Infestation issue 1

Infestation #1 »
Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	January 26, 2011
Cover date	January 2011
Written by	Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning
Art by	David Messina, Elena Casagrande
Art assist by	Claudia Balboni
Inks by	Gaetano Carlucci
Colors by	ScarletGothica
Letters by	Robbie Robbins
Assistant editor	Bobby Curnow

Vampires vs. Zombies. And a blurry image of a Transformer.

Synopsis

At Kirtland Underground Munitions Storage Complex, New Mexico, army scientists have opened an interdimensional portal to a realm inhabited by legions of ravenous zombies. The creatures flooded the facility, but the outbreak was contained by army troops and another of the base's science projects: robotic soldiers. Wade, brought out of "permanent leave" to supervise the clean-up, finishes recapping these events to assembled "White House types", and reveals that the portal remains active, but has been sealed by the base's Sci-Bots to prevent further zombies passing through. Standing in front of the gateway, he describes the many benefits that access to an alternate dimension will bring, once they clear it of the undead... but the undead have other ideas, and reach through the supposedly shuttered portal to grab him. As zombies flood through the gateway, the infestation begins anew!

At the Coffin, headquarters of Covert Vampiric Operations, the top-secret organization tasked with protecting humanity from supernatural threats, vampire field commander Cross experiences a nightmare, reliving a recent mission. In this dream, however, he fails to save his wife and son, and they too join the ranks of the undead. Awakening with a start, Cross finds his teammate Britt appearing in his quarters, with instructions to report for a briefing. In the operations room, Director Overmars explains recent events at the Kirtland facility, and that CVO will be going in to assess the nature of the zombie threat, shut down the interdimensional portal, and extract any surviving officials. The field team—Cross, Britt and Bools—will be accompanied by CVO's zombie Smith, Benny, whose expertise in magic-tech artillica will be needed to deactivate the portal.

The team uses CVO's teleportation artillica to materialize in the portal chamber at Kirtland, and the three vampire agents begin mowing down the hungry undead, whilst Benny sets about using another artillica device to deactivate the gateway. Before long, however, Benny collapses, emitting inhuman moans, forcing the team to grab him and retreat into the air ducts above, but not before one of their attackers tears off the Smith's right arm and the artillica he held in it. Regaining his faculties, Benny explains he was being affected by rampaging zombies' hive mind, known as the Undermind, which wants to assimilate the Smith's knowledge of artillica so that it may spread to yet more universes. Benny's moment of lucidity proves to be brief, and as the Undermind's influence returns, he bites Britt's leg, before falling out of the ducts into the mass of zombies below.

Becoming one with the Undermind, Benny uses CVO's artillica to teleport himself and a large number of other zombies back to the Coffin. The Smith plunders the headquarters' artillica stockpile, and leaves his companions to feast upon the base's staff. Back at Kirtland, the three vampire agents emerge from the ducts into a warehouse full of Warbots. Despite having previously shrugged off Benny's bite, assuming she can't become undead a second time, Britt is concerned to notice dark veins spreading from the wound. With the assistance of a helpful Sci-Bot, the agents are able to activate the robotic soldiers, but moments later, Benny teleports in to snatch Britt away, taking her to the portal chamber. There, he has been using artillica to open the gateway up to further dimensions, and thanks to her newfound dual nature as a vampire and zombie, Britt is to be a vital component, serving as a living artillica. Absorbed into the Undermind's intelligence, Britt uses her vast arcane potential to open four supplementary portals, declaring that she will lead the zombie hordes to new worlds brimming with untold knowledge and power.

Events are interrupted when Cross and Bools lead the Warbots charging into the room, mowing down zombies with heavy gunfire and knocking Benny away from the portal. Cross's attempt to speak with the real Britt succeeds only momentarily, leading a pragmatic Bools to blast her head off instead, but she reconstitutes herself moments later. As Britt demonstrates the ability to zombify even the Warbots, all hope seems lost for the two remaining CVO agents, but, unnoticed, the Sci-Bot has analyzed the portal and determined that it can be deactivated by throwing Benny's artillica directly into the gateway. A powerful vacuum force briefly drags everything in the room towards the portal, which then promptly explodes.

