Webcomic / Rebirth

Rebirth is a fantasy Webcomic created by 69Michi. It takes place in a zombie apocalypse, where the main character, Noah, somehow goes back in time before it happened. He now has the chance to correct mistakes from the previous timeline, and possibly change everything for the better. But now he has to decide what choices to make, and which ones could be too much, and which ones to little. But he does know he has to save his son, Neo, who he's ignored for almost all his life. But amidst the apocalypse, his knowledge of the future, and the changes he's making, can he repair their relationship and change this timeline for the better?

You can read it here. Not to be confused with the manhwa with the same title, Rebirth.

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Rebirth contains examples of:

• Abusive Parents: Noah used to be close to Neo, but for some reason, he and Parish begin to ignore him, and basically pretend he doesn’t exist. Not to mention that Ian is more than willing to sacrifice Iva and Neo to the zombies.
• Action Survivor: Naturally, most of the characters have to develop into this.
• Affair? Blame the Bastard: Poor Neo. After Noah found out Neo wasn't his son but his nephew, he can barely even look at him and ignores him most of his life.
• Apocalypse How: The plot is about the zombie apocalypse, how it happened, and strange events that happen after.
• Asshole Victim: Yes, Ian dies, but we can't say he didn't have it coming.
• Arc Words: "Isn't it a bit too late?"
• Awful Wedded Life: Appears to be the case for Ian and Lena. It's also hinted that Noah and Parish's relationship was rocky way before the apocalypse too.
• Awkward Father-Son Bonding Activity: Noah attempts several with Neo, with varying levels of success. As of recent chapters, his efforts do seem to be paying off, with Neo gradually warming up to being doted on.
• Badass Family: The Collins. There's Noah, a skilled blood mage, Neo, who scares Leng, and Abel, who has a giant shadow snake.
• Badass Longcoat: Older Neo wore one in the future, just so you know he's badass.
  • Noah's been wearing one in recent chapters. It looks real good on him, too.
• Bastard Angst: It turns out that Neo is dealing with this.
• Battle Butler: Battle maid, actually. Li is the best so far at taking out zombies. She's even killed one by stabbing it in the head.
  • Turns out Li was trained and chosen for this role from a very young age.
• Batter Up!: Li during the mall trip. She bashes in an undead's head with a bat, and spends the rest of the trip carrying around the bloodstained weapon. Everyone is rightfully intimidated.
• The Beast Master: Both Neo and Abel seem to have shades of this with their respective companions. Abel much less successfully so far.
• Betrayal by Offspring: Why Noah doesn't trust Abel anymore.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Parish, not that she is very good at hiding it, since even Abel is fully aware that his mother is selfish and self-absorbed.
• Black Eyes of Crazy: A trait the undead, and alarmingly, Neo share.
• Blood Magic: Noah can freely manipulate his own blood. He can create weapons that can easily slice through enemies, barriers that can hold back undead or stop bullets, and even mark targets with it and track them for short periods of time.
• Bratty Half-Pint: Mana has shades of this.
• Bumbling Dad: In his more comedic moments, Noah in his attempts to reconnect with Neo.
• Butterfly of Death and Rebirth: Absolutely everywhere, particularly associated with Noah and Law.
• Butterfly of Doom: Noah hopes to avoid this trope at all costs.
• Cain and Abel: Noah is the Abel to Ian’s Cain. But interestingly enough, Noah is the one to kill Ian.
  • Also hinted at with Neo and his brother, Abel.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Neo wastes no time dressing down Noah following Ian's death. It isn't undeserved, and he makes several good points Noah can't disagree with.
• Calling Parents by Their Name: Neo doesn't call Noah dad or uncle even, usually just bitterly calling him Noah.
  • Turns out, it was Noah that demanded Neo stop calling him "father" when Neo was little.
• Cannot Spit It Out: An unusual situation. Noah isn't really trying to hide the truth of his situation and wouldn't mind telling Neo everything, but Law's rules won't let him.
• The Cassandra: Mana. Most people seriously doubt her abilities, either because of her age or simply the supposed impossibility of seeing the future.
