REVIEW: Lone Wolf 2100 #1

Script: Eric Heisserer
Line Art: Miguel Sepulveda
Colors: Javier Mena
Lettering: Nate Piekos of Blambot
Review: Art Bee

In the 1990s the vampire movement started with the pale undead invading books, movies, comics, and other entertainment media, By the time we hit 2005 most of the public would throw up in their mouths at the mention of anything else featuring the creatures. At the turn of the century we saw the trend move to zombies, and as fun as it has been, I feel zombies are well on their down turn. Alas, we are struck with yet another zombie comic.

In Lone Wolf 2100 #1 we are faced with zombies of a different color. A virus infects millions of people worldwide changing them into people-eating mutations called "thralls". Look, I get that the writer is trying to be different, but you cannot put wool on a dog and call it a sheep. It is still a dog!

It really amused me when I saw printed on the inside cover “inspired by the manga Lone Wolf and Cub”. They didn’t vary from the title much, so does that mean the story is almost the same as well? Is this plagiarism? I haven’t read the manga title, but it makes me wonder.


Anyway, this comic just feels like The Walking Dead sprinkled with The Last Samurai. The pandemic hits the world hard, but there is one little girl with the immunity factor that will make one man, business, or government very wealthy. This little girl is guarded by an android samurai named Itto, whom is just loved by the writer. Seriously, I hate it when the creator is preoccupied with forcing the reader to fall in love with the awesomeness of their character creation. If the character is created well, no effort is needed to make the reader fall in love with them.

The artwork is great, hands down the books pinnacle. Every panel is a masterpiece in my opinion. One of the best features of the artwork is the grainy detail in some of the backgrounds, explosions, and gore. This sounds bad, but it’s not. This effect is deliberate and successful in creating a focused dynamic in the scenes that creates a projection in the panel, so I have to raise my glass to Sepulveda and Mena.

There was a moment on page 5 depicting a full page drawing of the child and Itto surrounded by thralls. My thought was since all of the thralls, which there ware about two dozen, looked identical, did that mean the virus changes women into men and makes all people the same height and body size? That thought was scrapped a few pages later when there was a panel showing some variety in the thralls, so I let it go.

My recommendation would be to leave this one on the shelf, folks. Even though the artwork is great, this comic is more like a camp fire. Looking at it is nice, but you don’t want to touch it. It would be nice to see the horror trend to move on to something else now: mummies, witchy-whats, animated back scratchers, anything. Why do writers in certain genres have to get so narrow minded?