Last month marked the conclusion of BOOM! Studios first arc in its ongoing “28 DAYS LATER” saga following the journey of Selena and journalists Derrick and Clint as they struggle to survive the infection and find some semblance of safety in the aftermath of the apocalypse. Inside you’ll find the review of the first issue in the second arc of the series as we once again find ourselves riding shotgun to the three leads in “28 Days Later” Issue #6.

In issue #5 we found ourselves stuck in pseudo-prequel to the events that we have been reading through now for the better part of a year as we were introduced to the back story behind journalists Clint and Derrick. I wasn’t a huge fan of the issue, and I had a lot of reservations on some of the reasoning and logic behind the issue. My main problem with the issue (one could say I had issues with the issue hahaha coughcoughahem) was the odd placement of an origin story to wrapup an arc that was moving at such a break-neck speed, and doing a pretty good job of it to boot. So now that we are back up and running in issue #6 all should be well, right? Err not exactly…

We pick up with Clint and Selena staving off a group of infected (narrowly saving the blinded Derrick) and seeking refuge inside an abandoned home. Faced with the revelation that Derrick’s wounds have become infected (not THAT kind of infection) with no medication to be found for his failing health, they must come to terms with the idea of putting the poor sap out of his misery. Of course Clint still feels responsible for his partners’ condition, and rightfully so, and so killing his already near death buddy isn’t something that he can bring himself to do.

This part works very well using a lot of very good character emotions to drive the struggle between the guilty conscience of Clint and the ice cold heart of Selena. The latter of which thinks that it would be putting the man out of his misery as there is very little hope in finding him the needed medications as well as greatly improving their own odds of survival. Clint wins out in the end and they decide that the next plan of business should be to find help for Derrick.

And then the issue goes off the tracks. While traveling through a small town the survivors run out of daylight and decide to camp under a tarp in the flatbed of a truck. Wait, double take that. Yep. It still says that they take refuge in the back of a flatbed truck with their only cover being a tarp. A turn that is not only wildly out of character for Selena, but completely irrational. If you surrounded by abandoned houses and store fronts why in Gods name would you decide to hide in the back of a truck with a blind guy (who is slowly dying by the way) and the possibility of imminent ‘zombie’ (coughcoughnotreallyzombiescoughcough) death?!
But maybe they are sure the town is safe, maybe they will just have a good nights sleep, with Selena dreaming about her past, and wake up to do it all over again in the morning? If only.

Of course they are awoken from their sleep by a huge horde of infected swarmed around the vehicle. Derrick stirs in his fevered sleep causing the infected to pile onto the truck, tearing the thing to pieces for the source of the sound. The result? They never once looked in the back of the truck and the group gets up the next morning to hot-wire said truck and drive away from town. Illogical? Yes. Tense? Yes. Wasted potential? Hell yeah.

The good news is the issue ends with a nice little cliffhanger, and the art is stellar as always. Declan Shalvey does a great job of presenting readers with some great money-shots, marking the only real standout traits for the issue. Coincidentally the best piece of art in the entire issue is during the ‘jump the shark’ portion of the issue where the horde is circling the hiding survivors. Not only is it a beautifully drawn piece, but it also causes a real sense of shock for the readers as one would think that there is no chance of escaping the situation. To bad it was wasted.

When all is done and read the 6th issue of “28 Days Later” from the guys and gals over at BOOM! Is another huge stumble for the series. There are certain things that one can forgive a story for doing, but when something so glaringly illogical comes down on your toe like a jackhammer you can’t help but scream. Oh well, there’s always next month…

2 Out Of 5 Skulls