Only the Savage Are Left #1
Writer: Zack Kaplan
Artist: Stefano Raffaele
Colorist: Thiago Rocha
There have been a surprising number of good stories about the hellscape that follows a global pandemic. Stephen King’s The Stand. Robert McCammon’s Swan Song. Chuck Wendig’s Wanderers. The evening news.
Okay, maybe not that last one.
Based on issue #1, we may soon add Only the Savage Are Left to that list.
It’s the End of the World as We Know It
I read to escape the world outside my window. So when a book’s subject matter hits a little too close to home, it really needs to knock my socks off to get me to care.
This issue did just that.
A global pandemic bringing out the worst in humanity sadly isn’t entirely fiction anymore. But that’s just the starting point for this story. We start with the teratavirus: an affliction that makes a person’s skin yellow, produces strange protrusions, and within three days turns them into a bloodthirsty monster. The cure: burn the body of an infected and inhaling the smoke. At first, no one is sure how infected the person has to be when burned. Once humanity’s more base nature takes over, it no longer matters. In time, society collapses.
In the middle of all this darkness and horror, we have a love story. Ryder and Oaklynn first met outside the school Principal’s office, and that’s where their story began. It took a detour when Ryder and his mother fled to parts unknown. Five years later, their paths cross again, and it’s clear the spark is still there. Before long, circumstances separate the young lovers once more. When Oaklynn doesn’t return, Ryder sets out into the world that is, hoping to find her…
Falling in Love at the End of the World
At its heart, this is a love story. The pandemic setting and the horrors of humanity are just that—the setting. This is really about Ryder and Oaklynn, of a love that makes a person brave and stupid all at once.
Before we get to the world as it is--before we even learn about the teratavirus—the first thing we see is the couple laying together in bed, during presumably happier times. This tells us right from the start that their love is the core of all that follows. Later, when we see a flashback to their first meeting, we learn that she is the "tougher" of the two but that doesn't mean that he is a milquetoast "nice guy." This neatly counters his explanation of his role within the fortress community--he plays it safe, and never goes outside. Therefore, he has never been infected.
A very interesting twist for this book's pandemic is that it's absolutely possible to be infected more than once. In fact, it's downright likely that you will. Inhaling the smoke of a burned infected cures you of your own current infection, but does not give immunity to future infection. It also doesn't revert or remove any protrusions that you have developed during the course of your infection. This leads to many interesting images and scenarios, such as when Oaklynn shows Ryder her own scars.
She and her father may have stumbled onto the fort by chance, but it turns out to be for good reason nonetheless. Her father is wounded, and without medicine, he will lose his leg in a week. The medicine is several days' travel away, and the fort won't spare any of its people for strangers. If Oaklynn wants her father to have it, she has to go get it herself. Here is where Ryder's fear and cowardice gets the best of him, as he doesn't even offer to go with her. The lost love of his life, returned to him, and he lets her walk out the door again without lifting a finger to stop her.
Five days into what should have been a three-day trip, Ryder realizes something is wrong. His mother tells him that he needs to just let it go. But he can't. Another flashback to the two of them, now in the early days of the pandemic, shows Oaklynn telling him that they're going to get through it together—that she's got him. Except they got separated shortly thereafter, and after being reunited years later, he let her walk out the door again. This time, he has to do something.
As I read through this issue, I found myself wondering how I would react in situations like what Ryder finds himself in. I can't say for sure, but I do know that if my wife or my children were in harm's way, there's nothing I wouldn't do to help them, no matter the consequences for myself. If they weren't part of the equation? Well, I really don't want to think about that, so I don't know. At the end of the day, there's a part of me that understands and relates why Ryder reacts the way he does, and there's a part of me that wants to tell him he's an idiot and to get over himself.
As Ryder heads out into the wide world alone for the first time, we get to see what civilization looks like through his eyes. It's pretty dire. But before it truly has time to sink in, he—and we—gets the first look at what someone who's been infected for years without ever being cured looks like. It's pretty horrifying. He tries to shoot them with a gun, but between fear and inexperience, his aim is less than stellar. Through the ingenious use of a school crossing sign, he is able to bring down one of the beasts, leaving him covered in blood. Does that mean that he's now been exposed to the virus? It's unclear. Either way, I think he's going to need some therapy when he gets back to the fort.
Based on how this issue ends, it's clear that the journey and his moral dilemmas have just begun, and are only going to get harder as they go. If the rest of the series can maintain this level of quality and be this thought-provoking, this is going to be something special to witness.
Darkest Days
This type of story lives or dies by the caliber of creator working on it. Fortunately, we've got a killer team working together to bring us this tale of separated lovers.
Zack Kaplan is mostly known for science fiction stories, so it's interesting to see him step a little outside of that bubble for this series. Granted, "virus that turns people into monsters" is still a sci-fi premise, but the love story at the heart of this book is most certainly not. He does a fantastic job in just a few pages of showing us the connection between Ryder and Oaklynn, so that we feel their love, their pain, their shame. He neatly establishes the rules of this world and the stakes without bogging things down in too much exposition. And he keeps the pacing brisk enough that we never feel overwhelmed by all the information coming at us, but we don't get bored either.
Stefano Raffaele's artwork has to establish much of the feel of the world Ryder and Oaklynn find themselves in, and he does an incredible job. His human characters are detailed and expressive, able to tell us so much just by their faces and body language. The infected, whether they be those scarred from past infection or those warped into monsters, are varied and unsettling to look at. The scenes of death and devastation, both in the past and present, are enough to haunt you. And the gore is plenty to sell the horrors of the world as it is, but not so much that it seems gratuitous.
The art doesn't accomplish all of this alone, however. The colors of Thiago Rocha add so much to everything that we see—in particular, the drab tones of the world that is, rendering everything primarily in shades of brown. This works well to show the dirty, grimy feel to this world that has no light or life left in it. The flashbacks to happier time for Ryder and Oaklynn, on the other hand, are rendered in brighter tones with an almost dreamlike quality to them. This works well to make those segments stand out as windows into a happier time.
Breathe in, Breathe out
Only the Savage Are Left #1 took me by surprise—it's not just another take on a zombie story, but rather a nuanced, thought-provoking tale with more than enough heart to get you invested in the love story first, and the post-apocalyptic horror second. This is the kind of book that everyone should take a look at, even if you're usually not a fan of the genre. The creative team wants to use the pandemic setting as a tool for telling a story that makes us think and feel about not only Ryder and Oaklynn's story, but also how we would react if we were in the same situations. I can't wait to see what else they have up their sleeves as this series progresses.