31 Days of Halloween (Day 21) - Marvel Zombies 3

The first Marvel Zombies series started out as spin-off of a story arc in Ultimate Fantastic Four. The premise is pretty neat: what would happen if traditional Marvel super-heroes became flesh eating zombies due to a trans-dimensional virus? Set on Earth 2149 - one of the many alternate Marvel universes (the mainstream Marvel Universe is Earth 616) - the original MZ series dealt with some of the big names in the Marvel pantheon. Spider-Man, wolverine, Colonel America (hey, it is an alternate universe), Hulk...all turned into zombies. The population of the planet is wiped out in a matter of days. The zombies explore various means of satiating their hunger, including attempts to travel to other dimensions, spurred on by the virus, which wants to spread across the multiverse.

Or something like that. Really, this is more about super-powered carnage than anything else.

Aaron and Jocasta looking all Army of Darkness

Of the spin-off series, MZ3 is the best. It features one of my favorite second-tier characters, Aaron Stack aka Machine Man, a misanthropic robot who does heroic things morality for beer and as an excuse to engage in excessive amounts of violence, all while taunting humans (or "fleshies" as he not so affectionately calls them) for being inferior to him. Great stuff.

MZ3 opens with Zombie Deadpool crossing over into Earth 616 through a dimensional nexus in Florida. The Command, a US government sponsored team of superheroes, responds and is almost wiped out, but the zombie outbreak seems to be contained. For the moment. ARMOR, A division of SHIELD charged with stopping extra-dimensional threats recruits Stack to travel to Earth 2149 and acquire a sample of the zombie virus in order to create a vaccine. Of course, not all is as it seems with the head of the vaccine program, Dr Michael Morbius aka the Living Vampire. He's been replaced by his zombie counter-part from the alternate universe.

Accompanied by Jocasta, another robot that Stack has a "thing" for and ARMOR director Little Sky, a dimensional teleporter, Aaron heads to the zombie universe. His motivation? To save the human race...naw, just kidding, he wants to impress Jocasta enough so that she'll hook up with him. Yes, we're talking hot robot-on-robot action here, True Believers.

Feeding time in the clone center. Zombies have terrible table manners.

Aaron and Jocasta find that zombie Kingpin has set up a human cloning center in the ruins of New York City. He is using the clones to control what is left of the super-zombies by allowing them to feed on the replicated humans. He is also working with the Inhumans to spread the "Hunger Gospel" (what the zombies call the virus) to Earth 616. Mayhem ensues as Aaron, overcome by the need to do something either heroic and/or explosively violent, attacks the zombie hordes in the clone center.

After killing (or, actually, re-killing) numerous zombies, Aaron confronts Kingpin who then monologues his whole plan (something that Aaron jokes about; self-referential humor and satire are staples of the MZ series) which basically involves Zombie Morbius using the pretext of an inoculation to infect the super-heroes of Earth 616 with the virus.

Back on Earth, the ARMOR headquarters has been overrun by zombies. Luckily, it is buried deep underground and can only be accessed by teleporters. Jocasta and the ARMOR director mount a last stand against the undead, aided at the last moment by the non-zombie Living Vampire and Aaron, who finds a way to transport himself from the zombie dimension to the his own using Zombie Lockjaw. The day is saved thanks to vast amounts of violence - In the words of Aaron "I have been programmed to eviscerate your repulsive squishy organic bits and chew gum...and I hate gum" - and Morbius is tasked with putting together a team to find what appears to be one zombie who manged to teleport out of ARMOR headquarters tot he surface. Which leads to MZ4.

Written by Fred Van Lente, the dialogue is clever and the story in general makes sense. There are a couple of plot holes; for example, it is never explained how Zombie Morbius gets through the Nexus of Realities undetected since ARMOR seems to be monitoring it at all times. And there is a bit of a deus ex machina at the end with Lockjaw able to somehow teleport Aaron back to his own dimension. These don't detract from the overall enjoyment of the story, however. As a Machine Man fan, it is nice to see him in the hands of a writer who can balance the snarkiness, annoyance with humans, but overall heroic nature. And the art by Kev Walker is fantastic, reminding me of something you'd find in a '70s Eerie comic. The gore is pretty intense, but this is called Marvel Zombies; you wouldn't expect a non-splattery zombie story, would you? Oh, right, World War Z...okay, I guess you might. If you like the idea of a zombie/superhero mashup, check out any of the MZ line. It's a lot of gruesomely fun undead action.