The Key Of Z Issues #1-3 Review

Introduction:

The world has been destroyed. Something has raised the dead as an army of walking hungry monsters, killing any living thing in their way. The people that are left have banded together as warring tribes and have holed up in the most secure places they can find, creating city states in the desolate background of what was once New York City

Vitals

Title: The Key Of Z #1-3
Writer: Claudio Sanchez and Chondra Echert
Artist: Aaron Kuder
Covers: Nathan Fox, Tony Moore, and Declan Shalvey
Colors: Charlie Kirchoff
Letters: Johnny Lowe
Content: The Key Of Z is for mature readers and contains horror, gore, language, nudity and violence.
Publisher: BOOM! Studios
Cost: $3.99

Story:

In the remains of New York City, after a zombie apocalypse, there are those that banded together into tribes, scavenging and reclaiming the land from the dead. Two groups have arisen as the powerhouses of the area Each trying to probe for weaknesses to finally strike and take down the other, making their house king of the now rotten landscape. Between the two houses is one man, Ewing, who has an agenda all his own and seems to only live for revenge.

One house is headed by the vicious Lavoe and resides at Yankee Stadium. He rules through terror and will betray those around him at a moment’s notice. The other house is ruled by Jackson and resides at the Met's Citi Field in Queens and his plans for the city sees himself as the ruler of an elite class of people. A new wealthy class in a society ruled by him and his cronies.

Ewing is a hard man, a loner who mourns the loss of his loved ones in times past. He lives only to get revenge on these houses that took so much from him and offers so little to others. With the aid of a new friend, Ewing puts a plan in motion to knock the houses down, to what end we don’t know yet.

Review:

I do love zombies, even with the bloating amount of zombie comics we have on the scene today. I’m always interested in reading new yarns about the undead. What first looked like a normal zombie tale has turned into something a bit more deep and interesting.

One thing I liked was how quick we got to the aftermath of the zombie apocalypse. So many zombie tales just go through the initial outbreak and subsequent survival of the cast of characters. The set up was quick, brutal, and launched us right into the meat of the story, which at its core is more about the political and tactical maneuverings of these houses of New York than just the survival of the cast. The two main houses have set up an uneasy truce, but are always working to unseat the other house to gain supremacy. That was a pretty interesting take.

The art by Kuder works well here as there is a lot of attention to detail in the characters and especially the surrounding area. Kuder has done a great job of making New York dilapidated and worn down. Sometimes his body work can be a bit on the superhero side of things with bulging tops, and there were other times his eyes didn’t seem quite right, but I would say it was very well done over all.

One thing I was glad for was that I had the first three issues to read in one sitting. The first issue was a little slow paced and didn’t get into the meat of the issues with Ewing and the houses until much later in issue #2. Issue #3 is where things really start to unravel and take shape with the story so I was glad that I had the first three to read in succession and get to the good stuff. There were also a lot of flashbacks that would have been difficult to discern I think had I had thirty days between readings. Sometimes those transitions felt a bit clunky.

Conclusion:

In the end, I enjoyed the first three issues of The Key of Z. There was a lot of interesting things done the first issues with the interactions between Ewing and the zombies, as well as all the intrigue and maneuvering between the houses. The Key of Z made me think that this was the kind of story that Romero’s The Land of the Dead should have been.

It was also interesting to see that the zombies were really much more of the background than the focus. They are a threat and there is some great zombie killing action, but the true focus of the story is the interaction between the characters who are just as much if not more monstrous than their undead counterparts.

It really looks like The Key of Z could be a great zombie tale in the works. I really hope Sanchez and Echert have some innovative things planned for the future of the series and look forward to where they will take us.