Zero Comics #1 gets off to a strong start with Pete Von Sholly and Warren Greenwood's collaboration "Shadows Over Happy Times." The protagonist is Broc, an alien vegetable being (made of broccoli) who was transported from his native planet (Fondue) to Earth along with millions of other anthropomorphic vegetables by a time warp. Broc works as a night-shift janitor at Happy Times Toys, a huge conglomerate that secretly produces millions of human-like soldier clones and sells them "to any government in the free world for a modest fee."

The Happy Times factory is in Syrentro, a polluted city in New York state doubtlessly named (in some manner) after Syracuse, while Broc lives in a distant suburb. His world is a grim, hostile place, made even worse by "monster juicers," which are humans who take a potion and transform themselves into whatever mythological beasts they choose. Monster juicers kill people and raise havoc all over the city and the government doesn't seem to do much about it, leaving heavily armed citizens to fend for themselves.

Broc discovers the clandestine soldier cloning at Happy Times while watching a classified film during his night shift. His bosses find out about it and grab Broc on his way into work the next day. They plan to feed him to their developing clones, but Broc escapes and hides out in the factory. He knows the doors and windows of the factory will be heavily guarded against his escape, so he resigns himself to living inside the factory for the rest of his life.

In the weeks that follow, Broc studies the clone-producing equipment and begins a grass-roots rebellion, producing leaflets about the secret soldiers and passing them out to fellow workers. By the end of this first installment of the story, Broc is leading a team of guerilla insurgents who wage a lethal uprising against the factory, effectively shutting it down.

Von Sholly and Greenwood effectively set the foundation for a fairly complex story with a strong narrative and an adequately sympathetic central character. After 14 action-packed pages, I was looking forward to seeing the story continue in the next issue.

I can't say the same for the rest of the book. Greenwood returns for an 17-page story, "The Ultimato, in Loneliness is a Tomato's Wet Dream." Instead of a stalk of broccoli, Ultimato is a (you guessed it) tomato. He lives in Los Angeles and is enlisted by Governor Reagan to repair a malfunctioning satellite. While working on this task, Ultimato is captured by an alien spaceship and brought to "The Planet of the Vegetables."

Ultimato then meets the "Eggplant Supreme," who proceeds to tell him the history of the planet, which is still going on eight pages later when the book ends. The history isn't very interesting in itself and one has to wonder if Greenwood could have gotten a little further along after 17 pages. Still, the story did have a few funny lines and could have been worse.

Overall, Zero Comics #1 uses 32 pages to give us two stories; one pretty good and one pretty mediocre. The book's main concept of vegetable characters who think and talk like people is somewhat interesting, especially in "Shadows Over Happy Times," which mixes in human characters and monsters in an elaborate society. We'll see if Von Sholly and Greenwood can turn it into something compelling as the series progresses.



HISTORICAL FOOTNOTES:
The Greenwood Organization printed approximately 2,000 copies of this comic book. It has not been reprinted.

COMIC CREATORS:

Pete Von Sholly (aka Von X) - editor, 1-2, 3-16 (collaboration), 36
Warren Greenwood - 3-16 (collaboration), 17-35