 | This article has multiple issues. Please helpimprove it or discuss these issues on thetalk page.(Learn how and when to remove these messages) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
|
| Victorian Undead | |
|---|---|
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Wildstorm |
| Schedule | Monthly |
| Format | Limited series |
| Genre | |
| Publication date | January – June 2010 |
| No. of issues | 6 |
| Main character(s) | Sherlock Holmes Doctor Watson |
| Creative team | |
| Written by | Ian Edginton |
| Artist | Davide Fabbri |
| Letterer | Saida Temofonte |
| Colorist | Carrie Strachan |
| Editor(s) | Ben Abernathy Kristy Quinn |
| Collected editions | |
| Victorian Undead: Sherlock Holmes vs. Zombies | ISBN 1-4012-2840-2 |
| Victorian Undead II: Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula | ISBN 140123268X |
Victorian Undead is a series of comics aboutSherlock Holmes andDoctor Watson dealing with the supernatural. The first seriesVictorian Undead: Sherlock Holmes vs. Zombies is a six-issueAmerican comic booklimited series published byWildstorm. The series was written byIan Edginton, with art byDavide Fabbri. The story is set inVictorian England and follows Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson in the midst of azombie outbreak. It was followed byVictorian Undead Special: Sherlock Holmes vs. Jekyll/Hyde (one issue) and a second series,Victorian Undead: Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula (five issues), which sees Holmes and Watson helping to track down the title character (Count Dracula) before he killsQueen Victoria.
![[icon]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aWiki_letter_w_cropped.svg) | This sectionneeds expansion. You can help byadding to it.(December 2011) |
The first series ran in early 2010[1] and the second in early 2011 as Wildstorm folded during that period, the last three issues were published directly by the parent company, DC Comics.[2]
In 1854, a strangecomet enters over London, releasing little fragments of which one fragment penetrated into a street pump near Broad Street inSoho. Five months later, Soho suffers what appears to bea cholera outbreak. DoctorJohn Snow and ReverendHenry Whitehead investigate the outbreak. While Snow postulates the cause for the outbreak, Reverend Whitehead discusses a recent confession from a tanner's apprentice about the dead coming back to life. Soon afterwards, one of Snow's deceased patients is resurrected as a zombie in front of a shocked Snow and Whitehead.
By 1898,Sherlock Holmes andDr. John Watson investigate a charlatan who has beenhypnotizing unsuspecting people into revealing their secrets. The charlatan turns out to be an advancedautomaton and is disabled during a struggle with Holmes and Watson. The two are perplexed at this discovery, in which Holmes deduces that the machine was controlled by an unknown person, who personally knows Holmes. Meanwhile, two workmen at an underground railway construction yard come across a corpse. One of the workmen sees a gold ring on the corpse and greedily attempts to appropriate it, but the corpse comes to life and bites him. The zombie is decapitated by the other workman, but he is also attacked and bitten by his coworker, who turns into a zombie.
AtBaker Street, Holmes and Watson later study the automaton and are then urgently summoned toScotland Yard byInspector Lestrade over what appears to be a murder between the aforementioned workmen before they are brought to one of the zombified workmen and a functioning head of the discovered zombie. However, Holmes and Watson are forced to call off their investigation byBritish Secret Service agents.
Despite being warned by British Intelligence, Holmes and Watson continue their investigation and search for where the zombie was discovered. The two dig into the earthwork and find themselves in anunderground city dating back to ancient London. They then find a corpse pile and look into its contents to find that some of the corpses are barely a year old. Soon they are surrounded by a horde of zombies. Being driven to a corner while learning that shooting the zombies in the head will effectively dispatch them, Holmes and Watson are saved by the arrival of heavily armed and armoredRoyal Marines led by the former's brother,Mycroft Holmes. After saving Holmes and Watson, Mycroft escorts them to the surface and proceeds in providing them answers.
As Holmes and Watson are being escorted,Sebastian Moran spies them from afar and travels toWhitechapel, where he reports his news to his master - an undeadProfessor Moriarty.
