Calavera: The Undead #1
Art and Story by: Nevin Arnold
Published by: Hangman Comics
Ever have one of those days where nothing goes right? You fall off a roof to your death, only to wake up and discover 23 years have elapsed and that you’ve been possessed by a demon. We’ve all done it, right?
Anyway, this is basically Calavera’s world. Plummeting to her doom on 2 November 1989, the dreadlocked rocker chick leaps to the same day in 2012 where the dead are beginning to rise. Finding that she is carrying around a demon called Baazedon in her subconscious, Calvera is drawn to an eerie laboratory where Baazedon’s arch-enemy is reanimating every corpse in the city by remote control. On the plus side, she had inherited some of Baz’s superhuman strength; unfortunately since she’s now dead, any damage won’t heal. So with a city of zombies taking a keen interest in her, what’s a superpowered undead girl to do?
This debut for Nevin Arnold’s character is frankly great fun. He portrays an American town celebrating the Mexican Day of the Dead with perfectly coloured relish. Even the news anchor is in fancy dress and frankly it’s long overdue that I switch News 24 on and see Steph McGovern dressed as Vampirella… Ah, anyway… The story is littered with great touches, such as Calavera’s Dio t-shirt and her exclamation of “holy diver!” when panicked, her amazed reaction at cars having CD players and arch-villain Vestro’s full-on James Whale Frankenstein lab.
Issue 1 ends in a nice cliffhanger and I’m already looking forward to Issue 2. In your own time, Nev…
4 out of 5 nerds
Dave Bowling
Dave was born at an early age to parents of both sexes. He has been a self-confessed geek for as long as he can remember, having been raised through the 80s on a steady diet of Doctor Who, Star Trek, Red Dwarf and (sigh) Knight Rider. Throw the usual assortment of Saturday morning cartoons into the mix and we have something quite exceptional: someone with an encyclopaedic knowledge of utter tosh; a love of giant robots and spaceships fighting; and the strange desire to leap tall buildings in a single bound while wearing his underpants over his trousers. The death ray is currently in the works and one day you shall all bow to him, his giant space station and fleet of funky orange space shuttles...
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