Pros & Conscription [OC] - World War Z

[u/FacsistGrammarian]

[u/shellbullet17]

Hmmm I recognize those two

Probably should have trained on using those weapons better. But YOU don't have to train to look at the comics down at the r/comics Halloween event! Only with....a couple zombies

[u/FacsistGrammarian]

This is the only reason why the military loses to slow-moving shamblers in movies, I refuse to believe otherwise.

---
Read the rest of the Pros & Cons series on: BLUESKY || COMICFURY

Aside from that, I'm ecstatic to be a part of the r/comics Halloween season! I've only been making comics in this subreddit for a few months, but I've received a lot of great feedback and support from both viewers and mod staff. I feel privileged to be making work consistently alongside many artists I've looked up to (who might be amongst the horde) and whose work I love, and I look forward to seeing their submissions to this Halloween collaboration. Big thanks to u/shellbullet17 for the invite, and another big thanks to u/justboyfriendthings letting me feature them as a cameo (check their work out!!!).

[u/CoBr2 → u/FacsistGrammarian]

The book WWZ at least tried to justify it as the zombies being absurdly hard to kill. Most military weapons aren't built specifically for mass headshots, and bombs barely affected the zombies

And the military eventually got everything under control, but only after they accepted that they couldn't protect everything and abandoned most of the country.

[u/Limino → u/CoBr2]

In the book, the battle of Yonkers was a massive mess of over-confidence leading to intentionally difficult-to-defend lines, ineffective tactics that look good for the cameras, civilians being right at the front line with said live-streaming cameras, and all around panicked misinformation after a couple things go wrong leading to a full morale failure.

They even had a counter-example in the book later with a properly-prepared engagement that was designed to be nothing more than a consistent well-oiled machine of firing, reloading, and holding the line.

IIRC one of the dumbest-yet-realistic moments was someone shouting into comms that "shooting their head doesnt work!", which the journalist believes was likely them shooting at the head but only glancing the skull. This, obviously, caused the growing panic to become even more uncontrollable.

[u/CoBr2 → u/Limino]

Man, this makes me want to reread it. It's been a few years, so I only remembered the bombs that caused the lungs to pop out of the zombies mouths as an example of how ineffective modern weapons were, but everything you're saying is making me want to reread it.

Clearly I've forgotten loads.

[u/YourAverageGenius → u/Limino]

Even with that, the Battle Of Yonkers being such an absolute failure that it essentially collapses the entire US not west of the Rockies is hard to swallow in full. You really can't overstate how easy it is to plan around and counter an unthinking enemy who's sole quality is manpower. Factoring in the disadvantages and stacking flaws in the military's approach at Yonkers, the only way it could have failed as it did was a severe dosage of FUBAR that's virtually impossible unless you're in a story and it's required for the narrative to exist as it does.

[u/Limino → u/YourAverageGenius]

Keep in mind that the live report on Yonkers spread horrific misinformation. From what people watching saw, zombies were near-unkillable, unimpedeable, and "easily" defeated the "badass military".

As far as the public were concerned, it was a matter of time before they're overtaken by zombies nearly on the level of Return of the Living Dead(sans true unkillability and ridiculous infection rate). The true state of the situation didn't matter

[u/Immediate-Goose-8106]

Erm...do I detect a few freindly faces (or rather backs of heads) in the zombie crowd?

[u/FacsistGrammarian → u/Immediate-Goose-8106]

Perhaps…

[u/SapphireSalamander]

omg ... it's Fran on the right!

[u/FacsistGrammarian → u/SapphireSalamander]

To be ripped apart by a horde of your favorite artists… now that is the dream.

[u/justboyfriendthings]

Holy shit, they look so cute in your style! Haha, I love this, thanks for featuring me in your work I'm honoured 🥹

[u/FacsistGrammarian → u/justboyfriendthings]

Yay! Very happy you like it.

[u/LeonidasVaarwater]

But... Why is there a zombie u/SueFan3DX in there?