At theDiogenes Club, Mycroft debriefs Holmes and Watson of their government's knowledge about the undead. In 1854, theBroad Street cholera outbreak was in fact a zombie outbreak, in which more than a thousand people were killed and turned into zombies in the Soho district. Initially the government failed to understand what they were dealing with until the aid of Dr. John Snow, who had prior experience with the undead, strenuously contained and culled the outbreak. In the aftermath, the entire events were covered up as a cholera outbreak and Snow kept his silence after promises were made in improving public sanitation. The source of the outbreak, however, remains unknown and there has not been any undead incidents since the last forty years until now. Holmes analyzes his brother's information and the recently discovered zombies, and believes that someone is creating and corralling the undead.
Meanwhile, Holmes' deductions are proven correct as the culprit, Professor Moriarty, has been creating an undead army in several secret locations throughout London, and releasing them to start another, but much larger, outbreak. Holmes and Watson bear witness to the outbreak and flee to the safety of Baker Street. There Holmes ties the connection of the zombies in 1854 in concurrent to a comet, as the source of the outbreak for carrying an alien disease, after reading a book written by Moriarty; concluding that his nemesis is behind this and noting that he was thought to be dead.
In a flashback to 1891, Moriarty survived his confrontation with Holmes at theReichenbach Falls. Here Moriarty, severely wounded, is found by Sebastian Moran and inoculated with a serum based on the disease which created the undead, transforming him into a zombie but retaining his intelligence. In the present, the undead have overrun London. From Whitechapel, Moriarty reveals to Moran that he never intended to use the outbreak to force the government to yield to him, but instead desires to spread the outbreak further and forge an undead empire. Moran is morally perturbed by his master's intentions and attempts to kill him, but is infected in the process before escaping with his life.
At Baker Street Holmes and Watson, along withMrs. Hudson, have barricaded inside. However, they are saved by the military that was sent out by Mycrroft Holmes. As they are evacuating the premise, a dying Moran finds Holmes and Watson, informing them of Moriarty before expiring.
The undead have taken London with Moriarty reigning from a capturedBuckingham Palace. Holmes and Watson have relocated toWindsor Castle, being used as a command center by the British government. They are granted an audience withLord Bellinger, thePrime Minister, who informs Holmes that his government had anticipated another outbreak only because after previously discovering foreign agents were found attempting to steal the undead remains from the Soho outbreak for their respective nations in order to cultivate the undead virus as abiological weapon. As of now, Moriarty holds the ultimate deadly weapon in the world. Holmes heavily advises Lord Bellinger that the only option to contain and neutralize the exponentially growing outbreak is to scorch London at the cost of losing the nation's capital.
Holme's advisement is soon put forward as theRoyal Navy is set to bombard London after the undead have broken throughWestminster Bridge. However, Holmes is aghast to learn that the government intends to let Moriarty be burned along with London rather than having him dealt with directly. But thanks to Mycroft, Holmes and Watson are provided with alaunch into London to face Moriarty themselves. Before leaving, Holmes implores Mycroft of howTrelawney Hope, the currentSecretary of State, became tasked in tactical deployments in which his brother explains that Hope succeeded from his predecessors of the Home Secretary, who fell to the zombies, based on a contingency plan.
Holmes and Watson land in Whitechapel after deducing Moriarty's location from the clay soil found on Moran's footwear. The two enter a slaughterhouse where they are confronted by an apparently very-much alive Moriarty.
Holmes confronts Moriarty's automaton about how the earlier one had mesmerized Trelawney Hope. Hope realized that his safe and the contingency plan were compromised and had engaged Holmes, who in turn was able to undo Moriarty's control of Hope's mind. Moriarty makes taunts about his reign as monarch. After blinding the automaton Holmes and Watson escape into the streets ofWhitechapel. They make their way into the Underground and come out of a secret station that leads intoBuckingham Palace. Holmes has deduced that is where Moriarty is based on the comments he had transmitted via the automaton. Watson separates from Holmes after being reminded to follow the plan.
Naval ships in theThames River open fire on central London. Meanwhile upstairs in the Palace Holmes encounters Moriarty who he manages to badly burn with a grenade that also sets the room on fire. While he admits that it will be hard to kill Moriarty, Holmes says he can still break him since the "body is only a system of pulley and levers." Moriarty is beaten in the fight and Holmes beheads him. Out on a balcony Watson fires a flare and Mycroft Holmes, aboard an airship, heads for the signal. Holmes tries to finds Moriarty's head as Watson enters the burning room and says that there is no time. The two run from the Palace as the airship approaches and then begins to drop bombs. The secondGreat Fire of London is shown burning away the "plague." Sailors pull the last of the zombies out of the river with fishing nets.
