At first glance to the unsuspecting reader, he/she will look at this comic and say “A Walking Dead wannabe? HAHA.” To more seasoned readers, they know that Deadworld actually precedes The Walking Dead. Now I don’t know too much about Deadworld, this is my first comic of it. Thankfully the issue features an introduction explaining things well for new readers, so don’t worry about having prior knowledge beforehand. While any new zombie comic will be compared to The Walking Dead instantly, the first issue of this mini-series stands on its own, it’s one of the grittiest comics I’ve ever read. (In this case, that’s a good thing.)

Here’s the official description from IDW:

“The zombies have over run the Earth! A small outpost, remnants of a twisted scientists’ scheme to defeat the plague holds out against the army of King Zombie. Their secret weapon are the Lepers-victims of a bizarre experiment that left them with dead flesh in breathing husks with skin that even zombies won’t touch. This new series of Deadworld is perfect for new readers to join in the frenzy of what has been called the “grand-daddy” of all zombie comics.”

Before going any deeper, I gotta say that there were two smirking moments in this comic. These two moments were pieces of dialogue with ‘The Walking Dead’ in them. “He became a walking dead.” “It is with a tired resignation that the people rip into the walking dead.” Not sure if those were meant to be *wink* *wink* moments, but still funny nonetheless. Obviously the general story isn’t something we haven’t seen ten times before, it’s the gimmicks and characters that either make the story interesting and stand out or generic. The former two represent the comic. First off, this is taking place after the zombies started coming and all that, now it’s pretty much every day life to these characters. The most interesting by far is Mike, which is thanks to his tragic backstory. This is the guy you’re going to be rooting for. Then of course there’s the strong and tough-as-nails female to go along. However, she has a little more story than you think at first, which was interesting as you get into the latter part of the comic.

The main thing making this one of the grittiest comics I’ve ever read is the art. Now sometimes art like this could be a really big miss and up just being messy. Not here, the art fits the grim and violent story well. The comic would lose some of its touch if more ‘normal’ art was used instead. Another thing worth mentioning is the price. For $3.99, you get a lot of content. I was honestly surprised at the amount of content we got, far too often I’ve seen comics with the $3.99 price tag and not being worth it. This first issue is worth every penny, it could have gone for $5 and it would still have been worth it, that’s how much satisfying content this comic has.

Overall, this is one gritty and cool first issue. New readers can easily jump in thanks to the introduction. Great story, interesting characters, and there’s lot of zombie action. (The final act has some really good fighting between the humans and undead, lots of decapitations.) For people that want more zombie action after the recently finished Rebel Blood, looking for undead stuff other than The Walking Dead, or just looking for a good comic with zombies in it, you’ll definitely want to give the first issue of Deadworld: War of the Dead a go.