Marvel Zombies: The Complete Collection, Vol. 3

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. 

Rating: 6 out of 10 stars.

Marvel Comics Presents #10

I love the Fastball Special coming my way from Mike Harris (Marvel Team-Up). It signifies the end of the Wolverine/Tyger Tiger epic, which ran about 2 chapters too long and the beginning of Colossus' solo epic, 'God's Country"; a story that I've reread at least twice so far and I like it more each time.

The Man-Thing story that isn't a Man-Thing story is hitting the home stretch and it's getting weird. Good weird. 

Then we've got a one-and-done starring Machine Man. According to the title, M.M. will meet the F.F. Only it's not the Fantastic Four. Nor is it the the First Family of Marvel's rotating line-up of arch foes, The Fearsome Four. No, this is a bunch of odd balls called the Failure Five. If it wasn't for the fact that the creative team behind this story consists of greats Steve Ditko and Dave Cockrum, it would have sucked major rocks. 

An uneven issue. But when you've got 4 chapters of 4 different stories going into completely off-the-wall directions, I guess this is the best you can ask for. 

Rating: 5 out of 10 stars.