Age Of Ultron Vs. Marvel Zombies #3 - Marvel Comics

AGE OF ULTRON VS. MARVEL ZOMBIES No. 3, October 2015

It would be interesting to know whether Editor “Magnanimous Mark” Paniccia had any hand in the fact that Issue Three of “Age Of Ultron Vs. Marvel Zombies” starts rather unpromisingly with the desperately scrawled sentence “It’s worse than we thought”. For despite all of James Robinson’s assurances that “the battle lines will force everyone into two camps -- zombies verses robots” and that “they’re definitely at war” this bitterly disappointing publication's narrative not only depicts a unified Ultron-Zombie host threatening Jim Hammond, the Vision and Wonderman. But one which actually consists of “the worst of both” forces following the adamantium-alloyed automaton’s experiments to combine “the inorganic and the dead”.

To make matters even worse for this twenty-page periodical’s dramatically declining 36,388 readers however, the former “Superman” writer doesn’t even provide this ‘possible intriguing merger’ with much ‘screen time’ and instead decides to regale any bibliophiles foolish enough to have bought this “Secret Wars” tie-in title with uninspiring insights into Hank Pym’s desperate attempts to understand how “the Pym of this domain done built hisself a compoota rowbot man”, Simon William’s love for a female Iron Cross incarnation, Agatha Harkness’ adoration of the green and gold-garbed “creation of order” and a thirteen-panel discussion between Ryoko and “the original Human Torch” as to their understandable concerns surrounding her “synthetic” pregnancy.

Unfortunately, all of this disinteresting exposition is actually the highlight of Robinson’s storyline when compared to the British writer’s inclusion of a lengthy flashback to “the Town o’ Timely” from whence this mini-series’ gun-slinging Wasp originated from. Just why Starman’s co-creator felt it necessary to subject his audience to six shockingly dire pages deliberating over a dancing girl’s rise to infamy as one of the “people with a stupid plan ta overthrow ol’ man Roxxon ‘n’ his whole darn outfit” defies logic and clearly suggests that the author’s much lauded “really cool twist” for a mini-series probably wasn’t all that great in the first place.

Likewise, Steve Pugh’s strength clearly lies in illustrating “reanimated hordes [who] crave live flesh”, as opposed to depicting people enjoying a 'sedentary' existence, as the former “Strontium Dog” sketcher provides some terrifically disturbing pictures of a zombified Magneto, Super Skrull and Sabretooth throughout this comic. Sadly, such ‘eye candy’ is though shamefully scarce as the majority of this magazine’s script instead concerns itself with events transpiring within the Deadlands sanctuary of Salvation; sequences which clearly failed to inspire its artist to deliver nothing but the most mediocre of visualisations.

The variant cover art of "AGE OF ULTRON VS. MARVEL ZOMBIES" No. 3 by Francesco Francavilla