Rise of the super undead
Last week’s Marvel’s What If... episode put the spotlight on marvel Zombies, so here’s a lowdown on this super-undead series.
BEFORE the 21st century, zombies were just mindless living dead characters in works of fiction used to bump up the thrill-and-chill factor. However, comics and movies like The Walking Dead and I Am Legend
gave zombies a new lease of life, making them more than just decaying accessories.
In 2005, Marvel Comics took the undead to a superheroic level by introducing Earth 2149 – an alternate universe dominated by zombie-fied versions of Marvel superheroes and villains.
Unsurprisingly started by shock and horror luminaries Mark Millar (Kick-ass, Wanted, Jupiter’s Legacy)
and Robert Kirkman (creator of The Walking Dead and Invincible), zombies or rather Marvel Zombies became a prominent and recognisable force in the Marvel universe, and its popularity has led to an animated adaptation in last week’s episode of Marvel’s What If....
Now, before we go deeper into the undead world of Marvel Zombies, it is worth mentioning that this wasn’t the first time Marvel had zombies in its books. In fact, one notable character was The Zombie, a Stan Lee and Bill Everett co-creation who appeared in the pages of Menace #5, published by Atlas Comics (which would later become Marvel) in 1953. The Zombie brought back to, er, life 20 years later, when Steve Gerber and Pablo Marcos used it for the blackand-white Tales Of The Zombie horror-comic magazine (1973-1975). After that, however, zombies pretty much rested in peace until the introduction of Marvel Comics.
Millar maketh Zombies
Hollywood films and television shows have introduced us to various types of zombies, including Walkers, Roamers, Lurkers, Homers, Hawkings, Ninjas... you get the idea. But they all had one common weakness – they eat brains, but don’t have any of their own to use!
Millar’s zombie-concept in the Crossover arc of 2005’s Ultimate Fantastic Four #21-#23 stood out because they were intelligent schemers. The “infection” in Millar’s story targets superheroes, which it uses to spread and consume entire dimensions and realities, and the zombies are so smart that they even tricked (Ultimate) Reed into opening a portal to the undead universe because they “ran out of food” and needed fresh meat.
While that Crossover story-arc lasted only three issues, it was so popular that Marvel decided to expand on the undead concept and invited pitches for a spin-off miniseries, which eventually went to one Robert Kirkman, ie the master of comic book zombies.
The Walking Superdead
It was a match made in heaven – Kirkman loves both zombies and Marvel comics, plus he is a long time fan of fellow artist, Sean Phillips. the icing on the cake was having legendary horror-artist Arthur Suydam join the team to deliver “zombified” homage covers.
The chemistry of the team was beautifully evident in the first Marvel Zombies limited series on 2005.
While Millar’s initial story focused on the Ultimate universe’s foray into the zombie world and Magneto’s (last) heroic act,
Kirkman’s approach gave the zombiefied characters’ more, well, character by acknowledging each character’s powers and personalities, and adding an insatiable hunger for flesh and fresh meat.
The zombies’ hunger pangs form the premise of the first Marvel Zombies series, in which our flesh-eating “heroes” realise that the letters in the word “TEAM” also spells “MEAT”!
With Magneto punished for saving the Ultimate Fantastic Four in Millar’s story, the super-zombies then set out to address a bigger problem – famine. Having devoured all non-transhuman human life, they now need to replenish their food supplies, and compounding things further, the Silver Surfer arrives to announce the arrival of the Devourer of Worlds aka Galactus.
However, the arrival of Galactus usually spells doom for a world, in Earth- 2149, it means only one thing – a gigantic cosmic buffet! As expected, the zombies had no qualms with eating the Silver Surfer, and were imbued with his cosmic powers as a result. Then when Galactus himself shows up, the smartest of the undead superheroes – Tony Stark, Hank Pym, Bruce Banner etc – come up with a way to bring down the big man, but that only leads to an all-out food fight between zombiefied superheroes and supervillans.
In the end, the “heroes” win and devour Galactus, which leads to the formation of the “Galacti” which is the cosmic-powered zombie-force of comprising Giant-man, the Hulk,
Iron Man, Luke Cage, Spider-man and Wolverine, travelling through the universe in order to feed their hunger.
E(a)t Tu Cortez?
The original creative team (Kirkman,
Phillips and Suydam) returned for a 5-parter sequel in 2007 – the five-issue Marvel Zombies 2 (MZ2).
Set 40 years after the original event and after a galactic food road trip that included Ego the Living Planet on the menu and also infecting the likes of Thanos, Phoenix and the Gladiator, MZ2 has the hungry-crew revisiting their focus in life.
Apparently, overeating can overcome “The Hunger”, prompting conflict between the members of the Galacti. With Spidey and Luke Cage regaining their conscience and opposing to Giant Man’s plan to start a human “breeding programme”, their conflict eventually brings them to a showdown in New Wakanda, now ruled by an elderly Black Panther (who managed to survive the last event).
T’challa is currently in a power struggle with Malcolm Cortez (leader of the new generation of Acolytes), proving that politics can still exist even in a zombie-ravaged world.
The double crossing between zombies, humans and mutants forms the undercurrent of this story, with Cortez emerging as the biggest winner as he seizes New Wakanda and transports the zombies into another dimension. To give the teleported zombies closure, their tales were subsequently told in the Marvel Zombies Return five parter.
Zombie homecoming
The four-issue
Marvel Zombies 3 (2008) saw a new creative team (Fred Van Lente, Kev Walker and Greg Land) come on board and bring the Zombies to the original Marvel universe aka Earth-616.
This is very much a Machine Man tale, as he and Jocasta goes to the Marvel Zombies universe to find a cure for the zombie plague happening in their world. Here’s also where the links to the first
Marvel Zombies come in – after the Galacti left Earth-2149, the zombie-kingpin stepped in and started a human-clone food bank.
The cure for Earth 616’s zombie plague resides in the blood of Vanessa Fisk (whom the Kingpin has left untouched). They succeed in getting her blood sample with Jocasta taking it back to Earth-616 to develop a vaccine, as Machine Man stays back to battle the zombies and later returns to Earth-616 to kill more zombies. The series then concludes with Earth 616’s Morbius gathering his band of Midnight Sons to take on more zombies in the next series.
B-grade horrors
By the time Marvel Zombies 4 (2009) and 5 (2010) came out, we were starting to miss Kirkman’s vision and influence, as Van Lente’s horror approach had devolved this franchise into a B-grade horror flick.
Continuing from MZ3, Morbius and the new Midnight Sons (i.e. Werewolf, Daimon Hellstrom, Jennifer Kale and Man Thing) continues the battle against the zombie-plague, which is now being blamed on Deadpool’s head and Simon Garth. However, villains like Black Talon and the Hood capitalises on these zombie-spreaders as weapons to destroy all superheroes.
A more innovative approach was adopted for MZ5, as Van Lente used the premise set in MZ3 as a platform, and had a new team (i.e. Morbius, Machine Man, Howard The Duck and A.R.M.O.R. agents) embarked on a journey involving five realities.
The appeal here is that each reality has its own version of the virus and even mimics a popular horror movie. Sadly, this felt more like hotch potch and paled in comparison with the first two series.
With the renewed interest in Marvel Zombies after the stellar What If... episode last week, here’s hoping we’ll get a new and better undead superhero series again.