Writer: Chris Ryall
Artist: Drew Moss

The four-issue run of IDW’s Colonized, (essentially ‘Zombies versus Aliens’) has a lot going for it, but a few slight niggles that prevent it from becoming something truly memorable. I should start off with one of the major plus points, that being the terrific artwork of Drew Moss. With such a wide variety of subjects, characters and situations to draw, it’s clear that Moss is having a blast here, and seems to have fully embraced the ludicrous “B-Movie” premise of the title.

We have UFO’s crashing, hillbilly shootouts and zombie cows (yeah, you heard me) on display here, so the sense of fun is most definitely at an all-time-high. The problem I had was with the general tone of the book. From what I could see, it seemed to really struggle to decide what it wanted to be. Had it simply stuck to the B-Movie schlock and silliness, I think it would have been tremendous. However, it seemed to also be trying to convey a more serious, thoughtful message about the government and the ‘fringe’ nature of the secessionists, as well as the shared ‘bond’ between the humans, aliens and the rogue ATF agent. I just found it really difficult to reconcile these two different tones, which got more and more distracting the more I read.

That said, there’s clearly a high level of creativity to Chris Ryall’s writing, and while some of the dialogue is a little on the cheesy side, it fit perfectly with the somewhat ‘out there’ (to say the least) premise. Overall, Colonized was a terrific idea that just didn’t quite hit the mark, for me at least.

Still well worth a look for B-Movie fans, though.

Rating: 6.5/10.

The writer of this piece was: Craig Neilson (aka Ceej)
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