For a very long time, there has attempted to be new twists added to the superhero genre, most fairly unsuccessfully. Then someone, somewhere worked out that if you infected Captain America, Spiderman, The Hulk and all the other iconic Marvel characters with a zombie virus – it would create an epic storyline.
So this narrative is set in an alternative universe – this is also the get out of jail clause to keep the existing canon universe safe. The great thing about multi-verse stories lines is always the ability to allow your imagination to run wild, unshackled from having to ensure that certain characters and environments keep their continuity.
So an unidentified carrier has spread a zombie infection which converts the Metahumans into ravenous, destructive, self loathing flesh eating maniacs. There are no humans in sight after the first few pages, as they have been completely devoured by the former superheroes.
Within the opening issue we see Spiderman turning into a zombie and eating Aunt May and Mary Jane, completely unable to control or hold back his hunger. Reed Richards on attempting to find a cure believes that the Zombie life form is a superior specimen and deliberately infects the fantastic four – then begging them to bite him to infect and turn him and enter into a better world. It’s fairly twisted and amoral scenes like this that really cement this storyline as something completely different from the average superhero comic and it’s ultra violent and graphic depictions of heads being cut in half, limbs being hacked off and cannibalism have a darkly compelling, sometimes humorous quality.
The former heroes bicker and complain and fight one another to get their next meal, and upon finding that eating flesh allows their thinking process to clear, then begin to tear open their stomachs and feed on the partially digested parts of their former friends and those that they had protected time after time in the past. One memorable scene has the Hulk feasting on a large portion of humans, only to turn back into Bruce Banner and have his stomach split open with the sheer volume that was consumed
It culminates in the arrival of Galactus and the attempts by the Marvel Zombies to attempt to bring him down and eat him. Again it’s all very entertaining and it’s a great sideways look at the Marvel Universe which name checks most Heroes and Villains.
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