Marvel Zombies Supreme #1

Next March, the Marvel Zombies will rise once again, and this time they’re infecting the Squadron Supreme.

Courtesy of our friends at Marvel Comics, we’re pleased to bring you the first look at Marvel Zombies Supreme, a five-issue series by writer Frank Marraffino (who wrote the Haunted Tank miniseries for Vertigo a couple years back) and the art team of Fernando Blanco, Jason Paz and Chris Chuckry. Michael Komarck provides the covers.

The story revolves around Jill Harper and her “super-crisis special-ops unit,” who investigate an underground research facility where a new virulent zombie strain has infected the Squadron Supreme. It’s up to Harper and her crew to keep the zombies from escaping the facility to devour the rest of the planet.

First launched in 2005, the Marvel Zombies series of miniseries have shown us what happens when you mix superheroes and zombies — it usually ends badly for the heroes and the people they protect. The original series featured a decimated Earth-2149, which was overrun by zombie versions of Spider-Man, Wolverine and other Marvel heroes. The zombies have gone on to appear in the regular Marvel (616) universe, in a crossover with Dynamite’s Army of Darkness movie adaptation and even in a Spider-Ham one-shot.

Check out the full solicitation info and the cover to the second issue, also by Komarck, after the jump.

*****

Writer: Frank Marraffino
Penciler: Fernando Blanco
Inker: Jason Paz
Colorist: Chris Chuckry
Letterer: Dave Sharpe
Cover artist: Michael Komarck

Responding to a mysterious emergency call, Jill Harper and her super-crisis special-ops unit descend deep into the bowels of a top secret underground research facility. They discover that the demented experiments of an unhinged geneticist have placed them at ground zero of a brand new virulent zombie strain – one that has infected powerful superheroes. The Squadron Supreme, once heroic defenders of justice and utopian ideals, have been reduced to corpulent cannibalistic murderers with a voracious appetite for human flesh. Harper and her team fight against overwhelming odds to stop this ravenous zombie menace where it began – before it spreads out to devour the earth.

Marvel Zombies Supreme #2

Marvel Zombies 5 #1

Marvel announced today that they are bringing Marvel Zombies back from the dead one more time with a fifth mini-series, by writer Fred Van Lente and artist Kano.

“What I’ve tried to do ever since they gave me the Zombies assignment was to do something different every time,” Van Lente told Marvel.com. “Folks who read [MARVEL ZOMBIES 4] know that at the end Jack Russell, Werewolf by Night, was infested with the zombie virus. Morbius the Living Vampire wants to cure his friend and in order to do that he needs to somehow figure out a way to unlock a cure for zombie-ism. He recruits his old pal Machine Man from MARVEL ZOMBIES 3, who is back and is again the star of the series, and sends him across the multiverse to take samples from different kinds of zombies.”

Van Lente says Machine Man and a mystery companion will encounter zombies in places like Camelot, the Old West and Killraven’s War of the Worlds. The five-issue series kicks off in April.

The Zomibe Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks

Writing for Publishers Weekly, Stefan Dziemianowicz examines the lurching and lumbering rise of zombie fiction, from World War Z and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies to The Walking Dead and Marvel Zombies.

Time magazine has even gone so far as to declare that “Zombies Are the New Vampires,” which probably leaves fans of True Blood/The Southern Vampire Mysteries and Twilight scratching their heads (or sharpening their fangs).

So what’s to blame for this most recent resurgence of the walking dead (lower-case)? As with so many cultural trends of the past several years, the bony finger points to 9/11 which, Dziemianowicz writes, transformed the zombie into “a monster for our time.”

Of course, it’s not all zombies, zombies, zombies (although some days it does seem that way). Quirk Books, the publisher behind the hit Pride and Prejudice and Zombies — the Jane Austen mashup — already have moved on to a new menace: sea monsters.

Yesterday the company announced it will release Sense, Sensibility and Sea Monsters in September. Co-authored by Ben H. Winters, the next book in the series will include “a giant rampaging mutant lobster,” “octopi with glittering tentacles” and, of course, pirates. (You can view a trailer for the book here.)

Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters

“I loved the idea of sea monsters,” Winters tells EW.com. “I’d hate to say our culture is oversaturated with vampires and zombies, but it was fun to do something different.”

Poor, poor zombies: from “the New Vampires” to yesterday’s news, just like that?

“A couple of publishers are crashing Jane Austen vampire novels that will no doubt capitalise on the success of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and there were certainly plenty of people who urged me to do the same,” Jason Rekulak, Quirk’s editorial director, tells The Guardian. “But I think Pride and Prejudice and Zombies fans are counting on us to deliver something original, and I don’t think they will be disappointed.”

However, don’t expect the undead to slink quietly into the night — at least not anytime soon.

The next Marvel Zombies miniseries debuts in September, with contributions from authors Seth Grahame-Smith (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies), Jonathan Maberry (Patient Zero) and David Wellington (the Monster trilogy). The following month will see the release of The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks, a graphic novel by Max Brooks, author of the best-selling World War Z.

