Featured Review: Marvel Zombies
In what is the first of several upcoming quality reviews, GNA contributing editor Barry Harter has provided an opinionated look at what may be the biggest Marvel hit of the year. Excerpt follows:
“With an inspired piece of work that pushed the envelope at Marvel, Robert Kirkman created the five-issue Marvel Zombies which has recently, and justly, been collected in hardcover.”
Read on for the full review!
Marvel Zombies
Review by Barry Harter
With an inspired piece of work that pushed the envelope at Marvel, Robert Kirkman created the five-issue Marvel Zombies which has recently, and justly, been collected in hardcover.
Inspired by Scottish-scribe Mark Millar, Kirkman took his work-for-hire project to heart leaving no corpse unturned as the greatest heroes from the House of Ideas made their darkest debut to date. From the Sentinel of Liberty to the mightiest mortal on earth each had a turn in rummaging through the deepest recesses of readers’ minds to see what makes stomachs curdle.
The unexpected hit was a spin off from Millar’s three-issue, alternate universe tale where the Fantastic Four, in their Ultimate title, issues 30 through 32, were transported to a planet in which their living-dead doppleganger and peers find sustenance in neighbors, total strangers or anywhere the living still roam.
Marvel Zombies rises from the grave shortly after Ultimate FF issue 32, following Magneto stumbling through city streets uttering words of braggadocio to bolster his planned escape. As the anti-heroes bear down on their prey, Magnus draws on his homo superior talents to skewer Daredevil, behead Hawkeye and slice the top off Captain America’s head with his own shield. Wasp is successful with her blind side attack, infecting Magneto with a vampirish bite to the neck and initiating a feeding frenzy of gnashing incisors that rend the former X-Men foe limb from limb.
The rest of the story line is as equally lurid and stygian in turns with Kirkman’s humor and Sean Phillip’s graphics.
The beauty in all the brutality is told from the hero’s point of view who discover they must feed to maintain their ability to rationalize their predicament - Bruce Banner discovers the Hulk’s oversized appetite is disproportionate to Bruce Banner’s digestive abilities, Peter Parker must hide from the truth he used Aunt May and Mary Jane to satisfy his salivating cravings and Hank Pym has turned the Black Panther into a Whitman’s Sampler to tap his intellect and bring down the greatest prize of all.
From start to finish, Marvel Zombies is a page turner with the payoff more than worth the price of admission to Marvel’s darkest universe.
Already, a sequel has been promised teaming Army of Darkness’ Ash with these moldering reincarnations bent only on filling their gullets with the most convenient meals available.
Plus, the publishers were gracious enough to include Arthur Suydam’s original cover art for not only the series, but subsequent re-printings, Ultimate Fantastic Four issues 30 through 32 and the cover art that inspired the morbid parodies.
If there were a George Romero award for the most inspired zombie work of the year, Marvel Zombies would get five out of five brains.
View Marvel Zombies image slideshow.
Learn more about Marvel Zombies here at the Graphic Novel Archive.