Marvel Zombies

Holy fuck, this was awesome. I'm on a total zombie binge right now, so I'm probably a little biased, but seriously. How can you not fucking love zombies?

I really liked the art style, faces always being heavily shadowed, and the design of most of the prominent zombies were awesome. You can really tell they put a lot of effort into the main characters. Sadly, you can also tell that they didn't care about any secondary characters that showed up. I mean being a "team book" of sorts that makes sense, and it's not like you can't ever tell who's who. Luckily it doesn't focus on them much anyway. Also, props for all the covers referencing older titles in the marvelverse.

The humor was pretty good too. From Wolverine casually ripping his arm off after he accidently rips his bones straight through the skin of his arms. To the Hulk complaining because the Silver Surfers head doesn't taste as good as the rest of his body. There is a lot of quality dark and usually gory humor here, but it's all good assuming it's your style.

There was quite a bit of awesome action going on through out the book as well. It breaks down most "feeding" pages into 12 boxes showing the zombies eating their prey. Being zombies they don't really die and massive injuries end up being more of an annoyance than anything. Watching Spider-man rip off his leg, or Tony Stark getting cut in two is just plain awesome. Intelligent zombies is such an fantastic idea, I really hope it gets explored more, even outside the realm of super heroes.

The narrative manages to be a fun romp and gives meaning, at least as much as it can, to all the violence and ungodly acts. Magneto is seen talking to the Acolytes on Asteriod M, then he runs off and fights the zombies. Though the Wasp attacks him by shrinking down, subdues him and he's soon devoured. The zombies return to the rest of the group while zombie Giant-Man goes off to his lab.

The zombies all regroup and argue about Magneto being eaten. All the while it shows Giant-Man secertly eating parts of Black Panther in such a way that keeps him alive. The hunger drives the heros insane so in order to think clearly they need to consume, this is how Giant-Man rationalizes his actions, he always was the extreme one. The Wasp finds out about it, and he bites her head off.

Silver surfer ends up confronting the one time heroes but not even the power cosmic can stand up to the undead might. They consume him as per usual but gain more than a shred of sanity as miraculously all who ate a part of him gained a bit of the cosmic power. This is not a good thing for the rest of the universe. The appearance of the Silver Surfer usually foretells one thing. The coming of Galactus. A massive battle ensues.

 I've already given a bit of the plot away, but there's more to it. The plot itself isn't quite as important as how it plays out. Seeing some of the world's most morally driven people go insane and eat others, only to soon after regain their intelligence, and grasp the horrors they've committed. That's the joy in this particular comic.

There's a bit in Ultimate Fantastic Four where Ultimate Reed Richards comes to that Earth but is transported back to his home before they eat him. This is where the true "Marvel Zombies" mini-series starts up. A prequel is also in the works.

Beyond that, all I can say is that I was happy with it for the most part, and a sequel could happen. Which would kick major ass.

-Adam
[2012 - Unfortunately the Marvel Zombies franchise went to shit right quick]