‘Ninjas vs. Zombies’ #1 & 2 – Chillemi, Martinez, Rodriguez & Alejandro (Azure Comics)

Off the top of your head, what are the two coolest things in the world?

If you didn’t immediately answer, “why ninjas and zombies of course” then that’s ok as everyone is entitled to their own opinion on weighty matters such as these. It doesn’t stop you being totally and completely wrong though (sorry...); there is nothing in the world that is possibly as cool as ninjas and zombies.
This makes it a little odd then that I somehow managed to miss an entire film featuring ninjas and zombies going at it. Odd perhaps but not entirely unexpected, not when the newest addition to the household insists on repeated viewings of ‘Calamity Jane’ and ‘Pocoyo’...

With the TV situation the way it is round here, I was more than happy to find that my potential dose of zombie and ninja goodness could be obtained elsewhere. The writer of the comic book tie-in got in touch and asked if I’d like to take a look at the first two comics in what I’m guessing will end up being a mini-series. I jumped at the chance by the end result wasn’t quite what I was expecting.
Here’s the blurb,

Seven friends, struggling with late 20s, early 30s life, find themselves in terrifying danger when a long-dead loved one is magically resurrected and starts devouring souls. To make matters worse, three of them have been granted the power of the ninja, and now must lead the fight against a power they cannot hope to vanquish. If they fail, the undead will overrun their little town, and maybe the world...
The reason that I’ve pretty much copied and pasted the blurb is that this series (only two issues old) looks like it could be a difficult one to get into if you haevn’t already seen the film. Well, I haven’t seen the film and I found this a hard one to get into...

Instead of telling the story as I’m guessing it appears on the screen, Chillemi opts for a different route and tells the same story from the perspective of two of the main characters (Kyle in issue 1 and Cole in issue 2). I get this approach in terms of exploring the characters a little and Chillemi does this to some extent. I have to say though that I didn’t really find an awful lot to engage with in either one (although Chillemi does do a good job of exploring Cole’s situation)...

Where things fell flat for me though is that I couldn’t get away from the feeling that, despite the perspective change, I was essentially reading the same story twice. There’s no real suspense either as Cole’s mission (which must have been the finale in the film) is resolved in issue 1 and this almost renders the rest of the series pointless. If that wasn’t bad enough, we get to see it all over in issue 2 and I couldn’t help but wonder if these climactic scenes had come at least one issue early.
What I had in front of me was a confusing read where one character dies (except he doesn’t) and a lot of the foregrounding that you would have got in the film doesn’t appear here. What was that bit all about with the drama teacher?

At least the artwork team capture the sheer awesomeness that you’re always going to find when ninjas and zombies go at it; some nice panels there. It’s a bit of a shame then that the rest of the art feels stagnant, no-one really seems to be doing much and there’s no energy. You could argue that this is how it should be with a bunch of 20/30 somethings all having life crisis’ but I’m not so sure. I need something a little more energetic to capture my attention.

I’d probably finish ‘Ninjas vs. Zombies’ just to see how Chillemi’s approach to the story pans out when he’s finished writing about each character. There might be something there at the end but it’s heavy going in the meantime...

Six out of Ten