff military guy that happens who be in charge of Easy Company, itself just a group of gruff military guys. None of the soldiers have any sort of backstory or reason to care about them, which, for the regular characters, is acceptable, but the main protagonist, Sgt. Rock, should definitely have been given something to flesh out his character - a flashback to earlier successful missions making him the perfect choice for this new mission or a simple statement giving his character meaningful depth such as worries about his homelife. The story itself is quite-straightforward, which is a plus - no confusing twists or potential plot holes, just a 'kill 'em all' mentality which really works well for the subject matter. This makes the narrative extremely predictable - the good guys win and put a stop to the Germans resurrecting dead soldiers - but that is not unexpected (the good guys always prevail in comic books). I would have enjoyed a few bigger surprises along the way though, to keep me enthralled such as the introduction of a comically large 'Frakenzombie', a super-strong Nazi abomination cobbled together from multiple undead soldiers and vehicle parts for added coolness but sadly the only enemies are generic undead Nazi soldiers. What really lets the comic down, for me though, is the art; it just looks rushed and lacks detail. All characters, from the members of Easy Company including Sgt. Rock himself, right up to the undead Nazi soldiers all look virtually identical, the only standout being Hitler himself due to his signature toothbrush Mustache. The poses and facial expressions of the characters is very strange in some scenes and the environments are bland and uninteresting, formed of broken buildings or industrial equipment.