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 Apes #0

This oversized special kicks off the 4-issue miniseries that explores the Marvel Universe if it existed on the Planet of the Apes. Or something to that effect. Starting things off are the reprints of Amazing Spider-Man #110-111. This pair of issues introduced a character named The Gibbon. He's a human mutant(?) that looks a lot like an ape-like humanoid and he's got amazing reflexes. 

After a chance meeting with Spider-Man, the Gibbon wants to become a superhero like the webslinger. Only, Spider-Man rebuffs him as his personal life balance between being a hero and a regular Joe has tilted the scales too far into Spider-Man's direction. Angered by even more rejection, the Gibbon is recruited by Spidey arch-foe, Kraven the Hunter, who conducts some sort of bizarre ceremony that gives Kraven mental control of poor man.

The reason for these reprints is that The Gibbon is supposed to be the main character of the Marvel Apes miniseries. This all leads me to believe that something happens that turns the Marvel universe into simians except for Gibbon. Probably due to his mutation(?), Gibbon retains his mental capacities while the rest of the MCU literally goes ape??? 

There's also a short story that is supposed to be like the opening act of the Marvel Apes story. It appears to be a retelling of that classic Spider-Man story 'If This Be My Destiny...!' in which in ASM #33, Spider-Man is trapped under some rubble while the room he's stuck in is slowly filling with water. In this retelling, Spider-Man is now Spider-Monkey and he doesn't seem to know he's a monkey as are a couple of other characters that appear.

Honestly, I'm not sure what is going on here. I know that this is supposed to be a prequel and was published after the miniseries was completed. And what I read feels like a huge mess. If anything, this issues makes me want to read some classic Amazing Spider-Man and stay completely away from Marvel Apes.

You're probably wondering why I chose this book. Well, I chose it because of its cover. When I found this a while back, I was thumbing through long boxes. I only paid a buck for it. At the time of sale, I was hoping that this was a Christmas issue. Once home, I realized this was only a holiday variant cover. Why cover artist Salva Espin (You Are Deadpool) decided to do a cover with a monkey version of Santa and his reindeer instead of other Marvel characters is beyond me. 

There are about 30 variant covers included at the end of this special. One or two are from Espin. The rest are from talent such as Rob Liefeld, Stuart Immonen, and Rick Silva. These covers were all variants of differing titles to coincide with the Marvel Apes event and are a visually dazzling addition to this special. 

Since I only paid a dollar and I knew ahead of time that this was what I consider to be a 'Scrooge' issue, I wasn't angry. I guess I'll still keep this in my holiday comics collection based on just the cover. But to if I'll ever read Marvel Apes, I'd have to find it at my local library or for real cheap because what I've read so far hasn't peaked my interest.

Rating: 5 out of 10 stars.