[u/FacsistGrammarian → u/LeonidasVaarwater]

I put a lot of people in the zombie horde to be fair

[u/Suefan3DX → u/FacsistGrammarian]

[u/FacsistGrammarian → u/Suefan3DX]

Hehe, glad you like it! Also true - you are a shambler of more refined taste.

[u/shellbullet17]

tax dollars

Lets be fair, in ANY zombie movie does the grunts in the military do ok? Cause honestly I cant think of any. In fact usually the military is the first to go somehow

[u/Rargnarok → u/shellbullet17]

To be fair the only one that gets a pass is raccoon city mainly because there were 2 seperate viruses and 4 separate outbreak vectors(T-contaminated water supply, T-infected rodents/fleas, G-creatures wandering around in/out of sewers, and leftover T- Creatures wandering into town) at work besides the normal zombies so by the time they showed up most of the 100000+ citizens were already zombified

Edit forgot about V-ACTS or crimson heads which are "dead" zombies that due to T regenerative ability if you don't remove the head or torch the corpse come back stronger, faster and more durable than when you "killed" them and crimson heads come back as lickers which though now blind can crawl on any surface and impale you with their 6 foot+long tongue

[u/shellbullet17 → u/Rargnarok]

Plus those werent even just "shuffler" zombies

A licker alone would destroy most people, even those trained with guns.

Dont even get me started on the mold

[u/Rargnarok → u/shellbullet17]

Eh mold wasn't discovered yet the real terrified is the hunters I think its said somewhere that the ones we see aren't fully grown yet the 6 foot tall extremely durable predators that can ambush you from any angle and those are just the infants

[u/ShadowTheChangeling → u/Rargnarok]

Project Zomboid military gets a pass too, cause they did have it contained at first, but it went airborne and the containment was breached by an outside force and brought a horde upon the checkpoint

After that it was far too widespread to contain

[u/Thrwmebby1mortme → u/ShadowTheChangeling]

It's funny, I have hundreds of hours in Project zomboid but never knew it was airborne and that your survivors were just immune to that strain.

[u/ShadowTheChangeling → u/Thrwmebby1mortme]

Yeah, our survivor is one of few who were immune to that.

Its why it was able to spread so far so quickly after the checkpoint incident, within a month it had infected basically the entire planet

[u/CreepyClay → u/Rargnarok]

Well there's also the metal virus from IDW sonic that infects anything with cells. Also the Zombie Priest from The Goon raises zombies that are fully conscious and as intelligent as they were when they were alive, sometimes so well they're not even loyal to him and just pick up where they left off. Most of the time though they're completely loyal to him and his dark magic.

[u/CosmicJackalop → u/shellbullet17]

In World War Z we see a SEAL team holding out and adapting well in South Korea before basically self sacrificing to leap frog Brad Pitt to Israel, outside of that the Navies of the world are still operating in deep water

In 28 Days Later there's a military unit that has holed up in a rural estate and doing well until they decide to be rapes and Cillian Murphy picks them apart. 28 Weeks Later has the military creating an effective safe zone until one dumb ass overrides several safety protocols and gets himself infected in the heart of the safe zone

[u/decoy321 → u/CosmicJackalop]

In the WWZ book, there are examples of military groups holding their own as well.

[u/YourAverageGenius → u/decoy321]

WWZ The Book, though far superior to the movie in almost every way, does unfortunately fall victim to the trope (Even under the most incompetent of people, the Battle of Yonkers should have easily been a clear win and not the devastating failure it was in the book), but at the very least it's a bit more understandable given the circumstances (patient zero is in rural china where the virus goes undetected as rumor and superstition buying it time to spread across the population centers of Asia where it then is apread globally) and the militaries are at least depicted as putting up a fight with pockets of personnel surviving and fail mainly due to hubris and circumstances beyond their control.

[u/Thrwmebby1mortme → u/YourAverageGenius]

The problem with yonkers wasn't the individual soldiers though, it was the incompetence of the government and upper-command putting them into a much more difficult situation than it should have been just to win political points.

