Dr. Waterhouse
08-28-2009, 10:33 PM
I know we've discussed Arvid Nelson's Rex Mundi briefly, but this past Wednesday I by chance picked up another comic book series he's writing, and I am just absolutely blown away by it.
Zero Killer is real alternate history, beginning from the premise that Harry Truman decided not to use the atomic bomb to end World War II, thus creating a chain of events that led to a nuclear war in 1973 that destroyed most of human civilization. Specifically, it's the story of the survivors of that holocaust who live in the flooded remnants of Manhattan in an alternate-present.
Nelson has no problem advertising the fact that he borrows liberally from everything that's gone before in the post-apocalyptic science fiction genre: a little Warriors here, a little Escape from New York there, and the ghost of Mad Max seems never to wander too far away. But what's interesting is that Nelson manages to create something that feels to me very different than what at least I've read in this area (although judging by the burgeoning Encyclopedia Post-Apocalyptica threads, others at cf.net are probably far better judges of what counts as original in this genre than I).
He's essentially created this concept of a quasi-feudal culture in the skyscrapers, most poignantly in the surviving husks of the World Trade Center. The inhabitants practice a religion that seems to combine Christianity, Rastafarianism, and Voudou. And there's a plot detail involving--of all things--the Cloisters art museum in Washington Heights I actually don't want to give away, but that I find completely awesome.
I've only read the one issue that just came out--#4--but I have to say I'm anxiously looking forward to buying the back issues and the forthcoming concluding chapters of the series.
And for those who have read Rex Mundi and who loved the faux-newspaper in the back of each issue, there's similar text materials here that I find even more awesome.
Zero Killer is real alternate history, beginning from the premise that Harry Truman decided not to use the atomic bomb to end World War II, thus creating a chain of events that led to a nuclear war in 1973 that destroyed most of human civilization. Specifically, it's the story of the survivors of that holocaust who live in the flooded remnants of Manhattan in an alternate-present.
Nelson has no problem advertising the fact that he borrows liberally from everything that's gone before in the post-apocalyptic science fiction genre: a little Warriors here, a little Escape from New York there, and the ghost of Mad Max seems never to wander too far away. But what's interesting is that Nelson manages to create something that feels to me very different than what at least I've read in this area (although judging by the burgeoning Encyclopedia Post-Apocalyptica threads, others at cf.net are probably far better judges of what counts as original in this genre than I).
He's essentially created this concept of a quasi-feudal culture in the skyscrapers, most poignantly in the surviving husks of the World Trade Center. The inhabitants practice a religion that seems to combine Christianity, Rastafarianism, and Voudou. And there's a plot detail involving--of all things--the Cloisters art museum in Washington Heights I actually don't want to give away, but that I find completely awesome.
I've only read the one issue that just came out--#4--but I have to say I'm anxiously looking forward to buying the back issues and the forthcoming concluding chapters of the series.
And for those who have read Rex Mundi and who loved the faux-newspaper in the back of each issue, there's similar text materials here that I find even more awesome.