Issue(s): Tales of the Zombie #7
Cover Date: Sep 74
Title: "Prologue / The blood-testament of Brian Collier / Epilogue"
Credits:
Steve Gerber / Doug Moench - Writer
Pablo Marcos / Alfredo P. Alcala - Penciler
Pablo Marcos / Alfredo P. Alcala - Inker

Review/plot:
Steve Gerber and Pablo Marcos are responsible for the one page Prologue and one page Epilogue, and the rest of the Zombie story in this issue is by Doug Moench and Alfredo Alcala. This is surely due to deadline issues, and the hand-off is hilariously dumb. In the prologue, the Zombie is still walking with Layla, as we saw at the end of last issue, but she trips on a root and knocks herself out.

Der!

This allows the Zombie to wander off and watch - not participate, for the most part - in what is basically an unrelated horror story by Moench and Alcala. And then when it's over, the Zombie wanders back just in time for Layla to wake up so that they can continue on to what Gerber had actually had in mind, which we'll see next issue. The Moench story must take place over at least the course of a day, meaning that poor Layla is conked out for quite some time and someone should check her for a concussion.

The main story at least lets us see another artist, Alcala, draw our main character.

And we do get a fun "fight" with an alligator in the beginning.

Interesting implication that the Amulet of Damballah forces the Zombie to defend himself because he's not allowed the rest of the dead.

But the story really does seem to be a generic horror tale re-worked to fit the in the Zombie. The story has a rich old man dying, and his will stipulates that his wealth will go in equal shares to the members of his family and his servants, but only if they all honor his strange requests for the handling of his body, post-death. Otherwise he will return from the dead to kill the offenders, and the survivors will get their shares. And at first it does seem that the man is returning from the dead to kill the people not complying with the terms of the will, but in the end it turns out that the lawyer executing the will was also promised one of the shares, but he withheld that fact and started killing the others with the idea that he would therefore inherit the money.

The Zombie's role in this is to peer through the window and watch...

...until the very end when he comes in to kill the lawyer and his accomplice, dimly motivated by protecting a child that would have been one of the lawyer's victims.

The story always feels a little diluted when you have a horror story with fake supernatural happenings in a world where the supernatural is real, and that's the case here. That said, if you're going to tell a story where the main character does nothing but stand around and watch the majority of the time, the Zombie (or the Man-Thing) is a good choice.

When the police investigate, they find the fingerprints of Simon Garth, who has been dead for "two years".

This issue also has the usual ridiculous text pieces and two short non-continuity voodoo themed horror stories ("Haiti's Walking Dead" by Doug Moench and Winslow Mortimer and "A second chance to die" by Carl Wessler and Alfredo P. Alcala). A funny thing is that a text piece by Chris Claremont criticizes depictions of voodoo in fiction for depicting "a lot of hyperactive black people who don't wear very much clothing and do a great deal of uninhibited dancing around some fire in the middle of the local jungle" which is exactly how voodoo has been depicted in this series.

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: The Prologue begins by saying, "For a day and a night, you have been wandering this trackless swampland...". I'm assuming that's a day and a night since the end of last issue as opposed to counting the events of last issue after Garth hooked up with Layla as part of that day and a night. Either way, i'm placing this fairly close to last issue. It's worth noting that we are now caught back up to publication time; i had pushed Tales of the Zombie #1 forward in publication time quite a bit but due to the bi-monthly schedule and the fact that a lot of the issues take place in relatively close succession, we're now back on schedule. The problem with that is the fact that Garth is said to have been dead for "two years". That's weird even if you base it on publication date, since Tales of the Zombie #1 had an Aug 73 cover date, so we're just barely a year past that. And Garth was only thought to be missing at first, not legally declared dead. We'll have a similar comment from Lt. Jagger next issue. But i think we can take the Marvel Compressed Timescale into account and declare the "two years" comments topical.

The story says that Layla is unconscious for "hours" but it's enough time for someone to be murdered, the police to come and do at least a preliminary investigation, everyone go to bed, and then a series of additional murders, so i am assuming that's lots of hours. A little confusingly, the Moench/Alcala portion of the story ends "two days later" with the scene with the police but then the epilogue goes back in time (i assume) to show the Zombie returning to Layla. In any event, next issue should begin soon after this one.

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: Essential Tales of the Zombie vol. 1

Man, poor Layla should be checked for outright brain damage is she was unconscious for a whole day! That's not remotely healthy.

That's par for the course in Marvel:
Diamondback was also knocked out for a day by Crossbones:
http://www.supermegamonkey.net/chronocomic/entries/captain_america_357-364.shtml
And Ivan was knocked out for TWO days and Matt and Natasha didn't bother to get him a doctor:
http://www.supermegamonkey.net/chronocomic/entries/daredevil_97-98.shtml

Gotta love the non-Code approved magazine format. Having previously seen the Man-Thing, Ka-Zar, and the Black Panther each engage in "gator-rasslin'" (actually "croc-rasslin'" in the Panther's case), Garth's encounter with the swamp beast is easily the most brutal depiction. Also, the lawyer Ralston is rendered by Alcala to look just like President Merkin Muffley, played by Peter Sellers in the classic Cold War black comedy DR.STRANGELOVE (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb).

Didn't notice the President Merkin Muffley resemblance but it was nice to see Bettie Page in the cast, and doing some honest dramatic work for a change!:) Found it hilarious how nobody, not even the detective, noticed the zombie peeping in through the window, even though the zombie was there before the detective even arrived!:D