Okay let us put aside the fact that everything has to do with zombies. The Colonized is a pretty cool concept. Thinking about who would win a war between zombies and aliens is kind of awesome. I usually spend a good part of my day thinking about zombies against anything and who would win. One that is interesting to me is zombies vs. mermaids…think about it.
Drew Moss’ art is perfect for this comic. The coloring is creepy and lots of greens going on. He brings lots of expression to the characters which can be hard to do since he is drawing three types of species; alien, zombie and humans.
Captain Bemis, the leader of the alien team, is trying to land his ship successfully in order to gain contact with the humans for unknown reasons. They finally are hovering close enough to the ground in order to beam in a life form. They do not choose well in that their life form isn’t alive but a zombie instead. We then jump to these hillbillies in the graveyard. They are mourning over their good friend’s death, Rennie. Rennie was the town’s leader and these guys aren’t too happy about his replacement, Rennie’s son.
Huxley or Hux has high hopes to change the town into reducing its carbon footprint. Randy Roy and his hillbillies just want their town to stay the same and he claims rifles are the only “fully sustainable” thing he wants. Typical community argument. Their story ends with them all seeing the alien’s ship enter the atmosphere. The comic jumps to Hux at his father’s funeral. Hux is talking with his best friend about his new leadership role and how the town will deal with it. He also witnesses the spaceship and all four characters meet up. The aliens are running out of their ship in fear of the zombie while the humans are trying to understand why there are aliens visiting earth. I thought this moment would be a little more ape shit-ish, but no human seems to care about the zombie or the fact that aliens just landed. A little underdone.
For a comic subtitled Zombies vs. Aliens I thought there would be more action. It lacked in that department. There were also just too many mentions of the environment in this issue. Clearly living a sustainable lifestyle has something to do with the overall plot. From Captain Bemis’ member mentioning the dirty air, the graveyard being called Carbon Falls, Hux revamping the town to reducing their carbon footprint, and the angry hillbillies not worrying about carbon at all because they shoot guns and that is it. It is all just too much. I would have rather the characters be fighting over something, but the audience not knowing what that is. It would have left us guessing and more interesting to see how the politics of the issue unfold.
I have no idea how this story will unfold. All I am hoping is that the story will pick up in issue #2. If I don’t see some aliens turn into zombies or some zombies get probed I will set this comic aside and sigh.
Score: 3/5
Writer: Chris Ryall
Artist: Drew Moss
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Price: $3.99
Release Date: 4/10/13