Die!Namite Lives #003

Die!Namite Lives #003

Dynamite Entertainment 2021

Written by Fred Van Lente

Illustrated by Vincenzo Carratù

Coloured by Kike J. Diaz

Lettered by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou

HAWAII! Surfers! Bikinis! Evil zombies! Flesh-eating superheroes! And Vampirella meets the wrong end of Ash’s BOOMSTICK! Absolute batsh*t craziness!

If there is one thing to say about this series thus far is that it’s just simply fun! Whether you love or hate zombies, or are simply thinking they’ve been done to death, seeing superheroes who are dead and eating folks is just fun to me. Of course there are some aspects to this that we see for the first time, most notably with Peter Cannon, that raise a fair number of questions and this excited me. What this series really does is make me want to see more solo stories from some of the characters here and Miss Fury in particular as she tends to have some great arcs.

I am really very impressed with the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. The character development that we see through the dialogue, the character interaction, their actions and how they behave as well as how they act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter continue to flesh their personalities out in ways that are familiar and comforting. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing the twists & turns along the way keeps the readers’ attention enrapt upon the page.

I greatly appreciate the way that we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to emerge, grow, evolve and strengthen. Within these layers are where we see the plot devices utilised to move the story forward, the characterisation and the fun times to be had when characters meet for the very first time. I mean c’mon that whole Vampirella and Ash meeting here is the stuff that dreams are made of for readers. What all of this manages to do, and quite nicely I might add, is bring some much needed extra depth, dimension and complexity to the story. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is impeccably achieved.

The interiors here are really rather nice. The linework is clean, crisp and strong and with the varying weights and techniques we see some great detail work being done throughout the book. Honestly I would like to see more backgrounds being utilised because when we do they really enhance and expand the moments and working within the composition of the panels brings out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show an extremely talented eye for storytelling. The colour work is pretty amazing. How we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows a strong eye for how colour should, could and does work.

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As all the players start to converge more and more we are beginning to see a different dynamic taking shape. Whether it is Ash, Sonja or Captain Future, what we are seeing with each of these arcs is that they are on a collision course with one another and when they finally do it’s going to be one heck of an explosive time. With some great solid writing and witty characterisation wrapped up in these pure comic book style interiors we get this amazing take on the undead, the walking dead or whatever you wish to call them.