The Mocking Dead #4: Review


Screen shot 2013-12-04 at 6.25.39 AM

What’s the best way to stop a zombie plague? According to fat slob and movie buff Aaron Bunch, it’s by finding a long-lost zombie film and copying whatever methods those celluloid heroes used to exterminate the threat. Too bad the movie was missing. Until now.

Here’s the official word from Dynamite:

DIA agents Bunch and Malik at last arrive at the estate where the long-lost print of The Mocking Dead movie can be found … but is it in time to save a world already unraveling at the seams from the threat of the Zeds?

For those of you who’ve been reading The Mocking Dead, you already know the premise: a few decades agoScreen shot 2013-12-03 at 6.20.17 AM the US Government decided it would be a good idea to create secret program where uber-geeks applied their knowledge of films and comics to develop real-life responses to unlikely cataclysmic events … like zombie invasions. Lead character (and fat slob) Aaron Bunch is the brains behind the operation but his best plan thus far has simply amounted to plagiarism: copying methods used from movies. And one movie in particular — The Mocking Dead.

Writer Fred Van Lente has clearly had a lot of fun writing this series; the characters, the jokes, and plot points feel like a loving roast of what’s become a pretty standard genre. Issue #4 feels especially tight as his heros arrive at the compound where they believe the lost movie to be hidden. Those of you looking for high action might be disappointed with this issue, but I kinda dig that Van Lente is finally taking the time to answer plot questions from earlier in the series.

Max Dunbar draws awesome zombies. They drool, they growl, and they stumble in all the right ways. Again, Van Lente offers Dunbar some nice moments of dialogue-free action (mostly through the embedded clips of The Mocking Dead movie which he’s peppered through the series — a cool narrative device in its own right). The result is strong moments of visual storytelling, and gag jokes that really amplify this title overall.

Issue #4 is a very satisfying effort, so pick it up today.

4/5

fourstar

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