Hello my fellow comic book readers, today’s review will be something of an unexpected review for me, The Key of Z written by Cluadio Sanchez (from the band Coheed & Cambria) and Chondra Echert (team behind Kill Audio), with art by Aaron Kuder and publish by Boom Studios. A title I didn’t think I would get, let alone like enough to review, well maybe hated enough to curse why I bought it, and start bitching to all of you. It was a title that definitely worthy of it story “tag-line,” a mix of “The Warriors, DMZ, and The Walking Dead blended together into unabashed comics goodness.”
A simple story that is very familiar in a few ways, and not terribly original, but it doesn’t take away from it being a very surprisingly good story with interesting characters or character (explained later), and a good take on the zombified world. From the first issue, this story seems to be more centralize, New York City, and what everything has turn into during the world going to shit. We have the structure system in the form of gangs, two in particular with their base of operation in New York’s stadiums. Each stadium is filled with survivors, and are either run by “Yankee” Lavoe or Jackson “Met,” and both are hungry for power. And that concept was really interesting to my, not really original, but different for the zombie genre and definitely add spice to the story. Some of the best and most gripping moment of The Walking Dead are the interactions with these type of strongholds. And the Key of Z is certainly present as such, with a direction that would hopeful be gripping and exciting.
We are introduce to our main character, Ewing, and during the outbreak has lost his wife and son, and is out to seek revenge for the lose of his family. Ewing is a character I like, very much harden from his experiences with the zombie apocalypse, he is a bad-ass character driven by pain and lost. but Besides for him and Eddie Alvarez (a reluctant harvester for Yankee Lavoe) there really isn’t a whole of of character work for the others that was showed, not much of a determine cast either.
I was really on the fence with this book, I was never a fan of the whole zombie genre the industry seems to be developing and being over run by, and besides for the gem that is The Walking Dead, I wasn’t really thrilled with the dozens of other titles. So the Key of Z was certainly a pleasant surprise, nothing totally revolutionary or powerfully gripping, but the potentials there, and as first issues go, it was good. This good issue is a “Definite Buy,” but for me, future issue will be a definite check out. Hoping that the strong emotions that The Walking Dead was able to evoke, Key of Z may be able to do as well, and that Ewing will continue to grow to an even more of a bad-ass character.
Here are a few pages from Key of Z #1, make sure to pick up your own copy (well, if you can find any, it is slowing selling out) in stores. Have Fun Reading!
GeekxLovin 