Well, it's near the end of
October and I haven't had done a single
Halloween-themed post! I've been busy with work and family matters, but I'm going to try to rectify that now by talking about the shambling undead we all know and love:
Zombies in the MC2!
Okay, so technically these lumbering monstrosities aren’t
actually the living dead. Created by
Asgardian sorceress and daughter of
Loki,
Sylene in
Avengers Next #1 by combining her magic with stolen
blood and tissue samples from past and present
Avengers, these ‘
magical
clones’ are sent against the current
Avengers team as a
diversion.
If you are curious, the horde of decaying
bizarro-Avengers
is comprised of zombiefied versions of the following heroes:
American Dream
(Shannon Carter),
Black Panter (T’Challa),
Black Widow (Natasha
Romanoff),
Blue Streak (Blue Kelso),
Luke Cage,
Falcon (Sam
Wilson),
Freebooter (Brandon Cross),
Hawkeye (Clint Barton),
Hercules,
Hulk (Bruce Banner),
J2 (Zane Yama),
Quicksilver (Pietro Maximoff),
Scarlet Witch (Wanda Maximoff),
Stinger (Cassandra Lang),
Thunderstrike
(Kevin Masterson),
Vision,
Wonder Man (Simon Williams) and
Yellowjacket
(Hank Pym).
While
Sylene had intended for her constructs to be
self-sustaining, she found they were constantly draining her ethereal energy
and required her constant supervision to maintain and control. When her focus
was broken by the interference of
Spider-Girl, the putrid doppelgangers
turned to dust almost instantly forcing
Sylene to retreat, but not
before her subordinates succeeded in stealing a component of
Ultron and
kidnapped the real
Kevin Masterson.
The next three examples of
Zombies in the MC2 are
actually all from variant covers rather than in-story appearances. In case you
missed it, the
Marvel Zombies craze led to many comics titles receiving
variant zombie covers and
Spider-Girl was no exception.
Amazing
Spider-Girl #13 featured the art of
Marvel Zombies cover artist
Arthur
Suydam for what is both a striking and disturbing rendition of
Spider-Girl.
Is the costume accurate? No, but I can give it a pass because it does seem to vaguely
reference the cover of the character’s first appearance in
What If #105.
The following year saw a new wave of zombie variant
covers and once again,
Spider-Girl was zombiefied on the cover of her title.
This time,
Amazing Spider-Girl #25 saw long-time
Spider-Girl
artist
Pat Olliffe return teaming with inker
Serge LaPointe for
this alternate cover. Featuring an undead
May ‘Mayday’ Parker on her bed
in costume chowing down on her stuffed animals. I love this cover for its
pitch-perfect concept and tone. Better still,
Pat dubbed this version of
Mayday with the moniker ‘
Spider-Ghoul’ over
on his blog.
*UPDATE* I missed this one when first publishing the post. Thanks to reader arias-98105 for bringing it to my attention.
Another year and another variant cover. This time for
Web of Spider-Man (Vol. 2) #1 featured a zombie variant cover by artist
Mirco Pierfederici depicting 'Spider-Ghoul' in gruesome battle with her zombiefied father,
Spider-Man. The costume isn't 100% accurate again but it's still a pleasant surprise to discover something I previously had no knowledge of before today. I like find new old things, even foul-smelling undead!
That’s about it, everyone! Hope you all have a great time this
Halloween and remember: Don’t eat too many brains! Until my real jobs stop turning
me into a living zombie, I remain
frogoat