Then there are the novels Queen Victoria: Demon Hunter — “She Loved Her Country; She Hated Demons” — by the pseudonymous A E Moorat (October), I Am Scrooge: A Zombie Story For Christmas — “Marley was dead. Again.” — by Adam Roberts (October), Boneshaker, by Cherie Priest (October), and Grahame-Smith’s follow-up Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

And those, for good or bad, barely scratch the dirt-covered surface.

Longbox

This past weekend Philadelphia welcomed Wizard World, while Charlotte hosted HeroesCon. Two East Coast conventions, separated by more than 500 miles and a couple of states. If you were away from your computer, then you may have missed some of the announcements that sprang from both venues:

• For years people have been asking for an “iTunes for comics.” Well, it looks like we might actually get one. Rantz Hoseley’s Longbox will be a free download available later this year for PC, Macs and Linux. Comics can be download for a suggested price point of $.99 per issue, with the potential for block and subscription pricing. BOOM! and Top Cow have already signed on.

• Marvel had a lot of announcements at the show. Spinning out of the Uncanny X-Men/Dark Avengers crossover that kicks off any day now will be a series of one-shots that fall under the heading of Dark Reign: The List. Basically Norman Osbourn starts making a list of everyone standing in his way who he needs to do dirty, nasty things to.

The eight one shots and the creators working on them are:

Dark Reign: The List – Daredevil by Andy Diggle and Billy Tan
Dark Reign: The List – Wolverine by Jason Aaron and Esad Ribic
Dark Reign: The List – Hulk by Greg Pak and Ben Oliver
Dark Reign: The List – Amazing Spider-Man by Dan Slott and Adam Kubert
Dark Reign: The List – Avengers by Brian Bendis and Marko Djurdjevic
Dark Reign: The List – Uncanny X-Men by Matt Fraction and Alan Davis
Dark Reign: The List – Secret Warriors by Jonathan Hickman and Ed McGuiness
Dark Reign: The List – Punisher by Rick Remender and John Romita Jr.

The project was announced at around the same time both in Philadelphia and in Charlotte. For more info, check out CBR’s interviews with Bendis, Fraction and Remender, as well as Pak, Hickman and Aaron. Also, Aaron talks a little bit about his Wolverine one-shot on his blog; it will feature both Marvel Boy and Fantomex, as well as a new Weapon XVI.

• Several of Spider-Man’s classic villains, like Electro, Rhino and Mysterio, are returning in a storyline called “The Gauntlet.” It also looks like the Black Cat is back for some Spidey lovin’.

Astonishing X-Men

• Creative team shuffles … Andy Diggle and Roberto De La Torre are the new creative team on Daredevil with issue #501. Rick Remender and Mahmud S. Asrar are doing a guest issue of Thunderbolts, which will feature Luke Cage and Iron Fist. Phil Jimenez is the new artist on Astonishing X-Men, joining Warren Ellis as of issue #31. And apparently Sean McKeever’s exclusive contract with DC is up, as he’s working on a new series for Marvel called Nomad: Girl Without a World, starring the Bucky from the Heroes Reborn comics.

• The new Sorcerer Supreme, Doctor Voodoo, gets his own series in October written by Rick Remender, while the old Sorcerer Supreme gets a mini-series by Mark Waid.

• Marvel is launching another Moon Knight ongoing series by crime novelist and Punisher writer Gregg Hurwitz, with art by Jerome Opeña.

• Daniel Way and Richard Corben are working on a Starr the Slayer mini-series for Marvel MAX.

• Psylocke will star in a mini-series written by Christopher Yost. “The mandate on this series was ‘Tell us a story that reminds everyone of why she’s so kick ass,’” Yost told Kiel Phegley.

• Kieron Gillen and Cary Nord are working on an Ares mini-series.

• Gregg Schigiel and Jacob Chabot are doing an X-Babies mini-series that will feature the return of several Star Comics characters.

• There’s more Marvel Zombies coming.

• DC Comics used both conventions to show off their new Wednesday Comics title. Check out this picture from HeroesCon:

Wednesday Comics

That’s editor Ian Sattler, showing off a copy.

• In Philadelphia, Dan DiDio announced a new Jonah Hex hardcover by Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray and Tony DeZuniga. He also announced a new Doc Savage series by Brian Azarello and Rags Morales set in an alternate universe where he’ll interact with the Spirit and the Blackhawks.

• Andy Runton’s Owly, published by Top Shelf, is now available on the Kindle.

• Jeff Katz revealed the first four titles for his American Original company.

• Former Wizard employee Steven Hoveke, who now runs Square 1 Press and has published convention sketchbooks by both Walt Simonson and Howard Chaykin, was barred from re-entering Wizard World Philadelphia on Saturday. He tells the story of what happened on his company’s blog and posted on Twitter that he was barred because of his affiliation with the Long Beach Comic Con. (Via Bleeding Cool)

• Artist Michael Cho was upset to find out someone was walking around HeroesCon wearing a shirt featuring his art. (Via the Comics Reporter)