Marvel Zombies: The Complete Collection, Vol. 3

Marvel Zombies (Collected Editions) #6-7

by Karl Kesel (Writer)

Zombies on infinite earths! First, it’s monkey on the menu as the original Marvel Zombies invade the dimension of the Marvel Apes! Then, to uncover an antidote to the zombie plague, Machine Man and Howard the Duck set out across the multiverse — battling zombies in the Wild West, Camelot, a future megacity, during a Martian invasion, and on a world suspiciously similar to our own! But back home, undead clones of the Squadron Supreme have overrun Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S., and only a long-dead former Avenger can stop them! And when the Marvel Universe is targeted by a dimension of Nazi zombies, Howard the Duck must assemble a brigade of misfits to beat them back!

Collects Marvel Apes: Prime Eight #1, Marvel Zombies: Evil Evolution #1, Marvel Zombies 5 #1-5, Marvel Zombies Supreme #1-5, Marvel Zombies Destroy #1-5 And Marvel Zombies Halloween #1.

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Horror, Graphic Novels, Comic Book, Graphic Novels Comics

464 pages, Paperback

First published October 28, 2014

About the author

Karl Kesel (Victor, New York) is an American comics writer and inker whose works have primarily been under contract for DC Comics. He is a member of Periscope Studio. In 2017, he started Panic Button Press with Tom Grummett to publish the creator-owned graphic novel Section Zero.

Reviews

[Lost Planet Airman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finally... review to follow! (...as in I finally managed to finish this h-h-h-huge, three-volume set of all the "Marvel Zombies" works!)

If you are joining us late, you might remember that in previous stories we put a pretty good wrap on "original" Marvel zombies, and also on the Marvel Zombies 3 and Marvel Zombies 4 stories of the aborted incursion of flesh-eating undead into the mainline Marvel universe.

But, with access to time travel and dimensional portals, there's room for a few more side stories with our favorite Undead Universe. This collection first gives us a two-art cross-over between Marvel Zombies and Marvel Apes that nicely, doesn't interfere with either continuity and supplies a lot of bad puns and one-liners with new un-life.

Next, in Marvel Zombies 5, A.R.M.O.R., the Alternate Reality Monitoring and Operational Response Unit, has presumably garnered an incredible government grant to protect the Multiverse, because they are sending new agent Howard the Duck and a certain returning, zombie-proof robot hero to gather five other strains of zombie plague (among them 'Romero', 'Raimi', and 'Jackson') to create a universal cure. The mission wraps rather obscurely in Altiverse-0000, a source of mind-numbing normalcy. (CDE: Classic Dialog Excerpt: Jacali Kane: "I will render your brain inedible if you don't tell me where my friend is." Killraven: "Your 'friend' is a robot--" JK: "Did I ask for your opinion?"

There's a brief intermission while we discover that, separate from the horrors of the original Marvel Zombies, some Marvel universe mad scientist on another government grant has been mucking about with Squadron Supreme DNA, corpses, and zeta rays. Never a good combination, especially for Battlestar and the super-non-'super' military squad sent in to investigate loss of contact with the facility.

In the five chapters/issues of the penultimate title, Marvel Zombies Destroy!, Howard the Duck and 'Dum Dum' Dugan bring us the last word in Zombie dimensions: a Nazi regime that won WW II by turning to occult science and becoming the undead (shades of the 1987 Thor Meets Captain America novelette by David Brin, anyone?) Can an A.R.M.O.R. 'Dirty Duckzen' stop Nazi Zombies from breaking into the Marvel Universe? CDE: Zombie Red Skull (motivating the troops): "History is made at night! Character is what you are in the dark! ... WHERE ARE WE GOING?!" NZs: "ANOTHER EARTH!" ZRS: "WHEN?!" NZs: "REAL SOON!" (Bonus point is you made the call that the dialog was lifted straight from The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension.

And at the end of the book, as Swan Song, is the one-shot Marvel Zombies Halloween Comic: the last surviving human child in the Marvel Zombie Universe slips away from the refuge he shares with his with with mother to celebrate Halloween -- and he's on his way to being some Marvel Zombie's real 'treat'.

[Shaun Stanley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Marvel Zombies The Complete Collection Vol. 3 collects Marvel Apes: Prime Eight #1, Marvel Zombies Evil Evolution #1, Marvel Zombies 5 #1-5, Marvel Zombies Supreme #1-5, Marvel Zombies Destroy #1-5, and Marvel Zombies Halloween #1 written by Karl Kesel, Fref Van Lente, Frank Marraffino, and Peter David with art by Todd Nauck, Rob Di Salvo, Kano, Jason Paz, among others.

