We’re approaching Halloween, and that means it’s a dark time of year for Zombies and their allies.   The anti-Zombie films are sliding into your local multiplexes, costume stores are full of Zombie props, and the anti-Zombie videogame industry is gearing up for the Left 4 Dead sequel.  It’s a tough time to confront lifeist prejudice.

So it came as no surprise when the latest Marvel Zombies comic came to the mailbox of the ZRC this last week.  Recently we had a chance to peruse its pages, and… well, it’s not pretty.

Marvel is running a special promotion for Marvel Zombies this fall, entitled Marvel Zombies Return.  Each week they’re releasing a new comic, featuring at least one of the Marvel Zombies last seen in Marvel Zombies 2 (written by the odious living supremacist Robert Kirkman).  Several of these one-shot issues are written by special guest authors, while Fred Van Lente, lately of Marvel Zombies 3 and 4, picks up the first and last issues.

So what did Van Lente have in store for our differently-animated wallcrawler?  Nothing good, I assure you.  The theme of this comic seems to be degradation and gross-out humor, as Zombie Spidey lands in an alternate reality that strongly resembles Marvel comics of the late 60s-early 70s.  His counterparts are attending college in New York, there are socially conscious protestors, and the supervillains are low-key and play by the old rules.

In Marvel Zombies 2, the zombies eventually kick their flesh habit and try to reform, to make themselves into heroes again, and Zombie Spidey is no different here… at first.  However, all he can think to do is to ‘cure’ himself of being undead.  What’s next, Northstar trying to cure himself of being gay?  Professor Xavier dropping everything to try and walk again, or Magneto taking a Gentile name and hiding his past?  Why can’t a zombie be a hero?

At any rate, in the quest to find a cure, Zombie Spidey runs into some supervillains and gives in to his urge to devour them, spreading the zombie plague in a series of ridiculously gruesome, over the top fights.  Nothing goes well for him, and the comic ends with a ghastly disfiguring denouement and introduction to the next Marvel Zombies Returns, which will feature Iron Man, sometime next week.

This was one of the ugliest and least pleasant comics the ZRC has ever seen, and that’s saying something, folks.    We cannot condemn this sort of hateful undead-bashing literature strongly enough, and Marvel should feel nothing but shame for this crass publication.

Tags: Review

This entry was posted by John Sears on Thursday, September 17th, 2009 at 3:19 pm and is filed under Zombie Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.