Shadow and Flame with Magik

Writer Robert Kirkman

Artist Sean Phillips

Color Art June Chung

Lettering VC’s Rus Wooton

Zombie Food John Barber

Cover Dated July 2007

Cover (after Jim Lee) by Arthur Suydam, homaging X-MEN Volume One Issue 1

This awesome website has the entire comic, if you want to follow along

http://www.idoc.co/read/2208/marvel-zombies-dead-days/1

This issue works as an origin story to the Marvel Zombies universe.

Inside cover ad are for The New Fantastic Four (not the good one but Storm, Black Panther, Human Torch and Thing) going to the Marvel Zombie-verse in Black Panther 29.

Issue opens with Spider-Man web-slinging his way home.  He enters his apartment and tells Aunt May and Mary Jane that Colonel America bit him.  The news is stating that the Avengers are attacking and worst, eating people.  That should stop supervillains from attacking.

Spider-Man starts drooling through his mask.  He rips the mouth part off and yep, eats Mary Jane.  That isn’t what husbands should do!  Know what nephews shouldn’t do?  Eat their aunts!  Spider-Man doesn’t care, what we think!

High in Earth’s Orbit.  Asteroid M.  Magneto is ashamed of what he did.  Fabian Cortez, his chief Acolyte, is telling him that he did what he had to do.  I guess he was the one that sent the Sentry, who was affected by the Zombie virus, to Earth.  The virus affects both flatscans and mutant.  Magneto sets off to save as many as he can.

New York City.  Nova is rocketing around.  On this Earth, he knows Spider-Man’s secret identity.  Which costs him to fight for his life.  Daredevil tries to save Nova.

Elsewhere.  Colonel America tells the Avengers to stop.  They have been eating and eating.  He notices that the hunger has been slated.  He wants to look for a cure.

There is an ad for the 2007 Jeep Patriot.

Westchester, New York.  The Xavier Institute for Higher Learning.  Alpha Flight are Zombies!  They ate Professor Xavier!  Cyclops is trying to keep the X-Men motivated to save themselves.

Magneto arrives and kills Alpha Flight, so they are dead dead.

Poor Shadowcat, thought it was an isolated incident.  Wolverine wants to kill all of the Zombies.

New York City.  Giant Man and the Black Panther are on the run.  Black Panther wishes he was with his people in Wakanda.  Giant Man can’t get over seeing Colonel America eat a woman.  Black Panther notices that Pym was bit.  Pym was hoping he could have gotten the African King to his lab, before he noticed, so that he could have a meal.  He knocks out Black Panther and continues on his way.  He suspects that all of the ‘food supply’ will run out in a matter of days.

There is an ad for X-MEN 200.

Nova is still flying around.  We see that Spider-Man turned Daredevil.  Now there is a blind lawyer zombie out there in the world.  Sean McKeever’s Gravity is also a zombie!  Nice inclusion, Kirkman!  Or does Phillips comes up with the side characters?

Over in the Baxter Building.  In what could be the saddest sight of the comic, poor poor Reed is holding his dead children in his arms.  He thought they were safe.  That stupid horrible horrible being, She-Hulk ate Franklin and Valeria!  I like She-Hulk, but that is pretty messed up!  Susan is holding Valeria and Reed is holding Franklin.  I feel like crying right now.

Susan, and good for her, creates a force field inside of Jennifer’s head and explodes it, outward.  Johnny is crying, as he should!

Thor kills Zombie Atlas.  Songbird and Meteorite are zombies too, so there goes the Thunderbolts!  Thor kills Meteorite.  Nova is trying to help Thor.  He is almost bit when Human Torch shows up.  The Fantastic Four show up in the Fantasti-Car.  They take the three heroes to a SHIELD Hellicarrier, the last safe place in New York City.  probably

That is a great assortment of heroes.  Not only is Shadowcat among the non-flesh easters, so is the Scarlet Spider!  I love that costume so much!

Nick Fury calls what is happening a plague.  The entire globe is being affected by it.  Fury wants the brains – Reed Richards, Stark and Bruce Banner, to create a cure before their brains are eaten.

Nova loses his mind, a little.  If you are a New York based hero and not on the Hellicarrier, then that person is most likely a zombie or dead, or deader.  He just thinks that it is too late for counter-measures.

There is an ad for Spider-Man 3.

Avengers Mansion.  Manhattan.  Pym shows up, looking for Jarvis but he has served his last task, he’s lunch for the Avengers.  Pym wonders if they should work on a cure.  Hawkeye has eaten 12 people, so he feels like he can’t be redeemed.

Spider-Man eats J. Jonah Jameson.

Fury goes to Doom, he believes Latveria is safe.

Back aboard the SHIELD Hellicarrier.  Reed’s Lab.  The three brains are working separately, so that they could get a solution faster.  Susan is upset, naturally, that Reed is becoming fascinated by the zombies.

There is an ad for X-Men : Endangered Species.  Which we own a few issues of, so I’ll review them eventually.  Comicbookdb.com counts anything under the banner, so I’ve already started reviewing the Quest for Magik from New X-Men and X-Factor 23, also the Blinded by the Light arc of X-MEN.

Elsewhere on the Helicarrier.  Tony’s Lab.  Fury gets an update from Stark.  Stark wants to find an alternate universe and take the survivors there.

On the ground, there is a giant battle.  Nova gets bit by Carol Danvers.  Wolverine is bit by Hawkeye and Captain America.  Magneto is able to fight some as many as he can.

Back on the Hellicarrier.  Reed’s Lab.  Reed tells the Fantastic Four his plans to become Zombies, they are disgusted.  He informs them that, as soon as they came into the lab, that they were infected by the plague.  They are infected and he wants to experience the sensation of becoming a zombie.  They indulge him.

Stark is telling Fury about how they need to move fast.  The Zombie Four comes in and bite Stark.  Fury gets away and hides with an elevator of heroes.  The Four break in and kill Fury but turn the other heroes.

Minutes Later.  Reed wants to take the dimension portal to the Baxter Building so that he can prefect it.  Which leads to the Ultimate Universe and where this franchise officially starts.

Inside back cover ads are for Mystic Arcana, which I own two issues of – one being a Magik proper tie-in which is pretty awesome.  The other is for Ultimate Fantastic Four Volume 3 hardcover, which has the Zombies’ first appearance.

. . .

For Walker Dennis’ second Halloween costume, he is going to be –

an adoreable Scarecrow!  We looked around for all types of costumes but there were not that many great ones but he looks pretty cute in it.  If he would just wear the hat / cowl thing.