Comics Review: "The Fallen" #1

- by Señor Editor, 14 March 2014

Monkey Brain Comics is an often overlooked publisher that has plenty of good titles to offer. They have a new miniseries that started this week, called “The Fallen”. It’s written by Alex De-Gruchy with art by Michael Montenat. On the surface it seemed like just another spin on the zombie genre, but I had a good feeling about it. Was I right?! Find out!

I like post-apocalyptic stories a whole lot – whether it’s a zombie apocalypse, a nuclear apocalypse or anything else. In “The Fallen” we meet three people: Sam, Liz and Ray, traveling on horseback through the Northern American wasteland. What caused all this destruction?

The story takes place in America, 8 years after the apocalyptic event referred to as “The Pulse”. As in an electromagnetic pulse attack? I don’t know, but the important thing here is that the pre-Pulse world of this comic was filled with superpowered beings, both heroes and villains. Similar to the Marvel Universe, Manhattan used to be the super peoples’ favorite battleground, until the good people of New York became fed up. So they put up an energy dome over the borough, that negated any superpowers. Good idea! How come nobody in the Marvel Universe ever thought of doing that? Living in Manhattan is already expensive, even without having to rebuild it all the damn time.

Thing is, when the Pulse swept over the country, it reacted with the energy dome in an unpredictable way, changing over 1.6 million people into insane, deformed cannibals. They soon spread out all over the country. They are sort of like zombies, though there’s one thing they do that zombies don’t. They yell obscenities at you!

Yeah... Unnerving! And a little surprising, but if I had to choose between the constant dull moaning of regular zombies or being cursed out by naked bald cannibals (wasn’t that a band?), I would definitely... well, actually I don’t know what’s worse. Anyway, we immediately learn that our protagonists are more than they seem, when Sam destroys one of the baldies (they’re called “Sleepers”, after the city that never sleeps) with his very cool powers.

So yes, some of our heroes are actually superpowered. If that seems like a sweet deal in a world like this, then you have to remember that the surviving humans aren’t fond of superhumans at all. They blame them for everything that happened, so social standing of ex-superheroes isn’t much better than that of the Sleepers. That puts our protagonists (two of which have powers) in a tight spot in this awful new world.

Montenat’s art is nice – it’s nothing flashy, but works well for the book. I think the cover is the worst example of his art in this issue, as it’s just not that good. I like the various shots of post-Pulse America. De-Gruchy’s writing gets no complaints from me so far, and the last few pages of the issue show some interesting hints to the series’ direction. The dialogues are good, the narration engaging and appropriately moody, and it’s definitely a smooth read. One thing that strikes me as odd is how short this issue is. It’s 15 or 16 pages long. It does manage to set everything up for the mini, but that still seems very short.

As a first issue, this works well. It didn’t blow me away, but it did make me interested enough to pick up #2 and see where the authors are going with it. So far, it’s definitely not a bad mix of powers and zombies (hey, they are a lot like zombies) and it has promise! I wouldn't be surprised if this gets very good. Plus, where else will you see cannibals calling people “f***ers”? 


Well, that's certainly something! Have you checked out "The Fallen" #1 this week? What Monkey Brain books do you follow? Sound off in the comments!

Tagged: comics, Reviews.

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