Story by
Art: Various
$14.95 from Wildstorm/DC Comics
*"I've got the Guts-- Have you got the Plot?"*
The world of *Resident Evil*, the game, is a terror fan's dream. (Not horror, now-- *Resident Evil* was never about horror, the fear of the great unknown under the bed. *Resident Evil* is about terror, the fear of having your face chewed off. When it moans and clanks and *can't be named*, it's horror, when it howls and bites and stabs, it's terror. I live by these distinctions.
But boy, what a lot of terror *Resident Evil* provides: mining a century of horror cinema for inspiration, players of the first-person "survival" game face Fulci-esque zombies, mutated piranhas, giant bats, enormous serpents, you name it, if it belongs in the genre, it shows up.
So given the popularity of the game, Wildstorm and DC released a comic series based on the game, and the first eleven stories have been banded together in *Resident Evil: Collection One*. I have no idea how well the series has done; I just call 'em like I see 'em. Adapting such a wild world for a comic is a formidable task-- how do you recreate the sense of constant dread the game provides in a story?
I'm not sure the creators of *Resident Evil* the comic have the first clue. The characters are special operatives who have discovered that scientific experiments conducted at the behest of a secret organization called "Umbrella" has caused horrible mutations to arise throughout the vaguely New Orleans-ish "Raccoon City." I would try to distinguish them, but I'd be going a step further than the story does. Everyone talks in the same macho cadence as they move from one ugly set of beasties to the next. There's no sense of progression, no real story arc, except for the concept itself, which is "beat the monsters and finally take it out on Umbrella." There's lots of plot detail, however, everybody's shouting about what they're doing, as if trying to remind themselves where the story is.
I never thought it was possible to have mounds and mounds of story-- indeed, almost too much story-- and not enough plot. Scratch that; I knew it was possible; it's just a mistake that rarely sees print.
To be sure, some people will think I'm asking too much. "It's a comic based on a third-person shooter, Jay. What sort of plot did you want?"
Well, let me posit a theory: a shooter is exciting because *you* are the main character, and heck, you already know who *you* are. Now, I know *Resident Evil* is a third-person game, so ostensibly you play someone else. But it's still *you*, and secondly, it takes about eight hours to get through *Resident Evil*, which moves at a pretty scary and slow pace.
But if the main character is someone else, as in a story it must be, how about a first act that makes us really care about the characters, instead of what we get which is essentially a bunch of stat sheets? Even George Romero knew that a good zombie movie makes you like the characters before they start getting chewed up.
And then, and *then*, why must we suffer with all this game
nonsense, like characters commenting, "My gosh, there's a key on the
ground! I know by now if I find a key, I oughta pick it up!" *Ugh.*
What a mess. And not even a good, gripping mess.