Warning: the following contains SPOILERS for DMZ.
HBO Max's DMZ is very loosely based on the DC/Vertigo comic book of the same name, but the series does manage to preserve the core themes and real meaning of the source material. Unlike most TV shows that are based on DC comics, DMZ originated from Vertigo, the DC imprint for stories not typically associated with comic books. HBO's series tells an original tale inspired by various elements from different parts of the DC/Vertigo comic book. However, the premise is exactly the same. DMZ is about the lives of the people in the DMZ or Demilitarized Zone, a 'neutral' territory caught in the middle of the civil war between the U.S. government and the Free States of America – the country's most active warzone.
In the comics, the main protagonist is a journalist named Matthew Roth who gets trapped in the DMZ while on assignment. The majority of DC/Vertigo's DMZ is told from the perspective of Matthew, who, throughout the comic book's 72-issue run, becomes a hardened journalist, loyal citizen of the DMZ, war criminal, and international celebrity. Meanwhile, the HBO series follows a doctor named Alma, who also treads a dangerous path. Similar to Dune's Paul Atreides, Alma is an outsider who gets accepted into the community and eventually becomes its leader. While Alma only enters the DMZ to look for her son, she ends up becoming the DMZ's first democratically elected governor, and also adopts the name Zee.
The DMZ's Alma is loosely based on Matthew's love interest in the comics, a medic named Zee, who's also the second protagonist. In DC/Vertigo's DMZ, Zee saves Matthew from getting killed several times and shows him around the city, eventually becoming Matthew's friend and moral compass. Although Matthew doesn't exist in the series, HBO succeeds at tackling the same core themes as the comics through Alma's perspective. Although HBO's DMZ avoids using the source material's exact characters and storylines, it follows the most important part of the comics, as it also dives deeply into the lives of Americans caught in the middle of an inescapable war at home. While the series DMZ is part of HBO's March 2022 roster of shows, the DC/Vertigo comic book came out in 2005 and concluded in 2012. DMZ's 72 issues are comprised of various storylines, each focused on a different sociopolitical dimension of the Second American Civil War.
All the key elements adapted for the series can be traced to the comic book storyline “Blood in the Game.” In issue #29 of DMZ, the results of a military trial escalate violence in Manhattan, prompting combined officials from the U.S. government, Trustwell Corporation, the United Nations, and local leaders to install a provisional governor. Parco Delgado, the charismatic and idealistic leader of a local faction, is voted in as the governor, on the promise that he will represent and do right by the DMZ's “forgotten population.” “Blood In The Game” is also the story arc in which Liberty News journalist Matthew Roth gets fully radicalized. Notably, Matthew does not have an equivalent in the cast of HBO's DMZ, even though the entire comic book series is built around the character. In “Blood in the Game,” Matthew's clout as a local DMZ celebrity secures the win for Parco, and Matthew becomes Parco's right-hand man, a veritable preacher for the Delgado Nation. Finally letting go of his role as just an observer, Matthew picks up a rifle for Parco's cause: a sovereign DMZ free to self-determine.
Later, Matthew acquires gold bars from Wilson to buy weapons, including a nuclear bomb with help from the separatist Free States Army, which Parco uses to deter foreign aggression. This earns Matthew his own paramilitary death squad, which he later uses to inadvertently commit war crimes. Things further escalate for Parco and Matthew in the storylines following “Blood in the Game.” After Parco goes missing, the U.S. finds the nuclear bomb and destroys it, poisoning Manhattan's air and water with radiation, a stark reminder of the impact of nuclear war. During Parco's subsequent trial, he admits to being funded by and cooperating with the FSA, but only doing it with the intent to create a democratic and sovereign DMZ, ending with Parco taking the fall for the nuclear explosion. Matthew pulls some strings to publicly stage Parco's mock execution and have him exiled with his family. In the concluding storyline of DC/Vertigo's DMZ, Matthew spends his last days in the DMZ with Zee, finishing his book “WARTIME: The DMZ and the Second American Civil War.” During Matthew's military tribunal trial, he pleas guilty to all charges of war crimes, ending with Matthew receiving a life sentence without parole.
“Blood in the Game” was just the setup to a larger narrative that tackles life during wartime, the burdens of political leaders, corporate greed, war profiteering, and the struggle for self-determination and sovereignty. Parco Delgado's character, like Paul Atreides from Dune, is really a warning about how even the most well-meaning messiahs never really measure up to their promises of salvation. HBO's DMZ flips this by turning Parco Delgado into a warlord who only wants to help himself. That said, while Matthew is missing in the series, Zee takes his place as the protagonist, driven by the same moral compass as the comic book version of Zee, which allows her to assume the positive roles that Parco assumes in the comics. The result is a show that, despite its faults, stays true to the core messages of DC/Vertigo's DMZ. Even though it's limited to just 4 hour-long episodes, HBO's DMZ still succeeds at deconstructing the city of New York as a literary trope, revealing the realities of war, and holding those in power accountable for their actions.
During the ending of HBO's DMZ, Zee essentially becomes what Parco aspired to become in the comic book. Meanwhile, the Zee in the comics never even leaves New York when the fighting begins, working as a medic in the streets since day one of the DMZ. In both the HBO series and the DC/Vertigo comic book, Zee represents the human face of the civil war, committed to the singular purpose of saving as many lives as possible in an active war zone. While Matthew Roth isn't in the series, Zee is the heart and soul of the DMZ, which the HBO series definitely gets right.
DMZ is streaming now on HBO Max.