With the gateway closed, the Undermind is cut off, and its zombies de-animate. Benny, back to his normal self, explains to Cross and Bools that zombie humans and robots have been transported to at least four other realities, along with parts of Britt, who now lies unconscious. The Smith warns that in its quest for knowledge and power, the Undermind will use Britt and the zombie hordes to seek out advanced magic and technology in each of the other worlds, allowing it to grow in strength and potentially return to their own universe. In order to make Britt whole again and stop the Undermind, Benny initiates a protocol that will allow the team to search the alternate dimensions for her—dimensions home to the Ghostbusters, Starfleet, G.I. Joe and the Transformers!

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Notes

• Covert Vampiric Operations hails from the IDW-original series of the same name, which debuted with a double-length one-shot in 2003. Konami subsequently acquired joint ownership of the property, with plans to develop it into a video game, and their logo appeared on the inside covers of the three follow-up mini-series published from 2003 to 2007. This had evidently all fallen through by the time of Infestation, which features no Konami logos.
• The zombies and robots, meanwhile, are from Zombies vs. Robots, co-created by Chris Ryall and Ashley Wood in 2006. The exact relationship between the events of Infestation and previous Zombies vs. Robots is unclear, see "#Continuity notes" below.

Continuity notes

• Kirtland Underground Munitions Storage Complex and its trans-dimensional gateway are a key part of the Zombies vs. Robots backstory, originally detailed in "Which Came First First?" from the D'airain Aventure anthology. In that story, the portal is said to lead to the future, whilst Infestation explicitly describes it as connecting to an otherwordly "Dimension Z", perhaps suggesting that this event represents a alternate or parallel version of the Zombies vs. Robots story.
• Furthering this notion is the immediate death of Davis Wade, a character from the Zombies vs. Robots Aventure anthology story "Kampf". In that tale, Sergeant Wade appeared as a key figure in the early days of humanity's large scale war against the zombies, something which is of course incompatible with his immediate death here.
• Seen in storage at Kirtland are several Workbots of the same design seen in the Zombies vs. Robots Aventure anthology story "Masques", also set at the facility.
• Cross's traumatic dream flashes back to the events of CVO: Covert Vampiric Operations—African Blood #4, the last CVO issue published prior to Infestation, in which he was forced to defend his wife and child from his enthralled former friend, John Noble. However, see "Errors" below.
• CVO first acquired teleportation artillica during the original CVO: Covert Vampiric Operations one-shot. Benny notes that he has refined their setup using information gathered from the smuggler Debelo Melombe's own teleportation artillica, as seen in African Blood #3.
• Although presented here as two separate worlds, IDW Publishing's original Transformers and G.I. Joe universes would later be merged via retcon into the singular Hasbro Universe.

Errors

• Benny's profile on the inside cover incorrectly suggests that he was a human who contracted a zombie virus, retaining his identity via artillica. He was in fact a non-human Smith, a race of cycloptic beings uniquely capable of crafting artillica devices. Following his death in CVO: Covert Vampiric Operations—Artifact #2, his corpse was fed upon by one of CVO's tame "Platelicker" zombies, entrapping Benny's soul to give him a new lease on life (and depth perception).
• Overmars is consistently colored without the red pupils of a vampire, and indeed is never acknowledged as one by the script, suggesting the creative team may have been unaware of him being one.
• John Noble is said to have returned as a zombie, but was actually an advanced form of azde, African psuedo-vampires around which the plot of African Blood revolved.

Other trivia

• Though Snake Eyes is part of Cover A, he is not actually featured in G.I. Joe: Infestation.
• Many robots seen in this issue and its follow-up draw from multiple Ashley Wood designs, both from Zombies vs. Robots itself and his World War Robot project. The blue Warbots are based on the Guardbot/Bertie design seen in both Zombies vs. Robots and World War Robot, but misinterprets the skull painted onto the dome as a three-dimensional skull head. Meanwhile, the red Warbots seem to place the head and Gatling gun of a Bertie design onto the body of the Warbot/Bramble robot.

Covers (4)

• Cover A: A zombie hand "rips" the page and displays Snake Eyes, Spock, Optimus Prime, and Peter Venkman. Art by Gabriel Rodríguez.
• Cover B: A zombie hand "rips" the page and displays zombie-fied robots, zombies and the CVO team. Art by John K. Snyder III and colors by Jason Wright.
• Cover RI: Zombie-fied robot. Art by Ashley Wood.
• Second Printing Cover: Sketch variant of Cover A.

• 

  Snake Eyes, Spock, Optimus Prime and Bill Murray walk into a bar...

• 

  Why'd ya have to rip that page?

• 

  Not Rick Grimes.

• 

  The zombies scared the color outta them!

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• Previews for other Infestation issues
• Infestation issue checklist and schedule (back page)