ZoMiCs

I was speaking to Abe this afternoon (who, by the way, does not know more about zombie movies than I do) and after chatting about various subjects (the greatness of The Dark Knight, life on the cranberry bog, Michelle Pfeiffer's catsuit, etc.) we settled on a discussion of Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead. Now, I've recently caught up on the fifty-one issue and counting book, and plan to follow it to its completion. This despite the fact that I don't really find it to be all that good. It's plodding, filled with incidental characters and rife with melodrama. But it also has ZOMBIES. I was complaining to Abe about the scarcity of zombie-related comic books when he clued me in to the existence of something that had somehow gone by completely unnoticed: MARVEL ZOMBIES, the main arc of which is also penned by Kirkman.

So, this evening and early morning, I sat down and read 21 issues of undead content, with five left to crack. I have two comments to make, but they are contentious and therefore must be prefaced with this; I don't read a lot of comic books, and certainly not many outside the mainstream. With that said, 1) the main plotline of MARVEL ZOMBIES is the weirdest thing I've ever read in a comic book and 2) Black Panther is the most bland, generic superhero (and superhero comic) in existence save for one quirk. He takes his mask off ALL THE TIME, almost any time he's talking to someone. WHY DO YOU HAVE A MASK!?

In order to get the entire MARVEL ZOMBIES story, I had to read four issues of this Black Panther comic, and I'm glad I did. Never again can I say that Speedball is the stupidest superhero I've ever come across. Marvel sucks. Also, Robert Kirkman isn't a very good writer. But I will continue to read his tripe so long as a hunger for human flesh is front and center.

I need to get ahold of Steve Niles' Remains.