• Color Failure: Happens to Noah on occasion, usually when one of his attempts to patch things up with Neo goes wrong.
• Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: A bit more justified than most examples, but Neo angrily demands to know what the hell Noah was thinking cutting himself to save Neo from the undead at the mall. Noah seemingly not seeing anything unusual about what he did only makes Neo angrier.
• Crazy-Prepared: Justified. Since Noah has lived through the apocalypse before, he knows how to prepare for it. This does not go unnoticed by others.
• Creepy Family: The Collins, specifically Noah and his sons, Neo and Abel.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Pretty much every single death by the undead. Special mention to the children torn to pieces by their former classmates and teachers after being trapped in their school, begging for help from their parents.
• Cute Monster Girl: The abnormal girl, complete with Girlish Pigtails and Black Eyes of Crazy.
• Deadpan Snarker: Neo. Oh, Neo.
  • Li is more brutally honest, but she does have her moments.
• A Death in the Limelight: A few so far.
• Death of a Child: Most of the kids in the school died, but special mention goes to the poor child that was brutally disemboweled on screen, begging for his parents.
  • Esther, before she got bit.
  • Karen Vallejo, in chapter 71.
• Devoured by the Horde: A standard of the genre, with Ian's death being the most notable.
• Differently Powered Individual: The Gifted come in all sorts of kinds, with many subcategories of people with similar powers.
• The Dog Bites Back: Noah's put up with a lot of Ian's shit over the years, never really retaliating due to his own ideals of a family. Even after Ian used Noah to capture Neo, Noah was still relatively tolerant of his abuse and disrespect in the second timeline...right up until Ian pushed Noah too far one last time.
• Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Parish has faced no consequences for date raping Noah.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Neo, of all characters, is shown drinking heavily (for his age) in the future. Noah hesitates over confronting him about it.
• Emo Teen: Neo. Being ignored and treated like nothing by your family for a good chunk of your life will do that to you.
• Dramatic Irony: In full effect every time two characters with knowledge of the future are in a scene together.
  • Leng mentioning a particularly skilled blood manipulator he was aware of in the later years of Armageddon.
  • Noah musing that someone would be very lucky to have control over the mutated wolf, completely unaware that that wolf is Hail, the dog he let Neo keep for explicitly that purpose.
• Dysfunctional Family: The Collins, for at least two generations now. They're working on it.
• Evil Uncle: Ian, in spades. Zigzagged, since Neo is actually his son, rather than Noah's. He's still Abel's Evil Uncle at least.
• Extreme Doormat: Lena appeared to be like this in the beginning, but it's slowly shown that she has Hidden Depths when she calls out Parish on her hypocrisy.
  • Subverted even further with Lena as she continues to cheer up and become more confident after Ian's death, having a much easier time interacting with the others and expressing her thoughts and concerns.
• Family Relationship Switcheroo: Neo found out the hard way that his uncle is his dad, and his dad is his uncle.
• Firing One-Handed: Ike shoots an undead with a shotgun one-handed.
• Formerly Friendly Family: Neo once had a really good relationship with his parents, particularly Noah, which just makes the later Parental Neglect and Parental Betrayal all the more painful for him. He and Abel are still at odds, but making steps towards patching things up.
• Futureshadowing: We see bits and pieces from the first timeline that either parallel or predict events in the future timeline.
  • Ian tossing his own child to the hoard of undead to save himself.
  • There's ice on Li's wounds as she leaves in the original timeline.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Subverted with Parish, who's revealed to be a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing who had an affair with Ian, resulting in Neo who doesn't care about Noah. It's implied in regards to Abel, who has made less than kind remarks about Neo, but is also really young.
• Half-Sibling Angst: Half-brothers Ian and Noah have never gotten along, with Ian even referring to Noah's mother as a "whore".
  • Like their fathers before them, Neo and Abel despise each other, though only Neo seems to know they aren't full-blooded siblings. For each of them, their jealousy over Noah's attention is the crux of the issue.
• Handicapped Badass: Noah, who has a severe and often debilitating heart condition.
• Happy Marriage Charade: Noah and Parish kept up the facade of a happily married couple for Abel's sake.
