Remains (Comics) | Review

What happens when humanity's greatest hope becomes its deadliest mistake? Steve Niles (Kick-Ass: The New Girl, Kick-Ass Vs. Hit-Girl) and Kieron Dwyer (Batman: Dark Knight, Dark City, Superman: The Dark Side) answer with brutal efficiency in Remains, a five-issue limited series that turns nuclear disarmament into apocalypse.

Published in 2004, this post-apocalyptic horror story strips away the slow-burn dread of typical zombie narratives and replaces it with immediate, relentless chaos that never lets up. The premise is deceptively simple yet devastatingly effective in its brutal execution.

A global Peace Day event meant to destroy all nuclear weapons goes catastrophically wrong, triggering simultaneous detonations that wipe out most of humanity and turn survivors into flesh-hungry zombies. Welcome to Reno, Nevada during the bitter end times.

Tom Bennett, a blackjack dealer and Tori Chambers, an exotic dancer, mysteriously find themselves immune to the radiation that transformed everyone else into mindless, flesh-hungry zombies. Their survival isn't noble, heroic, or remotely dignified at all. It's accidental, messy and morally ambiguous from the first page.

Niles doesn't waste time explaining why these two survived the nuclear event. The catastrophe happens fast, the zombies appear faster and suddenly Tom and Tori are barricaded inside a Reno casino with a city full of undead pounding at their doors every night.

The dynamic between Tom and Tori drives the narrative tension throughout the series. These aren't likable protagonists rallying together against impossible odds. They're bitter, self-destructive people who barely tolerated each other before the apocalypse and now they're forced into this unwanted, miserable partnership.

The zombies in Remains follow George Romero-style conventions but with notable variations. They're silent, relentless and willing to cannibalize each other when fresh meat isn't available. Dwyer's artwork makes every encounter feel genuinely threatening rather than routine.

Niles introduces various practical survival challenges that ground the horror in reality. Limited food supplies, the psychological strain of isolation and the question of whether rescue will ever come create constant tension. The confined casino setting amplifies the claustrophobia, turning entertainment space into a suffocating death prison.

When other survivors appear later in the series, their arrival doesn't bring hope or relief. It brings complications, violence and proof that humans might be more dangerous than the undead. Every new character represents a potential threat rather than an ally in this world.

The series doesn't shy away from the bleakness of its premise or offer false optimism to soften the brutal reality at all. Tom and Tori aren't building a new society or searching for a cure. They're just trying to last another day in a world that's already ended, with rapidly diminishing supplies and the relentlessly mounting desperation.

The inciting incident happens on June 3rd, 2005, a specific date that grounds the horror in a recognizable timeline. This isn't some vague future apocalypse. It's presented as something that could have happened yesterday, making the premise more unsettling and immediate.

What sets Remains apart from the many other zombie comics is its laser focus on character degradation under extreme pressure. Tom and Tori make increasingly questionable decisions as their dire situation rapidly deteriorates. The story asks whether we'd be any different in their situation, refusing to provide comfortable answers.

The pacing never drags, with each installment escalating stakes before readers settle into false security. Night raids through sleeping zombie hordes, supply runs and human conflicts create tension. The limited series format prevents padding, delivering concentrated horror.

Niles and Dwyer understand that zombie fiction works best when survival itself feels impossible rather than inevitable. The series earned recognition including Dwyer getting Eisner Award nomination for Best Cover Artist in 2005, speaking to the visual impact of this scenario.

Kieron Dwyer brings a gritty, almost sketchy quality to Remains that prioritizes raw atmosphere over polish and perfection. His artwork feels lived-in and genuinely desperate, with characters who look genuinely exhausted, beaten down and utterly broken rather than unrealistically Hollywood-ready for the grim apocalypse at hand.

Dwyer's zombie designs lean into visceral horror without going full splatterfest, finding the balance between recognizable humanity and decayed threat. Harper Jaten's color work shifts between casino brightness and decaying grays, visually representing the gap between worlds.

Steve Niles' writing strips zombie fiction to its survivalist core with sharp, confrontational dialogue reflecting characters under stress. There's dark humor threaded throughout, gallows wit that emerges when people realize they're going to die. The character work is deliberately uncomfortable, always refusing to make them heroic.

What's particularly effective is how Niles handles moral ambiguity without judgment or redemption. Tom and Tori aren't heroes. They're survivors with ugly histories, bad habits and worse instincts. The writing doesn't ask readers to like them, only understand their choices.

Remains won't revolutionize zombie fiction but it doesn't need to because it understands what makes the genre work so well. This is lean, mean survival horror that delivers relentless pressure, deeply flawed characters and the creeping realization that rescue isn't coming. The five-issue format prevents overstaying its welcome.

The comic was later adapted into a film for the Chiller Network in 2011, premiering as part of their original movie programming. The adaptation exists, though most fans agree the comic-book's stripped-down intensity works better on the page than it translated to screen.

For readers who grew up on Romero films and want something capturing that era's nihilistic edge without rehashing same plots, Remains delivers. It's not trying to reinvent the genre. It's reminding you why it worked: survival horror is most effective when survival feels impossible.

This is zombie fiction for readers who want their apocalypses fast, brutal and unforgiving without philosophical tangents or hope speeches. Niles and Dwyer understood that sometimes the end of the world doesn't need an explanation at all. It just needs to feel inevitable and Remains accomplishes that mission perfectly well.

Remains is available in trade paperback and can usually be found through local comic-book shops, bookstore orders and secondhand outlets that carry IDW releases. Digitally, it is on major platforms like Amazon Kindle and ComiXology, making it easy to read on any device.