Originally published on Patreon
I've never read a Sgt. Rock comic before this, I've seen him make brief appearances in other things, but I can't really recall ever seeing him having his own book any of the times I've been reading DC. So when I saw that the character was getting a new mini-series, one where he'd be fighting Nazi zombies, I was pretty intrigued. Then I saw that it was being written by horror icon Bruce Campbell, and I was absolutely sold on the idea.
This issue sets a lot of the groundwork for the series, introducing us to the concept piece by piece whilst setting the stage for the main events. We see a couple of Allied soldiers on guard duty late in the night approached by shambling Nazi soldiers. The troopers open fire on them, but the Nazi's keep on coming, overrunning the guard post and killing the soldiers.
We see the Hitler bunker, where the Fuhrer is told how Germany is losing the war. He demands that project regeneration be put into action, pushing the output to maximum in order to put more Nazi troops into the field.
Sgt. Rock and his men get called off a supply guarding mission, and brought into Allied Headquarters, where they're shown one of the regenerated Nazis. We get some good info on how this is happening, a mixture of chemicals and brain implants, that gets the important info out of the way early on so that we're not left wondering how the Nazi's are doing this. By the end of the issue, the team has faced one of the creatures, been given a load of new tech, and are being sent off to destroy the lab lab where the zombies are being produced.
As said before, I've not read any books that really feature these characters, and this was my first real introduction to them; and as of yet I've still not gotten a huge idea of who they are. Sgt. Rock himself seems to be the only distinct character so far, due in large part to him being the guy in charge. I don't know if there are other established characters in Easy Company that Campbell is using, or if they've been created for this series; but either way, I'm hoping that now things have been set up we can get a chance to know the people a bit better in future instalments.
The art on the book, by Eduardo Risso and Kristian Rossi, really suits this book. It's darker, grittier looking, and looks a bit messy. The lines aren't all perfectly neat and uniform. There are details there, but not every single thing is drawn, and often colour and shadow are used to fill in the gaps and give everything depth. The artwork reminds me of things like the Hellboy and B.P.R.D. books, and the tone of this story seems to fit with that kind of gritty, horror tale. It's really nice, and the zombies all look gnarly and great because of it; and I can't wait to see more of it.
As a first issue, this is a really solid foundation for things to come. My only criticisms are that I don't really have any sense of the characters yet, but this is something that can easily change in coming issues.
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