DMZ
Stuck in a paranoid and frightened quest to crush it's enemies abroad, the US government forgot about the thousands of armed militias that reside within America's borders and the unthinkable has happened. These militias have rose up and America is in the grips of a second civil war and the once bustling metropolis of Manhattan is now a no-mans land and the site of vicious fighting. This is the premise for "DMZ," a new ongoing series from Vertigo that launches today by writer Brian Wood and artist Riccardo Burchielli. CBR News spoke with both Wood and Burchielli about "DMZ," a series that gives new meaning to the lyrics, "If I can make it there I can make it anywhere."
The idea for "DMZ" has been percolating in Wood's imagination for quite awhile. "I've been a resident of NYC for a long time, around 13 years, not counting my 18-month time away on the west coast," Wood told CBR News. "Spending every day for 13 years in the city would give anyone a lifetime of story ideas and 'DMZ' is exactly that: city stories, but amplified. Setting them in a war zone just amps up the intensity, the stakes, the emotion, the action."
The opening of "DMZ" drops the readers right into the thick of the war torn concrete canyons of New York City. "The war's been going on for years, and in fact it's reached a stalemate," Wood explained. "People are starting to lose interest, and its not front page news so much anymore. But what you do learn about it in the first issue, in broad strokes, is that Middle America, literally, has risen up out of frustration, anger, and poverty to challenge the government's position of preemptive war and police action throughout the world. It's left America neglected and unattended, and also unprotected, at least from a major threat within its own borders. Then isolationist and religious militias get involved and arm the people, and then it's suddenly the Second American Civil War. They push to the coasts where they're stopped, creating a no-man's-land in Manhattan, with the 'Free Armies' in Jersey facing off against the US Army in Brooklyn.
I don't need to sell it, it sells itself.
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