Broken Frontier

The Undead Task Force infiltrates the Los Angeles County jail to find it overrun by hordes of angry undead convicts.

Not being an enormous fan of the horror genre, I was surprised to find that I really wanted to read this book based on its description alone. Undead Task Force #1 got by me, but it didn’t take much effort to connect the dots leading up to #2 by the content of this issue.

This is an action oriented story, as one might imagine, that brings about the best of classic vampire-fighting stories and mixes it with hi-tech gadgetry like that seen in films like the Blade series. Most of the plot revolves around the action going on inside the jail, where the UTF is searching for the individual responsible for unleashing a vampire virus on the populace. There is a little time spent on the back-story of one particular UTF operative showing the cruel torture that afflicts him physically, but even that scene is interrupted by violence.

Reynolds has studied up on what makes something old like the vampire subgenre feel new by instituting some creative chase scenes and imaginative ways to kill these creatures of the night. There is too little in the way of character development for the leads, but the pace of the story makes up for it. If there is one drawback of the writing, however, it is Reynolds’ overuse of pop culture references, especially movies and television. One or two in an issue, used in the tone he does, brings some nice comic relief. By the fourth or fifth such reference it becomes distracting, like he can’t tell a story without that type of anecdote.

Rodriguez does a bang-up job on art. Like Reynolds, he has a good sense of pacing and using the page for full effect. The lines are clean and the action is smooth and fun, and any gore that might be called for is done so without making the reader want to look away. Dzioba’s colors are vibrant in places where the action calls for it and subdued and/or dark during the quieter moments.

Undead Task Force is a lot of fun so far. Eventually, I’m sure the characters will be more fleshed out, and I would hope the pop culture references quiet a bit. If you’re a fan of action, (horror fan or not) give this one a try.