Product Description: Jaded by heroes who come back from the dead? Meet the hero who started there and stayed there! His stare's the only thing that's empty about the adventures of Simon Garth through mad science and madder magic! Terrors criminal, corporate and just plain creepy reprinted for the first time in more than a quarter-century! Collects stories from Tales of the Zombie #1-10; Dracula Lives #1-2.
Power of Voodoo For all those folks out there like myself who have had a steady diet of the Romero zombies in both movies and in print this very sizeable compendium that covers the arc of Simon Garth, who is cursed to walk the earth as a voodoo resurected zombie, this gives you a different slant on the whole walking dead thing. We are given the entire progression of the somewhat free willed zombie (he wears a necklace that has a twin, whoever possesses it controls him, but at certain times he can resist its powers). He is supposed to be mindless, but that would not be any fun and while Simon craves his release from the curse, he will do whatever he can to protect his still living daughter from the clutches of evil. He kills without remorse and is immune to pain or most emotions.
Besides the high quality art work and excellent story telling, we are also given quite a few editorials on the power of voodoo, details on Brother Voodoo, a superhero created by Marvel, and even a review of Night of the Living Dead. Since these works came out around the same time as Romero's first movie, it is interesting to hear about the perspective that some folks had back then, especially when comparing and contrasting it with the more traditional voodoo zombie. Other critiques of zombie films are here as well in this very sizeable and extremely satisfying tome.
Great stuff. If you enjoy classic horror comics or wholesome zombie goodness this thick book, with all its great artwork and classic story telling is the real deal.
The year of the Zombie The sad and tragic tale of Simon William Garth, the Zombie, started in the fifties when comic book legends Stan Lee and Bill Everett created the undead character for Atlas's horror comic Menace. Newsstands were flooded with a wave of horror titles like Tales from the Crypt, Black Cat, Weird and Dick Briefer's horrific classic The Monster of Frankenstein. All of which fell victim of the newly instated Comic Code Authority. The Authority imposed a list of inflexible self-regulations, devised by the Association of Comic Magazine, in an attempt to fend off any future government involvement in the comic field. The hysteria was caused when a Senate subcommittee, taking the cue from Dr. Fredric Wertham's comic bashing book, Seduction of the Innocent, held hearings to determine if the rise in juvenile delinquency could be linked to extreme depictions of sadism, horror, sex, and crime bannered in the comics of the day. It worked - no government censorship, but with stringent rules like, "No comic magazine shall use the word horror or terror in its title," the Code all but decimated the war, horror and crime comics. The Zombie "slept" for twenty years.
Then, trying to cash in on the monster boom of the sixties and seventies, as well as the success of Warren's black and white horror comic magazines Creepy and Eerie, Marvel Comics launched a wave of monster titles in both comic and magazine form. Mummies, werewolves, vampires and even Satan's son mingled with Spider-man and the Hulk at the newsstand. The Zombie is quickly resurrected.
The pathos-fueled comic tells the tale of coffee plantation owner Simon Garth, who has the misfortune of being selected to become a human sacrifice for a mysterious Voodoo cult comprised mostly from his workers. But as fate would have it, the leader of the cult, the beautiful Priestess Layla, falls in love with Garth and changes him into a zombie instead. While Layla and her creepy grandfather searches for a way to change him back to normal, the undead Garth, like all Marvel monsters, finds himself in a world of supernatural danger and adventure.
Essential Tales Of The Zombie is a fun collection filled with great artwork and intriguing storylines and is a must have for fans of gruesome zombie comic collections like Zombie Factory: 27 Tales of Bizarre Comix Madness from Beyond the Tomb or The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead.
Anything Goes Trivia
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