::Dan sprawls on his favorite easy chair, legs over the arms, feet pointed at the ceiling, head almost on the floor. He’s flipping through the Netflix and Hulu and Amazon at an alarming pace::
D: One trazillion internet stations, and nothing to watch! This is what it must have been like back in the Little House on the Prairie days!
K: Chill out there, Laura Ingalls Wilder. Things aren’t that bad. Besides, I think even she had basic network stations. They just didn’t have TV on their phones back in the olden days. They just texted all the time, but it was really shitty ‘cause they didn’t have dedicated keyboards so it was just really hard.
D: That’s why the future is so great. Dedicated keyboards. But there still isn’t anything good to watch.
K: Here, hold up. There’s “Walking Dead”. You like that. Let’s watch that.
D: Seen it already.
K: Stop there! WORLD WAR Z was cool!
D: SEEN IT. Besides, I’m kinda zombied out.
K: “Zombied out”?! NO SUCH THING! Here. You like super-heroes, right?
D: … yes. Why do I get uncomfortable when you ask me questions?
K: Because I’m usually asking you where you were last night and why there’s chocolate on your shirt.
D: I CAN’T ANSWER THAT.
K: Most dudes have lipstick on their collar, weirdo. Anyway… here. Zombies. Marvel heroes. Chaos, as they say, ensues.
…
D: That certainly lived up to the promise of chaos ensuing. Things appear to have taken a horrible turn for the Marvel Heroes. They really aren’t heroes so much as hunger-driven zombies.
K: AS PROMISED IN THE TITLE OF THE BOOK! You immediately know that the Marvel Universe has been upended when you read the title. MARVEL ZOMBIES. There are zombies in the Marvel Universe. What more do you need to know? The dead are now undead. Er, the living are now the undead. The heroes eat people! ‘Nuff said.
D: I think that Crimespree pays us to say a little more about the comic book than “There are zombies in the Marvel Universe”.
K: ::blinks::
D: Do you have anything else to say about the comic book by Robert Kirkman?
K: You get paid by Crimespree? How long as that been going on?
D: I CAN’T ANSWER THAT.
K: Uh huh. We’ll discuss that when the blog reader isn’t around. (Hi, Mom!) Back to the Marvel zombies… Something happened in the Marvel Universe and now all of the heroes are zombies. They’ve managed to eat everyone in the area, and I mean everyone. Spidey ate Aunt May. The Avengers ate Jarvis. Things are looking bleak.
D: Magneto has somehow avoided becoming infected. He’s devised a plan to trap the zombies in their current dimension, but he’s trapped with them. Now he’s on the run for his life. As you can imagine, things don’t end well for the Master of Magnetism.
K: He does put up one hell of a fight. Hawkeye’s head literally roles after Magneto takes him out with Captain America’s shield. That’s after Magneto slices off Cap’s skull cap.
D: This is a pretty gory book. Robert Kirkman, you know the guy that created WALKING DEAD, knows how to write one hell of a zombie comic book. He also adds some humanity to the story. The undead superheroes retain their personalities instead of becoming mindless, flesh-hungry creatures. In one scene the heroes try to reason out what is really going on with their bodies.
K: I loved that part! Bruce Banner realizes that the leg he just ate is sitting in his stomach, not really being digested. Except when he ate said leg, he was The Hulk and his stomach was physically bigger then now and the contents are too big for his human stomach and, well, it needs to go someplace and the leg bone breaks through Banner’s tummy and it’s kinda gross.
D: As one of the many doctors among the Marvel Heroes, Dr. Hank Pym just wants to figure out what is going on. He tries to determine out what makes the zombies continue to survive. Daredevil proves that he can get around OK without a heart, but his ankles are swelling on account of his blood pooling there. And Captain America shows that the loss of your brain doesn’t affect the zombie-ness. Since he’s, well… holding his brains in his own hand. Ew.
K: Kirkman can write the hell out of a zombie comic, but Sean Phillips more than keeps up with him when it comes to the art. Phillips, while primarily known for his much awarded crime comics such as CRIMINAL and THE FADE OUT, is equally adept when drawing superheroes and horror. He affectively conveys the panic that a wounded and weary Mangeto feels while being cornered by flesh-craved, zombified superheroes. Phillips’ art causes a chill to run down your spine. Wonderful stuff.
D: I would like to retract my previous statement about being “Zombied Out”. MARVEL ZOMBIES has brought be back into the undead fold. Marvel has put out a number of these “True Believer” $1.00 editions of classic first issues as teasers for upcoming mini-series that are spinning out of the upcoming SECRET WARS mega-event. Well played, Marvel. Well played.
K: Hooray! Now can we talk about where you were last night and the chocolate on your shirt?
D: ::points:: LOOK OUT! ZOMBIE THOR!
K: ::looks over shoulder::
D: ::runs away::
K: MAAALLLLMMMOOONNN!
