Marvel Zombies is, of all things, a sequel to the recent Ultimate Fantastic Four storyline "Crossover."  After teasing a crossover with the mainstream Marvel Universe, Mark Millar instead had his version of the Fantastic Four visit a world where everyone's a zombie except Magneto.

It's an odd idea for a comic, but then Marvel probably had two things in mind.  First, they have Robert Kirkman writing for them, and The Walking Dead is far and away his best-received book.  Second, the pun is just too tempting to pass up.

Kirkman picks up where Ultimate Fantastic Four left off, with Magneto surrounded by the zombies after helping the UFF to escape back to their world.  He puts up a decent fight for the first half of the issue, before succumbing to the inevitable.  Then the zombies have a nice chat about their situation.

Following on from Millar's story, the zombie heroes aren't a shuffling horde.  They're just very, very hungry.  Kirkman introduces the idea that, having eaten, they calm down for a bit and can have a sensible conversation.  Most of them seem to be resigned to their situation; Spider-Man, naturally, promptly succumbs to whining about how he's let everyone down. 

It's blackly amusing but doesn't really convince me of the key point - is this idea really going to carry a five-issue miniseries of its own?  There's so little plot in this first issue that Kirkman seems to be resorting to heavy padding already, which isn't a good sign.  And I'm not sure where you go with this as a story - the world's already a write-off, the zombies don't really have anything to achieve, so isn't the story over before it's begun?  That was fine for Ultimate Fantastic Four, where Millar just wanted to use it as a world gone wrong, but I have no idea what story you tell with these characters now.  And having read the first issue, I still have no idea what story Kirkman wants to tell with them.

Cute, in a macabre sort of way, but where can it possibly be going?

Rating: C+

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