When it was announced last summer, the news was pretty momentous. The best writer in comics was going to write one of the best and most popular comics out there. It was a bit of surprise since only the co-creator, Robert Kirkman, has written The Walking Dead since it debuted 150+ issues ago in 2004. It's kind of been his baby. If The Walking Dead had started at Marvel or DC there would have been multiple #1's by now, various spin-offs, annuals, and specials probably all written and drawn by different people. But The Walking Dead has chugged along for so long with one writer and one artist (Charlie Adlard since #7). And to get Brian K. Vaughan of Y: the Last Man and Saga fame to write it now? Insane. Vaughan did it to promote his and Marcos Martin's panelsyndicate.com site. And Image got to publish The Private Eye in print form. What nobody was really sure of, though, was what this new The Walking Dead book would be about. When this one-shot opens, it sure feels like it has nothing to do with the regular book. The Walking Dead: The Alien is set in Barcelona and features an American tourist and a Spanish woman. There's zombies, action, and a big reveal that ties it into the main book very surprisingly. Marcos Martin's b&w art is fantastic. The writing is stellar; dramatic, quick, engaging (it does have a bumpy opening but a fantastic finish). It's a simple 32 page issue (available only online for the price of pay-what-you-want). For casual fans of The Walking Dead, this might be a disappointment. Maybe they wanted to see the regular characters or see the The Governor again or a backstory to one of the comic's actual characters. Hardcore fans will probably love this, however, as you really need to be a super-fan to remember the character portrayed here. The ending is kind of a cliffhanger. So...more please. *** (out of ****)