• Hates Everyone Equally: Neo hates everyone about the same amount, with one extremely complicated exception: Noah.
• Hate Sink:
  • There is absolutely nothing likable about Ian. From his constant antagonism of Noah and his affair with his wife to his overall elitist attitude, it's unsurprising that nobody seems to feel sorry for him when Noah shoves him into a hoard of zombies.
• Hates Their Parent: Neo's feelings towards Noah are very complicated, but he blatantly loathes Parish and Ian.
• Heroic Bastard: Neo is revealed to be this, as the result of the affair between Parish and Ian. Although he's more anti-heroic than heroic at this point.
• Heroic Comedic Sociopath: Alix really plays this up, mostly to mess with the group's opponents and captives. As Noah puts it, it's "part of her charm".
  • When Luca points out the military won't be happy they've assaulted a military barricade, Alix happily tells him that they'll just have to make sure no one can tell the military, then.
• High-School Sweethearts: Subverted. Noah and Parish deliberately invoke this image, but reality is much harsher.
• Iconic Item: Two so far; Noah's choker, and Neo's earring.
• I Hate Past Me: Implied with Noah. He vows to correct his wrongs in the past, particularly his relationship with Neo.
• Icy Blue Eyes: Neo has these. Noah can have them too, but only when he's pushed too far.
• Identical Grandson: Future Neo is practically identical to his grandfather, except for the beauty mark he inherited from his mother.
• Just Following Orders: Luca's and the other soldiers explanation for opening fire on innocent civilians begging for help. Absolutely no one is satisfied with this answer.
• The Leader: Noah excels in this role, likely due to his background as a CEO and his years of experience during the original Armageddon. Wyn, Alix, and the others have for the most part happily elected him as their boss.
• Literal Metaphor: Combined with Stealth Pun. Noah has an enlarged heart, as in, his heart is too big for his own good, both literally and figuratively.
• The Load: Parish has so far done absolutely nothing to assist or better the group, even though nearly every minor character has contributed in some form or another.
• Mass Super-Empowering Event: The Eclipse doubles as this, with the initial survivors have the possibility of developing new powers and abilities, typically Elemental Magic.
• Married Too Young: Noah and Parish got married when they were 15/16 years old. It has not gone well for them.
• Mental Time Travel: The premise. Noah wakes up in his younger body several years in the past, right before the apocalypse hits all over again.
• My God, What Have I Done?: While the full details of Neo's capture haven't been revealed, Ian and Abel's dialogue makes it abundantly clear that Neo would not have been caught if not for Noah, something Noah so deeply regrets that it manifests in the snake's illusion.
• My Greatest Second Chance: Noah's been given the chance to fix his mistakes and save the son he abandoned; however, this opportunity doesn't come without its own repercussions.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Noah is unable to ignore Olivier's experiments on the human survivors of Crane and reveals himself in the middle of a military encampment in an effort to save a family of three. It doesn't go well.
• Not Actually His Child: The reason for Noah's rejection of Neo.
• Not Using the "Z" Word: Deliberately invoked by the characters, to keep people from making assumptions about the undead based on what they know about fictional zombies.
• No Zombie Cannibals: The undead don't harm usually each other; they can even team up and cooperate with one another. Olivier notes, however, that until some if fully turned, they are fair game, even if they're already bitten.
• One Super One Powerset: Averted. The Gifted can obtain and contract with empowered artifacts that grant them further abilities.
• Our Zombies Are Different: The undead are much smarter, faster, and more motivated than most traditional zombies, after all, and are capable of developing powers and abilities beyond human capability.
• Papa Wolf: Do not harm Neo in front of Noah. Ian learns this the hard way.
• Parent-Child Team: Noah and Neo, a little begrudgingly on the latter's behalf.
• Parents as People: Noah's treatment of Neo has been completely unacceptable, but the circumstances around it aren't difficult to understand. Noah worked his whole life to prove himself to his father, despite his health condition and his older brother's derision. And then his casual date Parish got pregnant with Neo by his older brother, and she decided to Date Rape Noah so she could pass the child off as his. When Noah's father found out, Noah was forced to either marry her or lose everything he's worked for. Nevertheless, Noah loved the child and tried to have a good life with Parish, right up until he found out the truth, when Parish was already pregnant with another child.
