Sunday, August 9, 2009

Review: Resident Evil Fire & Ice


So this afternoon I bought and read Resident Evil Fire & Ice, a graphic novel written by Ted Adams and Kris Oprisko who also wrote the original Resident Evil comics. This graphic novel was an original idea and totally shows that in both a good and a bad way. I can't really go into further detail than saying that without spoiling some of it. What I can reveal is that there is a scene in the arctic where two of the characters are ambushed by G-virus infected animals. The infected animals that surround them are a wolf, a bear, and to get into ridiculous territory a whale, a walrus, and a penguin. It was like, okay a G-virus mutated whale, walrus, and penguin. Both the whale and walrus were like a Tyrant, they had arms and legs and were bipedal. The penguin was just a penguin it was rather cute and funny. What stood out was that the whole thing seemed rather rushed, for example each character was given their own back story within a panel or two, there wasn't a big flashback scene it was just told to the reader. Even the ending seemed rushed, it all happened so fast I went, "Wait... what? Was that it!?" Apparently it was.
What makes this graphic novel so great is that it comes with the original Resident Evil comics (Resident Evil 1 and 2) as well as a few short comics that the author wrote. The blood and gore is very limited in this, which makes me wonder if it was aimed at a younger audience. I wouldn't have an issue with it if it was, but when I think Resident Evil creatures I expect to see lots of gore whether they are alive or not. Probably the best gore scene is when a guy got blown up. There aren't many zombies in the story either, the zombies are mainly in the opening sequence and then it goes to monsters, not an issue, but again I'm used to the video games where zombies are always present and eventually the character encounters more and more monsters gradually, but even then zombies are still present.
I bought this because I had never read a Resident Evil comic before and I had always heard good things about them from RE fans. I also looked at reviews and info on this specific graphic novel and it had gotten good reviews and this specific book that I got (which can be found at Barnes and Noble) was limited to 5,000 copies. So with all of that said, I definitely think it's worth picking up, maybe you'll have as much fun as I did or maybe more fun. Either way it's definitely worth picking up!

1 comment:

John said...

mmm sounds cool. Glad to see a picture on your blog, haven't seen one in a while.

I love the comic medium and am glad that other mediums such as videogames and television are using it more frequently to convey their stories. Comics have really started to branch out of their niche and I can only forsee more of it to come.