@TigersMS78 reviews the zombie child apocalypse in The Rage: Zombie Generation
The Rage Vol 1: Zombie Generation starts off like any regular zombie apocalypse story, it’s bleak, the Army is involved, except this time around the infected are children. Which of course creates an instantly worrying premise – Could you kill a child to save your own life?
Being the first in a series, the story drops you straight into the middle of it, forcing you to play catch up and store any number of questions away as no doubt these questions will be answered as the story expands. There is plenty of action crammed into the first part of the story, with a mission going wrong and plenty of casualties as a result. After the swift and brutal introduction we meet Amina Riviere who has volunteered to work for the Government in the Removals Unit (as in removing the children that have passed the infection age). As the it unfolds we find out Amina’s motivation for volunteering, through some flashbacks. The story also introduces the Militia – an armed organisation that believes the only good child is a dead child – whilst the Army has found a stop gap cure, so they protect the children in the quarantine zones – with all these domino’s are lined up the story is primed and first tile is ready to be knocked.
Being a comic it is probably a little easier to depict the killing of kids (even murderous zombie kids) however there is no skimping on the violence, be it a child ripping into a throat or a bunch of bullets tearing through the children, it is all there in its gory glory. Whilst a majority of the writing is perfunctory it does serve an absolute and positive purpose, being a familiar story to get you in and some of the dialogue reads like lines from a blockbuster further enhancing the movie/tv series feel that is established early on.There is, as you would expect, a very dark palette in terms of the colours used and there is a hell of a lot of shading, it works together well and is in keeping with the bleak story line. The zombie kids are frightening, looking like grey and vicious as they should.
Overall a great first up introduction setting up the story nicely and definitely leaving you wanting more and it even ends on a great cliffhanger. If this kind of story interests you The Rage is well worth getting your hands on.Ryan Morrissey-Smith
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Images provided by Titan Comics
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