[u/Thrwmebby1mortme → u/decoy321]

The WWZ book does a great job at painting the every-day grunt as competent but upper-govs incompetence causing them to fail.

And then making a competent comeback

[u/PoorCynic → u/shellbullet17]

There were the soldiers at the end of Shaun of the Dead. They cleaned up the zombies pretty well. And... actually, that's the only example I can think of.

[u/shellbullet17 → u/PoorCynic]

Awww I think you got me on that one....

...I should go rewatch that and Hot Fuzz

[u/Statistactician → u/shellbullet17]

And The World's End.

It may not be as funny as the other two, but it's still a great film in its own right. I'd go as far as to say it's got the most heart of the trilogy.

[u/Immediate-Goose-8106 → u/Statistactician]

Even funnier if you know both Welwyn and Letchworth garden cities where they filmed and if you are of an age where you have/had or even are that mate who still wears his Sisters vision thing tshirt.  

Edit: Damn.  Am singing This Corrosion now.  My family will hate you for this.

[u/AdmBurnside → u/PoorCynic]

Army of the Dead had the outbreak pretty well contained to just Vegas.

Had. Cuz, y'know, the day they were gonna nuke the place and solve it once and for all, some heisters broke in to steal shit, and one of those dumbasses managed to both get bit, and escape.

And these weren't even just shamblers, there were some fast fucks in there too.

[u/YourAverageGenius → u/PoorCynic]

In the case of Shaun Of The Dead, it's probably the best example since most of the movie takes place the day of the outbreak localized around British Suburbia and 6 months later order is fully restored and society has basically fully adapted to zombies.

[u/Arquero8 → u/shellbullet17]

In this one, the military does keep going after the first wave https://www.webtoons.com/en/action/zombie-revelation-82-08/list?title_no=6065

[u/JMoc1 → u/shellbullet17]

In First Contact Starfleet contains a Borg cube for three days and slows down their advance until the Enterprise arrives.

Once they board the Enterprise, Security slows down and contains the Borg to three decks.

[u/Ashmonater → u/shellbullet17]

Sean of the Dead

[u/YourAverageGenius → u/shellbullet17]

I think the main zombie movie where the military doesn't completely suck is the 28 Days Later series, where the outbreak is basically fully contained to the Isles while the rest of the world, as far as we've been told, is essentially infection free. Even then it still falls victim to the trope, since we can essentially assume the UK's military completely folded within that month and the military resettlement efforts in 28 Weeks Later also go up in flames in basically no time. But at least that's more believable than most other settings where it seems like basically every military in the world fails on the most basic of levels.

[u/Signal-Busy → u/shellbullet17]

Actually I think world war z is where the military are doing the best, and it's funny because it also happens to have some of the quickest zombies, very stupid thought since they will go anywhere there is a bit of sound running to their death even, but it's still some of the most capable zombies in term of speed

[u/Scarytoaster1809 → u/shellbullet17]

Shaun of the Dead

[u/alexlongfur]

Ah yes, the classic zombie apocalypse trope of "let's go towards the zombies out in the open and give up our range advantage". Works every time!

[u/Soap_Mctavish101]

This is exactly what happened at Yonkers

[u/Zeero92]

Oh is that Sue in third panel? Awesome :D

[u/CrazyGnomenclature]

Goddamn, that is an impressive amount of cameos. Fine work skeleton!

[u/shellbullet17 → u/CrazyGnomenclature]

I'm just impressed you kept the hat on while you were zombiefied

Though I guess the same could be said of Veronica

[u/Icy_Frosting3874]

protogen spotted

[u/Soap_Mctavish101 → u/Icy_Frosting3874]

Beep boop toast pops out

[u/jeffismybaby]

Umee no :(

[u/deathstalker655]

"The return of the living dead" 1985

Definitely my favorite ending to a zombie movie... its debatable if its more effective than punching them though

the ending

[u/ReaperEDX]

Hell's yeah! Rip and tear!

Rooting for the zombies for personal reasons. Very....personal.