Three months later London is being rebuilt as Holmes and Watson discuss the revenant event, with Holmes noting they are "venturing into the unknown." In the final panels Moriarty is shown in an underground lab, and he has staples in his neck as he works on the brain of a detached head on the table.
In 1899, nearly a year after the revenant attack on London, as the city continues to rebuild, Holmes, having completed recreating his lost files, is contacted by Mr.Utterson regarding the recent strange behavior of his friend Dr.Henry Jekyll, including his role in the death of a young girl and a mysterious assistant known only as "Edward Hyde". Investigating Jekyll's lab, Holmes and Watson's examination of the tissue consumed by dead flies in the lab reveals that Jekyll has access to a revenant, but a confrontation with Jekyll that night reveals that heis the revenant; having suffered a psychotic breakdown from stress prior to the revenant outbreak that fractured his personality, Jekyll initially maintained control through a serum provided by a Limehouse herbalist, but after he was attacked by a revenant and his supplier killed in the fire, he was forced to ration his supply and restrain himself, the infection having resulted in him retaining his own mind while under the serum's influence while occasionally reverting to his other persona and revenant instincts, as well as escaping his confinement on some occasions. With no way to contain Hyde as he escapes his house, Jekyll begs Holmes to kill him while he is still himself after being injected with the last of his serum, with Watson mercifully shooting his head off.
It is one year later (1900), and contacted by a maritime insurance company to investigate the deaths of the crew of the schooner theDemeter, Holmes and Watson's investigation of the solicitor's office that took custody of the ship's cargo reveals that the entire household has abruptly died of the bubonic plague, and they are attacked by a group of gypsies before being saved by another group. Talking with their saviours, Holmes and Watson learn that the other group are known as the Szgany, who serve the vampire known as Count Dracula.
Meanwhile,Lord Godalmning has introducedQueen Victoria toCount Dracula, claiming that the Count is an expert in diseases of the blood and will be able to treat the condition that curtails the royal family. In reality, Dracula and Godalming intend to unleash an infection on the empire – using the diseased earth brought to Britain via theDemeter, Dracula taking the throne in the ensuing chaos. As Holmes and Watson track the boxes of earth to Carfax Abbey, they discover ProfessorAbraham van Helsing,Jonathan Harker, DoctorJohn Seward andQuincey Morris at the abbey already, the two groups exchanging information before they are attacked by the vampireLucy Westenra and a group of Dracula's 'get', half-deads animated by his blood as plague carriers. Having destroyed the plague-carriers and driven Lucy away, the group meet up at Baker Street to discuss their separate approaches to the current investigation, including Godalming's betrayal and the suicide of Jonathan's wifeMina after Dracula bit her (Lucy escaped being staked because Godalming tipped her off). As they ponder how Dracula made contact with the firm that arranged his arrival in Britain, the group are visited byMycroft Holmes, who reveals that Godalming was an agent of the Diogenes Club sent on a mission to investigate old legends as means of acquiring an 'alternative arsenal' for Britain after the revenant attack, only to betray his country for power.
Tracking Dracula to his new lair based on where the boxes were delivered, they discover the dead Godalming - drained by Lucy when Dracula became frustrated with him - and Dracula's brides, with Seward being killed before Lucy allows the brides to be destroyed and shield her before fleeing, dismissing Dracula as an antiquated fool for following old superstitions (apparently since she was turned in modern times, her undead form is a bit more resistant to holy symbols like crosses). Using Toby the bloodhound – wounded during the revenant attack on London but still possessing his keen nose – the group tracks Dracula to the Palace, where they manage to expose him during a royal ball. Dracula attacks and kills the Queen, then tries to escape while Holmes and Morris jump on Dracula's transformed bat-like form and force him to land in a nearby construction site. Morris dies of his injuries before Holmes manages to cut a vital rope so that the scaffolding impales Dracula, and Holmes then beheads him, thus ending his threat once and for all (it is also revealed that the "Queen" was an actress hired to impersonate her). However Holmes deduces this is just the start of the world becoming more known to supernatural forces.
TheRondo Hatton Classic Horror Award is an annual award presented by the Classic Horror Film Board to honour outstanding works in horror in film, television, home video, and publishing, as voted on by the general public.Victorian Undead has received a nomination in 2010.[3]
Both series have been collected intotrade paperbacks:
