Don’t Miss: RESURRECTION VOL. 2 #1

We all know the story about a massive alien invasion and/or occupation of Earth.  We’ve seen that story a thousand times.  Resurrection basically boils down to this idea: What happens when the aliens leave?

I loved the idea and immediately made a mental note to pick up the first trade when it came out.  In fact, I even went ahead and preordered it on Amazon.  As luck would have it, that trade finally arrived a few weeks ago where it’s been sitting on my unwieldy stack of books to read ever since.  I’ve been meaning to get to it, but for once I’m glad I didn’t because when this issue arrived for review it came with the promise that you didn’t need to have read the first volume (Resurrection #1–6 plus an annual — all collected in one trade for only $6!) to follow the story.  I decided to put that claim to the test.

I’ll try to keep this as light on spoilers as I can.

Right off the bat I can say that yes, it’s true, you don’t need to have read the first volume of Resurrection to follow the action here.  I’m sure that some things that happen will be more meaningful to people who have read volume 1, but it doesn’t hurt you if you haven’t.

The biggest problem that I can foresee with Resurrection in that it shares some very similar territory with two of the most beloved comics of the last few years, The Walking Dead and Y: The Last Man.  All three of these books are about how society breaks down after a catastrophe and then deals with the aftermath.  The Walking Dead and Y: The Last Man handled these issues — on both a micro and a macro scale — exquisitely, so Resurrection is really going to have to branch out on its own to distinguish itself.  I’ll be honest, that’s a tall order.

The biggest compliment that I can pay to Resurrection Vol. 2 #1 is that I was interested enough by the first issue to want to know what happened next.  This issue’s primary purpose seems to be to establish the status quo for new readers, while simultaneously breaking off from the last volume, and taking these characters in a new direction.  Again, I haven’t read the first volume yet, but just from flipping through the trade I can see that all of the main characters in this first issue are characters from the first volume, and I can tell you that not all of them are going to make it to issue two.  By the end of this first issue I had no idea where the story was going to go and that’s a very good thing.

Writer Marc Guggenheim (The Amazing Spider-Man, Wolverine) keeps the action moving swiftly here.  The opening page sets the scene for the invasion and by the end of the issue the story has progressed nine years.  It’s a very efficient way to quickly give us the information that we need to know about the world that this book takes place in.  What it ends up sacrificing is character development, but like I said before, not everyone makes it to the last page still breathing.  Now that this first issue has set the cast of characters, I imagine that we will start to get to know them better with the second issue.

There appears to be a new artist on this book.  David Dumeer and Douglas Dabbs drew volume one, and Justin Greenwood is on art duties for volume two.  I do think that the art style in volume one is more my speed, but the colors in volume two (volume one is black and white) really do add a lot of atmosphere and personality to Greenwood’s pencils.

I’m hoping to see Resurrection explore some of the nuts and bolts of a post-invasion society.  If it’s all about ragtag groups of survivors gunning each other down on lonely highways while fighting over food and shelter and women then I’m going to find that less interesting than I would people setting up provisional governments and making some real attempts to civilize civilization.  For me, that’s the draw of this idea — how does a society resurrect itself from near total devastation?  Do you rebuild it the same way it was before?  Or do you learn from past mistakes?

I know that I am being somewhat vague here, and that’s intentional because I think that if you find the premise intriguing you should check it out.  Right now the premise is the biggest selling point because this first issue is mostly about house-cleaning and introductions.  The story hasn’t really started yet.

If you are intrigued and want more on Resurrection, you can check out Jim Mroczkowski’s article on the first volume from last summer.

Oni Press was good enough to provide some art for us to share with you.  So scroll down and check out the first five pages of Resurrection Vol. 2 #1, and when you hit the comic store on Wednesday, give it a look.