• Parental Neglect: Neo was neglected by Noah and Parish for most of his childhood, and it left its mark.
• Platonic Co-Parenting: What Noah demands of Parish after finding out about the truth of her affair, and the only reason they're still married.
• Plot-Triggering Death:
  • Noah's death in the previous timeline kickstarts his regression to the day of the apocalypse in this timeline.
  • It's eventually revealed that every time Neo dies, a new and more corrupted timeline begins.
• Powers That Be: Law and World, though there are implied to be more. Both seem to have plans revolving around Neo.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Noah delivers a brutal one to Ian before pushing them into a horde of zombies:
  Noah: I've changed my mind. This timeline is better off without you.
• Pushed at the Monster: Ian pulls this with both of his biological children.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Noah's band of survivors is a colorful bunch, including his bodyguard maid, his creepy children, and an assortment of eccentric action survivors. Special mentions to the Unfazed Everyman Wyn, Combat Pragmatist Alix, and Nice Guy Theo.
• Randomly Gifted: Some of the survivors of the Eclipse slowly develop and awaken Magic and Powers. They're even called "Gifted".
• Resentful Guardian: Noah towards Neo, before the apocalypse. After learning of Neo's true parentage, he never neglected Neo's fundamental needs, but completely froze Neo out emotionally.
• Roaring Rampage of Rescue: Implied in the prologue, where Noah is in a facility, covered in blood and having clearly gone through hell, desperately trying to free Neo. He supposedly failed, but there's a glimpse of Noah's body from Neo's point of view, collapsed in front of him with no indication of the canister he was in, suggesting that Noah may have at least partially succeeded.
• Resurrection/Death Loop: Implied for some characters, particularly Neo.
• Self-Harm: An unusual example. One of the first things Noah packs is a knife, and then he prioritizes picking up a better one at the mall at the start of Armageddon, but he has no intention of using it to fight. It's for cutting himself.
• Servile Snarker: Li may have Undying Loyalty towards Noah, but she still reprimands and snarks at him from time to time, especially considering his awkwardness towards Neo and his past treatment of him, even casually telling him it wasn't his first time forgetting his son's birthday.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Ultimately, this is Noah's personal mission.
• Shirtless Scene: Noah's first scene after waking up in the second timeline.
• Sibling Murder: After witnessing Ian push Neo to the zombies, and remembering him doing the same to Iva in the past timeline, Noah decides it would be better for Ian to die, and pushes him to the zombies. And he does it with a smile.
• Sleeping Single: Noah and Parish not only sleep in separate beds, but entirely different rooms.
• Strong Family Resemblance: The Collins genes are strong, so much so that Neo bares a great resemblance to both his father, his uncle, and his grandfather. His skin, however, is a dead giveaway of his true parentage.
• Taught by Experience: Pretty much how every Gifted has to learn how to use their new powers. Those that are from the future have serious advantage in this regard, being already experienced.
• Too Dumb to Live: Esther stupidly stops to steal some jewelry while running from zombies, and then hides the fact that she's been bitten from the rest of the group.
• The Un-Favorite: Neo had this role in his family.
• Unreliable Narrator: It is unclear how different the new timeline really is, since Noah, due to part of his memories being wiped with each reset, can hardly still be considered a properly informed narrator.
• What Year Is This?: Noah asks Li what the date is when he goes back in time, complete with the year.
• Would Hurt a Child: In the previous timeline, Ian pushed Iva to the zombies. In this timeline, he almost kills Neo by doing the same.
  • Leng's secondary objective in Zora is tracking down and eliminating Neo.
  • Olivier doesn't hesitate to use children for his experiments.
• You Can't Fight Fate: Noah knows some events are set in stone. He just doesn't know which ones.
  • Both Mana and Neo insist fate is absolute, though they have different interpretations on what this actually means.
• Zombie Apocalypse: The main conflict the characters face, especially since they don't know how similar or different the zombies are compared to fiction.