Marvel Zombies #2 - Marvel Comics

MARVEL ZOMBIES No. 2, September 2015

Perhaps somewhat surprisingly for a book “packed with [the] festering, corrupted, undead versions of your favourite Marvel characters” this second “Secret Wars” instalment of the popular “Marvel Zombies” franchise didn’t even make it into the top fifty best-selling comics of July 2015 and as a result only 39,148 readers got to initially enjoy Elsa Bloodstone’s continuing journey across “a wasteland full of indescribable horrors”. Such an oversight has arguably deprived many a bibliophile of some of the best ‘creatively evil’ supervillain cameos seen throughout the publisher’s “Battleworld” tie-ins, with writer Simon Spurrier’s ability to weave these colourful ‘walk-ons’ within a tale filled with “putrid wads of horror” and “incredible action” being beyond doubt one the highlights of “Journey Into Misery”.

The two “convenient moveable snack[s]” early chance meeting with a decaying, paralysed M.O.D.O.K. certainly proves an entertaining encounter. For despite the AIM engineered monstrosity having “melted into his own electrics” the living corpse still retains ‘some weapons which are active’ and thus of use to the wanderers. In addition it is hard to imagine a more indignant end to one of Stan Lee’s co-creations than being rolled downhill by the “unflappable” Shield Commander and blown-up in the resultant explosion; “Ow ow ow ow. M-Moribund… organism… d-designed only f…for cannibalism…”

Somewhat less humorously written but infinitely more ‘icky’ is the female monster-hunter’s confrontation with a “dried out” Carnage, a pair of “dupe effect” Sauron zombies and a rather sinister-looking undead Constrictor. Indeed the unflappable Brit’s swift decapitation of the alien symbiote and the creature’s resultant revival due to its “ssscab” being broken is a particularly gross and yucky moment; possibly only surpassed by the grisly sight of several living heads on spikes smelling Elsa's stealthy approach to Mystique’s campsite on account of the wallhead’s “meatstink!”

All of this blood, mutilation and dismemberment is wonderfully drawn by Kev Walker, with the Leeds-based artist’s stomach-churningly detailed putrefying M.O.D.O.K., complete with writhing diminutive limbs, proving to be especially well-pencilled. Possibly less successful however is the illustrator’s gun-toting Ranger Worthington from “Shield-section seven-niner.” Sporting a sort of bizarre flattop hairstyle, wings and a long grey trench coat, the battle-weary Angel simply doesn’t look right, even though the X-Man is clearly wearing an almost identical ‘uniform’ to that of Bloodstone.

Writer: Simon Spurrier, Artist: Kev Walker, and Color Artists:Guru-eFX