Marvel Apes: Prime Eight: 2.5/5 ⭐️ In a bizarre storyline, a universe in which all the Marvel heroes and villains are apes, meet the Marvel Zombies. Pretty strong art. I can't believe I have never heard of the Marvel Ape storyline. It's just beyond ridiculous. If you are a fan of puns, this books is for you.

Marvel Zombies Evil Evolution: 2/5⭐️ A continuation of Apes/Zombies crossover. More of the same.

Marvel Zombies 5: 1/5⭐️ Machine Man and Howard the Duck travel the multiverse to collect blood samples of each universe's version of the undead in order to help develop a cure. Fast paced action but feels like a desperate attempt to keep the series going.

Marvel Zombies Supreme: 2/5⭐️ In an alternate universe the Squadron Supreme becomes zombies. I don't know if I have ever read a Squadron Supreme book. It was okay but still doesn't add anything new to the Zombie Universe.

Marvel Zombies Destroy: 1/5⭐️ Howard the Duck recruites Dum Dum Dugan to battle a zombie Red Skull and Nazi zombie army. Really scraping the bottom of the barrel here. They should have ended the zombieverse at least 4 books ago.

Marvel Zombies Halloween: 3/5⭐️ A fun little story involving Kitty Pride and her son Peter. It's Halloween day in the zombieverse and young Peter has never celebrated the holiday. In order to try to bring her son some sort of normalness and happiness, she throws a small Halloween party and then - you guessed it - Zombies!

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

A dud. Pretty terrible through-out.

[Simon · Rating 1 out of 5]

In theory Howard the Duck and Aaron stack teaming up to kill zombies should have been fun.

In practice, this was just a horrible collection. And I think it's time for the Marvel Zombies to be thoroughly retired.

[Kristine Sprunger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, that gave me nightmares.
I'll read the rest, later. :)

[tony dillard jr · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can't tell you the number of times I've grabbed this book, only to put it right back down. That's because in this, the 3rd volume of collected Marvel Zombies tales, there's also a Halloween Special included. I've had this book for several years and always keep forgetting in October to read it. Well, not this year. I made sure that it was the first thing I grab for my 2024 Halloween reads!

Before celebrating All Hallow's Eve with the undead heroes of the Marvel Universe, there's several minis and one-shots to experience. All of them bloody. All of them rated for mature audiences.

The contagion finds its way to the universe of the Marvel Apes. According to a traveller from the future, the key to preventing the zombie virus from taking root in Earth-8101, a group of heroes led by the Iron Mandrill must protect that world's version of Doctor Doom!
The source of the zombie infection is finally revealed.
Howard the Duck and a Machine Man must travel through various time periods of several universes to collect samples of the zombie virus in hopes of irradiating the threat to Earth-616.
Howard then returns with a squadron of some of the biggest oddball heroes of the multiverse, led by Dum Dum Dugan, to prevent a world in which a Third Reich of Zombie's won World War II from taking over Earth-616.
A Special Forces team is sent to quell a zombie invasion begun at Project PAGASUS.
Finally, a mysterious female survivor of the undead outbreak, teaches her son about Halloween.
Karl Kesel, Fred Van Lente, Frank Marraffino and Peter David are the writers who dreamed up this anthology of terror. It's artists such as Todd Nauck, Alessandro Vitti and Kano who brought these nightmares to vivid life. I used to joke how a single issue print run of Robert Kirkman's Invincible must have caused shortages of red ink because of all the blood. I've thinking that this book might have attempted to break that record.

I must have bought this book for the Halloween special. Completing a run of the Marvel Zombies books has never been one of my comic book collecting goals. I've read a couple of volumes previously and while it's a fun scare compared to some of the more secular Marvel Horror titles, there's still a lot of death and destruction. I think it's more shocking when the carnage is caused by or thrust upon beloved icons of your youth. It's definitely more disturbing.

[Joseph Pierone · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well prepared document, overdone premise.

I think they did a great job curating this collection of comics into one offering. It was good enough to finish, but they dropped the serialized format to focus on loosely related zombie stories that don't really line up with the original stories. I'd have preferred to have a continued storyline that matched collection 2.

Spoilers - specifically annoyed that the zombies who overcame their hunger suddenly got it back for no reason. It broke the continuity for me.

[Jeremiah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two words: SQUADRON SUPREME.
More words: This book went from a subpar three to a strong four on the backs of Hyperion, and Nighthawk.!

[Diego · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not exactly the way I wanted a Marvel zombies story to play out but had fun reading the series

[Kamil Henri · Rating 3 out of 5]

6.5/10

[Bennett Hicks · Rating 2 out of 5]

so mid. and also they just end it like that, i mean bro

[Charline · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like that they made multiple series with the concept. Each brings a new vision and new characters, it's very refreshing! I liked the three volumes and I sure hope Marvel will make more!