Marvel Zombies Return – Wolverine
Ahh. I kind of forgot about this one, with all the crazy Dark Carnival stuff and everything. A Wolverine pastiche comic, set up to look like it occurs in his Golden Age, the Gritty Antihero 80s? Great fun!
Oh, no, wait. It’s a Marvel ZOMBIES comic, so it’ll be chock full of anti-Zombie stereotypes….
Yessir, another day, another Marvel Zombies Return. This particular outing is penned by Jonathan Maberry, an up and coming horror writer who nonetheless pads his volume with lifeist prejudice and gruesome Zombie bashing.
Sigh. According to Wikipedia, in his own works, Maberry is somewhat PRO-Undead. Fred Van Lente must have gotten to him somehow!
Ok, quick summary. This issue of the Marvel Zombies Returns event takes place in Japan, or at least, Marvel’s version of it, with a style reminiscent of Marvel comics of the 80s. Wolverine and Kitty Pryde are on the lookout for an underground fighting tournament held by The Hand, a mystic order of ninjas. Unfortunately for them, their paths are about to cross with a pair of Marvel Zombies. OoooOOo.
Really, it’s about what you’d expect. Wolverine, 80s-style, lots of fighting, blood, violence, and the overall plot of the MZ:R sequence continues. There’s a Wolverine vs. Wolverine fight, which is obviously the Main Event, and things wrap up by the end of the issue, after of course, the requisite buckets and buckets of Zombie-gore. At least Zombie Spiderman gets a somewhat sympathetic treatment here, though he is still hopelessly addicted to delicious human flesh.
I’m not sure what is going on at Marvel these days. You have comics like the wonderful Deadpool: Merc with a Mouth, showcasing a positive view of the Differently Animated, and then you have Fred Van Lente and his anti-Zombie crusade, all under the same roof. A more cynical individual might suggest that they’re trying to sell to both sides of the Zombie Rights issue, but I’m a hopeful sort. Maybe Marvel can move past this rabid Zombie-trashing, once this special event is through.
We here at the ZRC certainly hope so.
About The Author
Yes, I offer humble apologies for bashing my living dead fellow Americans (and some zombified Japanese as well) in MARVEL ZOMBIES RETURN (Marvel Comics, September 2009). In my defense, if look closely at the last panel, the zoms actually win. So, I prefer to consider it subversive zombie promotion rather than zombie bashing.)
In my forthcoming novel, ROT & RUIN (Simon & Schuster, September 7, 2010), the whole story takes place fourteen years after the zombie apocalypse (or is that the zombie liberation?), and the zoms are far more symathetically portrayed than most of the humans.
So, y’see…I’m not a hater. Just a player.
We at the ZRC are always happy to hear about a potentially Unlife-affirming book, and will make it a point to put it on our Amazon wishlist.
Though we often wonder, here at the ZRC, why the coming of Zombies is so often tied to an ‘apocalypse’. What is it about the dead returning to life, perhaps even a bit peckish, that causes such alarm? Every morning all over the world, billions of living people awaken, rising to life if you will, and many of them are hungry as well. More locally, hundreds of millions of fully-respirating Americans drag themselves out of bed and off to their various vocations, foraging along the way for sustenance. Yet, we’ve never seen a horror movie about a horde of breathing people descending upon the drive-thru at McDonalds, moaning gutterally for hash browns.
Just an observation, from your friendly neighborhood Zombie Rights and Advocacy Organization.
The apocalypse is a great leveler. It puts everyone on the same playing field…and makes the prey easier to catch.
The apocalypse may be egalitarian, but I think we all have to move beyond the predator/prey relationship if we’re going to achieve Zombie Equality in our time. Sure, in your post-apocalyptic nightmare world, a horde of the Undead might win one day, while a lone human survivor with his trusty double barrel might triumph the next, but all-out intra-species (or is it inter-species?) war doesn’t make for a very pleasant society in which to live.
By ‘your’ I mean to say ‘your typical’ or perhaps stereotypical post-apocalyptic world. Obviously the ZRC has no specific knowledge of the aforementioned ‘Rot and Ruin’ with regard to the issue of Zombie Rights.
Though we hold out hope. First for positive media portrayals, then solidarity, and then even voting rights. Baby steps. Baby steps.