Children of the Grave by Tom Waltz and Casey Maloney (Illustrator)

First, a word from the publisher: “Team Orphan, a U.S. Special Forces team made up of three hardened soldiers, has been tasked with assassinating a maniacal terrorist guilty of genocide on a massive scale. In their desperate quest to rid the world of the rogue terrorist, Team Orphan will soon learn they are not the only ones seeking his death. The terrorist’s many small victims—the children he has destroyed—have returned from the dead, bent on revenge. Team Orphan is caught in the middle, wondering who they should fear most: the terrorist, themselves or the Children of the Grave?“

Next, a content warning: violence against children, rape, necrophilia, mutilation

What Worked For Me:

The story is a quick enough read.
To the story’s credit, it does also include some bonus content after the main work wraps up such as alternate cover art and eight pages of a superhero comic.
Things do get somewhat gory, if you’re into that. Then again, the story also depicts scenes of rape, bodily mutilation, and dead children.

What Didn’t:

I’m not a conflict mediation specialist, nor an expert in the politics of the Middle East. The idea that a group of American soldiers could solve anything in “Stinwan” by bullets and blades alone, though, is ludicrous. (As an aside, Stinwan is likely a proxy for Iraq or possibly Afghanistan; there seem to be clear references to Kurdistan, too.)
The main antagonist, Assan, says that, “Americans do tend to surrender to compassion and complacency whenever your enemies are on the brink of annihilation.” I guess this is meant to position Assan as more extreme and the protagonists as more “in the right,” but to me it just read as the words of an America-apologist put in the mouth of a strawman.
Two of the “Orphans” (the name for the covert ops team that the story focuses on) trade pretty openly in racial stereotype. The Hispanic character, “Little Pete,” grew up in East LA and regularly inserts a small selection of Spanish phrases into his speech (e.g. pendejo and amigo). Another is an African American who never knew his father and who’s mother was raped and killed in front of him before the age of 10. Adding “super soldier” on top of these attributes do not a rounded character make. (Also, the leader of the group is a white guy, because of course he is.)
This is more a matter of taste than an “objective” observation, but I didn’t especially like the art style. I found it “Liefeld-esque.” Take that for what you will.
It’s hard not to feel like the intro at the beginning of the work oversold Children of the Grave. Oof. Also, though this is a spoiler, the Orphans are never actually in direct conflict with the “Children of the Grave.” If you were hoping for some soldier versus zombie action, this is not the book for you..

Conclusion:

Unless you’re really desperate for something to read, I would skip this one. The most charitable reading I could offer is that the work, “shows its age,” (it was originally published in 2006). Ultimately, I left the work feeling that it had little to say beyond, “terrorism bad,” and that the violence and gore was an attempt to appeal to a more mature audience with little on the way of nuance.

Check it out here.