Zombie #1 (of 4)

Mike Raicht & Kyle Hotz

The first issue of this new Marvel MAX title doesn't begin like your typical zombie thriller. Instead, we are introduced to Simon Garth via a bank robbery, where he and a co-worker are forced to hand over bags of money and into a police car chase at gunpoint. The zombies appear later. We're given a little time to get to know our hero and wonder where the book is going before anything unusual begins to occur. As the story progresses, expectations are subverted and the characters we're introduced to suddenly find themselves in peril. This is a very good start to the book that may or may not have anything to do with the Simon Garth of Marvel's Tales of the Zombie series (whose first appearance, courtesy of Stan Lee and Bill Everett, was also entitled "Zombie"). Effectively creepy, with all of the gore and thrills you might expect from a zombie story, this new mini-series has some real potential. I'm not a huge fan of Hotz' art, but other than that, pretty solid. B