From the artist of Marvel Comics’ daredevil Marco Checchetto, comes a thrilling new adventure! Where were you when the cloud arrived? Where were you when the world changed forever? Where were you when people started dying? It’s at the limits between science fiction, action and horror.

This graphic novel is gritty, with zombies and hard choices, heartbreak and tortured, war-weary characters. Note that there’s some language and graphic violence–if it was a movie, it’d be hard to escape an R rating, or a “not for people under 17.”  Up to you, but consider yourself warned.

A mysterious cloud spreads across the city. From his jail cell, Captain Shako suspects something is wrong. We see his old team coming to break him out of prison, amid a terrifying reality: That cloud somehow infected millions, killing and then reviving them. And it’s spreading.

I won’t give too much away, because it’s gripping and desperate and heartbreaking and brutal. The ride is nonstop. There are so. Many. Zombies.

Checchetto’s art evokes exactly the feeling, and it blows through you like winter wind. Amid complex action like wild driving, fight scenes, voiceovers and flashbacks, the visuals are seamless and clear.

What’s less clear are the chapter breaks and format–there’s added depth there, but also some confusion. Perhaps that’s a personal failure on my part.

Sci-fi and horror can ask deep questions: What happens when you invent a weapon but it gets out of control; what does it mean to be used and abused by your country, to have your motivations and professionalism manipulated by people you thought you could trust? What is required of you when you, and you alone, know the truth?

Life Zero asks these questions of its characters, and the reader. Each reader will have to decide whether, at the end of the book, the ending rewards the journey. Regardless, the questions demand answers.

• Matt Gill