A sci-fi comedy comic from 2000 AD, Zombo's titular character is an experiment in mixing human and zombie DNA, created in an attempt to control the sentient Deathworlds. Obedient and friendly, his hunger for flesh is his only vice.
Zombo includes examples of:
- All Crimes Are Equal: Obmoz, Zombo's Evil Counterpart, is a zombie super soldier created to fight crime on Earth with his teeth and flesh-disintegrating Death Shadow. He eventually goes crazy and thinks everyone is a criminal, including girl scouts crossing a street.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: After Obmoz gains "the power of a million Zombos" thanks to Zombo's Mad Scientist creator, he becomes a gigantic zombie who proceeds to rampage around the city killing anything in sight.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: Played for laughs in a throwaway gag, when one of President of the Earth Donald Trump's assistants mentions that his boss once shredded a puppy.
- Black Comedy: Much of the comic's humor is derived from people getting killed in incredibly gory and violent ways.
- Cannibal Clan: The inbred family on the Death World.
- Card-Carrying Villain: Shadow President Jason van Satan, who makes no light of the fact that he's the most evil man on Earth.
- Catchphrase: Zombo will casually ask everyone he meets "Can I eat you?"
- The Caper: Subverted in the TV satellite story where a bunch of goons are planning a heist when they're attacked by zombies and subsequently change up their plan to make them "Like Us! Like Us!"
- Comedic Hero: Zombo
- Creator Provincialism: It's implied that the Earth government is largely American in nature, given that Donald Trump is President of the United Space of America, but there's also a "Shadow" President, a term which is not really used outside the United Kingdom to denote the opposition.
- The Dead Can Dance: There are multiple sequences of singing and dancing zombies. Zombo himself has got some moves too.
- Death World: In the outer rims of explored space are Death Worlds, which are sentient planets that kill any humans who go near them. The flora, the fauna, even the air is a death trap. There are several different classes, with the worst being zombie-infested worlds.
- Driven to Suicide: "Deathtube", a site where aimless, disaffected youths commit suicide in creative ways and upload it to the internet.
- Energy Weapon: The Death Shadow is a man-made weapon that disintegrates living tissue on contact. Since Zombo is a zombie, he's the only one able to wield it.
- Everything Trying to Kill You: On the Death World.
- Flesh-Eating Zombie: These are a plague on the worst of the Death Worlds, as they also spread rapidly. The answer to this threat is the titular Zombo, who is a result of combining zombie and human DNA to create an obedient super soldier. He's friendly enough when he's not eating you.
- Frankenstein's Monster: Zombo, kinda. He was specifically designed as a one-of-his-kind experiment to create a zombie that would obey human commands. He's far friendlier than the regular bunch, since he'll at least ask you if he can eat your brains.
- Genius Loci:
- The series heavily involves the existence and managements of deathworlds, uncolonized planets that are alive, sentient, and really hate humans.
- The Earth itself later becomes sentient, and proceeds to protect humanity from the Death Worlds.
- The Government: The government is basically every stereotype of the Eisenhower, Reagan, and Bush administrations turned up a notch. Also, Donald Trump is President.
- Grievous Harm with a Body: Zombo uses a burning man as a weapon against zombies.
- Head Crushing: In the story arc from 2011, "The Day Zombo Died," Obmoz bare-handedly crushes and squashes the skull of the President of Earth, who is a caricature of Donald Trump.
- Heroic Comedic Sociopath: The "hero" is a Flesh-Eating Zombie, but since the comic treats everything like Black Comedy Zombo remains a Comedic Hero.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: The Communist-hating General.
- Losing Your Head: Frank Epsilon somehow becomes a bodiless zombie.
- Male Frontal Nudity: President Trump's virtual bits are hanging out. The other characters are in need of Brain Bleach too.
- Meat-O-Vision: We are treated to a POV from the comic's hero Zombo. He sees everyone around him as walking slabs of meat.
- My Brain Is Big: Mr. Critic on the TV satellite has an oversized head because he had his brain replaced with a supercomputer.
- One-Word Title: Also a Protagonist Title.
- Our Zombies Are Different: "Normal" zombies are flesh-eating, and turn everyone they bite into more of them provided there's even something left before zombification kicks in. They retain their intellect, but they're deadset on making everyone "Like Us!". Zombo himself (and Obmoz, his Evil Counterpart) is more of a Frankenstein's Monster-type creature, the result of combining human with zombie DNA to create a Super-Soldier who obeys human commands. He still has a taste for living flesh, though.
- Parody Names: The Sc4rabs.
- Please, Don't Leave Me: Shouted by the bloke who had his arms and legs eaten on the Deathworld by a Cannibal Tribe. His friends say "screw that!" because he's too big to carry.
- President Evil:
- Donald Trump is president of Earth, and when he isn't an unholy spawn of George Bush and Ronald Reagan, he runs the planet like The Apprentice. Also, he shredded a puppy.
- There's Shadow President Jason Van Satan. It's all right there in the name.
- Protagonist Title: Also a One-Word Title.
- Red Shirt: The entire group of people on the raft that was eaten. And everyone else.
- Restraining Bolt:
- Zombo wears a pair of Speedos through which, should he prove troublesome, Miss Handler can deliver an electric shock to his testicles.
- Obmoz instead has nanobots in his blood which force him to obey all orders, though it hurts him to do so. They're later damaged so Obmoz immediately kills his controllers.
- Screw Yourself: Agents Yin and Yang are both split from the same person. When one of them is killed, his other self reminisces about how they had sex together.
- Sdrawkcab Name: Zombo's successor was deliberately named Obmoz to indicate how he is the opposite of Zombo.
- Serial Escalation: Practically every issue. Especially The Day That Zombo Died.
- Talent Show: During the TV satellite story.
- Teleporter Accident: Teleportation of organic matter is banned to avoid this. However, exceptions are made for promising government agents, who are deliberately duplicated via teleporters. As Agent Yang puts it, the perfect agent can become the perfect team.
- Virtual Ghost: President Donald Trump comes back as a computer program after Obmoz kills him. He later has a virtual fight against the zombie-controlled Mister Critic ripped straight out of TRON.
- When Trees Attack: On the Death World, the trees are as sentient and hostile to human life as the rest of the planet. Ramped up later on when a tree monster disguises itself as a giant christmas tree to eat the survivors of a crashed ship.
- With Great Power Comes Great Insanity:
- The President of the Earth fires everyone he talks to and hires a man who failed his job as his vice-president.
- Obmoz goes insane and thinks everyone is a criminal.
- The Worm That Walks: Zombo at one point has to go up against "ZomBee", who is a giant mass of flesh-eating bees in the shape of a zombie.
- Zombie Apocalypse: The comic had this as a background in the far future, where a zombie apocalyse is sweeping through the galaxy, and being hushed up by the government. The eponymous Zombo is a human/zombie hybrid (DON'T TRY TO THINK ABOUT IT) created by the govenment to fight back. Zombies personalities are exactly the same as when they were alive, except they now crave human flesh. It's a weird story, even by 2000AD standards...
