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Would Spider-Man keep his moral baggage if he were the walking dead? Would Wolverine's healing factor make him immune to the zombie outbreak? Aren't zombie superheroes just villains? Okay, none of the questions ever popped into my head before Marvel Zombies. And now that I've read it, I don't know what to think.

As much as I love zombies and the Marvel universe, I just don't know how I feel about Marvel Zombies. I neither hate it nor did I love it. It just is. At least for me. ( )

This book was graphic, violent, bloody, gory, disgusting, revolting, amoral, and unambiguously dark. It was also a fairly decent although short read with a surprisingly straightforward story - with an ending and a major twist that carries momentous repercussions. Also, it was perhaps not the best book to read right before going to bed. Hello, super hero zombie nightmares! ( )

This version of "Marvel Zombies" is issue 22 (volume 48) in Marvel’s “Ultimate Graphic Novels Collection”. It reprints the limited series by writer Robert Kirkman and artist Sean Phillips, originally published between December 2005 and April 2006. Marvel Zombies was once, both an affectionate and derogatory term, used to describe ultra-loyal Marvel fans who would only buy Marvel comics and would studiously avoid reading anything by Marvel’s 'Distinguished Competition' – or anyone else for that matter. In this series, however, Kirkman and Phillips use the term a bit more literally with Marvel’s superheroes (and most of the human population as well) being turned into ravenous, marauding zombies, when a space-borne virus arrives on an alternative Earth. (This builds on the storyline devised by Mark Millar and Greg Land in the Ultimate Fantastic Four issues 21 – 23). With their super-powers it doesn’t take the hero community long to feed they’re way through the normal population. With their hunger for flesh unabated the heroes are semi-crazed, but when the Silver Surfer followed by Galactus arrives they begin to see a way out of their dilemma. “Marvel Zombies” is a warped triumph of a satire from Kirkman who delivers a sick, grotesque and funny yarn. There’s little depth to the story – its more a rip-roaring, old-fashioned action / horror parody, with funny, witty dialogue, that moves from one bizarre and sick situation to the next without too much agonising over characterisation or plot depth. That said, Kirkman does keep the personalities of the heroes intact – Captain America remains the born leader, Giant Man remains the driven scientist and Spider-Man remains angst ridden (though in this story, not because of the death of Uncle Ben, but because he’s eaten Aunt May). Sean Phillips artwork works perfectly, with his scratchy, nervy style “beautifully” illustrating the grotesqueries on offer and adding horrific flourishes to an already “splattery” tale. The covers to the series were by the great (and greatly under-rated) Arthur Suydam who provides amazing zombified parodies of famous Marvel covers - these are perfect in every way! Like the rest of the “Ultimate Graphic Novels Collection” the book is a hardcover with excellent glossy, heavy stock pages. The extras in the book include a cover gallery of Suydam’s covers and the covers he parodied; an overview of Robert Kirkman and Sean Phillips’ careers and how they went about developing and designing the “Marvel Zombies” concept. Despite this story not being to everyone’s “taste” and despite many fans taking exception to the Marvel heroes being portrayed in this way, this is a smashing parody – clever, funny and nauseating in equal measure. ( )

Good, dumb fun. ( )