28 Days Later: The Aftermath

Comic Info

Monkeys are killers

Clive and Warren are scientists trying to find a cure for the rising violence among men.  When their experiment to cure violence actually creates a rage violence, the virus quickly gets out of hand.  The danger spreads quickly and soon all of London was infected with the survivors fighting against plagues of killer zombies known as the Infected.  The danger might not be over and stopping the Infected could prove impossible.

Written by Steve Niles and illustrated by Dennis Calero, Diego Olmos, Ken Branch, and Nat Jones, 28 Days Later:  The Aftermath is a movie tie-in to the popular 2002 film 28 Days Later.  The series was published by Fox Atomic Comics and unrelated to the 28 Days Later comic published by Boom! Studio.

Kids are dangerous

28 Days Later really jumpstarted the zombie genre after years of zombies no longer being scary but funny (as a result of Return of the Living Dead).  28 Days Later put the horror back in zombie horror pictures by having the zombies running, and the picture in turn because a success.  Here, the basis for the picture’s story is explored.

The graphic novel is divided into four parts.  “Development” reveals the experiment that created the Rage Virus and introduces the doctors who created it.  “Outbreak” introduces a family directly affected by the escape of the rage infected monkey and shows what people had to do to survive the initial infection.  “Decimation” shows a survivor in the post-apocalyptic London.  “Quarantine” has all the characters coming together for a final ending to the storylines.  It works at points and in other aspects it fails.

To win war, you’ve got to become war!

I like the idea of the threads coming together but think that in the three segments that the characters were developed enough to care about what happened in the fourth story.  I think the series should have been a bit longer and maybe been seven to eight issues with two issues focusing on each of the three groups to build a bit more character development.

Though the series isn’t tied to the longer running Boom! Studios series, 28 Days Later:  The Aftermath does not conflict with the storyline presented in it and can be seen as both a companion piece to that series and to the movies 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later.  The ho-hum nature of this volume doesn’t add much to the story though the first storyline (with the monkey’s “creation” does give the film more background…but it doesn’t give enough to the characters involved.

Related Links:

28 Days Later (2002)

28 Weeks Later (2007)

28 Days Later 1:  London Calling

28 Days Later 2:  Bend in the Road

28 Days Later 3:  Hot Zone

28 Days Later 4:  Gangwar

28 Days Later 5:  Ghost Town

28 Days Later 6:  Homecoming