Zombies vs Robots Omnibus by Chris Ryall

by Chris Ryall

Zombies. Robots. War. Throw in some Amazons and you've got everything you need to know! Collecting all of the comics by creators Chris Ryall and Ashley Wood, plus "Aventure" and "Undercity," as well as the short prose story, "Meaner Than A Junkyard Dog."

Genres: Graphic Novels, Zombies, Horror, Comics, Graphic Novels Comics

Unknown Binding

First published February 3, 2015

Reviews

[Cale · Rating 1 out of 5]

What is the word for it when you hate everything? Not just humans (Misanthropy), but every character, creature, robot and monster in this collection feels like it is detested by its creators. The sheer amount of nihilism on hand is frankly embarrassing. It's a one joke concept that way overstays its welcome.
The concept of Zombies vs Robots sounded like cheesy fun, but it doesn't play out that way. This is almost 400 pages of everyone (especially the robots) making bad decisions and destroying the world multiple times over. There are maybe three characters in the whole collection that come off at all okay. Ashley Wood's art is distinctive, but really hard to parse. The Zombies vs Robots vs Amazons story seems like an excuse to draw scantily dressed and naked women. The issues with other artists vary in quality of art but the stories aren't really enjoyable (although they at least feature humans at some level). The largest story in the collection is Undercity, which is an orgy of destruction and defeatism and bad people (and robots) doing terrible things to each other for barely constructed reasons. And the prose story "Meaner than a Junkyard Dog" glories in the same pointless violence and vitriol for its characters on a more intimate and verbally detailed level.
I've already spent way too much time in this world and I'm done with it. Unless you enjoy robots being both stupid and violent and seeing pretty much everyone die, steer clear.

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

This wasn't bad. The Ryall/Ashley Wood stuff is really good but this had other material as well. The art was very different as it ranged from the highly stylistic art of Wood to photorealistic art to more typical comic art. The original stories had a sense of humor to them that was interesting, but the other material didn't appeal to me as much and felt more like just another zombie comic.

Overall not bad, but really nothing reaches the level of the original work.

[Albert Yates · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part 1 -- Zombies vs Robots

Fantastic book. I love the art here; it reminded me a bit of Ben Templesmith's work on 30 Days of Night. Tells the story of how the zombie apocalypse started, and yet it involved time travel, again. My best guess is that we never create it..

The robots rose to defend the world and attempted to put it right again. Until.... it all went wrong again. And to world was destroyed.

5/5

Part 2 -- Zombies vs Robots vs Amazons

Picked up right after the first book and brought Wonder Woman into the story. (Bunch of warrior women live on a secret island sheltered by an invisible dome covering their land? Tell me she's not Wonder Woman.) She fit right in, until like everything... She got infected and died. It's a zombie book, you think anyone lives?

5/5

Part 3 -- KAMPF

This has a new author and artist, I think. There was a bit of time, basically between 2 panels in the original story, where the world evolved, and the robots were there all of a sudden. This covers some of the early development of those robots and the consequences of creating their intelligence.

3/5 - mostly because of the art difference.

Part 4 -- Zombies vs Robots: Masques

What happens if a stoner cleaner stumbled across the worker bots after one of the engineers had an accident? Exactly what you think. Gets in a suit, stumbles across zombies, and the zombies kill and eat him.
4/5

Part 5 -- Zuvembies vs Robots

This was essentially a Haitian zombie vs zombie battle, and then the robots showed up and made everything that much worse. I was rooting for the Haitians for a while.
4/5

Part 6 -- ZvR Undercity

The President of the USA invokes a secret pact to take 100 of the best and brightest citizens into a secret catacomb to wait out the zombie virus as it takes over the world. Can you guess how many people may already be infected by zombies when they get to the Undercity? Just hazard a guess at how many people die.

The religious cult makes an appearance here, and of course, they have their own gun-toting robots, appropriately called "Godbots". It can't be an end-of-the-world scenario without the nuts coming out of the woodwork and starting to smite people.

[Steven Kirk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cool art and storyline.

[J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first few books are good, but this really goes downhill quickly after that.

[Robert · Rating 1 out of 5]

Poor execution, thin story, and muddy, slap-dash art result in a truly terrible read.

[Ruben Monteiro · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just love this mashup. Sure, it can get to be corny and silly, but it's also fun throughout. Before reading this one, I have read the ZvsR This Means War (which I liked a lot). I love both zombies and robots, and love to the repercussions of these two worlds meeting. Makes me want to chase other zombies and/or robots books that are mashed with something else. Since they are just prone to tell new stories, new crazy routes through the unknown. Love the creativity.

However, not all stories here landed with me. So, as I normally do in these situations, with short stories, I'll rate them individually:

Which Came First? *****
A pretty good start, keeping it simple and setting the tone.

Ghost in the Machines ****
This one got me confused for a second about this world's rules, but it's still entertaining.

Zombies VS Robots VS Amazons ****
Similar to The sorcerer's Apprentice (in ZvsR This Means War) this is the story that just purely makes me love that "things can get weird". The ending is silly, dumb, but it made me chuckle.

Kampf **
Nope, didn't work for me. Did not like the style, in terms of visuals, but also because it made characters look like they were screaming every single word that came out of them. Over that, the dialogue was really repetitive (and again, not helped but the constant "screaming").

Masques ***
I wanted more of Guidebot. Actually, I want a full story just about it! However, what I got was a Tony Stark wannabe-story that didn't gave me anything new that I didn't get already from Iron Man (movie of 2008, I mean).

Zuvembies VS Robots ****
Like the "creative" solution that they found to deal with the zombies. Want more of that.

Undercity ***
I liked parts of this story (mainly the Reverend), however, it all felt a bit underdeveloped. And being the longest story (most pages) in this Omnibus, that felt contradictory.

ZvR (aka Bunker) ****
(Not certain of the name of this story) Very simple story, almost a bite-size sketch.

Meaner than a Junkyard Dog *****
Being the only prose in this Omnibus, it's the most character(s) development that we get. I loved the setting, almost like an "origin" story, but told by the eyes of the common women and men. This would do a great TV series, in my opinion.

Edit: typos

[Leslie Sobel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the story with the Amazons. There are several stories with different art styles. Over all, they were entertaining but the last few were a bit tough to read. I kinda had to force myself to read them. The ideas are great, just wished that the characters were a bit more developed so I would actually care if they died.

[Trevor Bramble · Rating 3 out of 5]

Didn't realize this would have a bunch of stuff that wasn't part of the Ryall & Wood series, which is all I wanted. All anyone would want.

Anyway, this otherwise would've been five stars.

[Madkropotkin · Rating 2 out of 5]

The art was interesting, but the stories were all over the place. Some were good, while others were blah.

As a whole not worth your time.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

Zombies. Robots. War. Great fun!