Tippin’ Hancock’s Hat- Reviews of All Things Pulp by Tommy
Hancock
SUPERHEROES VS ZOMBIES
By Various
Edited by Eric S. Brown and Anthony Giangregorio
Published by Living Dead Press, 2011
I have said this many times before and will hold this as a
standard of my interest in Pulp for years to come. Although it was not called such back in the days of the
Classic Pulps and had just started its long life then, the phenomenon known as
the genre mash up I think has blossomed full grown in today’s society and is a
major part of New Pulp! Seeing how
writers masterfully weave two apparently disparate genres into one cohesive,
knock your socks off collection always thrills me.
Except when it doesn’t. At least not completely.
SUPERHEROES VS. ZOMBIES is a collection that mashes two
things together that I feel passionately about. One genre I am absolutely enthralled with and makes me feel
like a little kid every time I read something from it. And another that makes the bile rise in
my mouth like a Baptist preacher griping because Christmas has become over
commercialized and there’s just too much fat old man. Except in this case, the fat old men are dead bodies that just
won’t stay down. Yeah, Walking
Dead Fanatics, I’m not one of you.
These two genres have similarities most definitely, but at
their root, there is one major difference. Despite all of the post modern takes on the mask and cape
crowd, the essence of Superheroes for me at least is that there is always one
thing- The Hope that Good will overcome Evil in whatever form it takes. Yeah, call me corny and retro or
whatever, but it’s why I read comics as a kid and why I still thrill to the
antics of masked types today.
Because, even in the darkest hours, they are the tiny bit that might
make the difference.
Zombie stories, on the other hand, though having some of the
trappings of Good overcoming Evil, tend to be more about how the World is Hell
and no one’s getting out alive, except the already dead. There’s a sense of dread, of hopeless,
even in the victories. And lately
authors have gotten divided on just who should win in the end, the useless
living or the rotting dead. ‘
SUPERHEROES VS. ZOMBIES is a mix of mismatch. The stories that fail to engage me,
some of them even outright disgusting me both for content and lack of ability
to blend the genres well, sadly outnumber the tales that overcome the inherent
problem in blending these two.
But let’s focus on the positive.
M by Alan Spencer, Zomcomm by E. M. Maccallum, Whiz Bang by
Terry Alexander, and The Heart of Heroism by Rebecca Besser are definite jewels
in this book. They portray the
horror of being in a zombie-infested wasteland and balance it with the horror
of being a hero, perhaps the only one in this landscape. And don’t get me wrong; these tales don’t
all end with the Zombie menace forever squashed. What they do is balance the best parts of both genres
extremely well.
Two other stories do this excellently as well, but in a very
twisted way. The Last Superhero by
Anthony Giangregorio and The Detective by Kelly M. Hudson each take a well-known
super hero archetype and turn it on its edge in the land of the Zombie. Even with the way these two turn
out, the basic tenets of what a Hero tries to do remains strong throughout the
tale.
The others, some get close, some miss the mark for me
completely.
THREE OUT OF FIVE TIPS OF THE HAT- If you could get the
aforementioned stories as eBook singles, I’d definitely recommend them.
