Writer Fred Van Lente
Artists Fernando Blanco with Frank Brunner for the cover of Marvel Team-Up 151
Colorist Val Staples
Letterer Simon Bowland
Cover Dated September 2010
I straight up own this issue simply because Wendell Stuart has named his purple parrot, Lockheed. Which, if Walker ever gets a pet, I swear I will try to get him to name all of his pets Lockheed, purple or otherwise. At least have it be in the conversation. Does it count as a Lockheed appearance? Probably not but if someone asks if I own it because the name Lockheed is used, then I can say yes.
I own a couple comics with that rationale in mind.
As far as the Marvel Zombies franchise goes, I like the concept but definitely have not followed every miniseries or appearance. I guess I could be doing these issues for Halloween, I’ve been scratching my head trying to come up with something for that holiday.
I own these :
Ultimate Fantastic Four 23
Marvel Zombies / Army of Darkness 1, a crossover series between Marvel Zombies and Army of Darkness.
Marvel Zombies Dead Days One Shot (the origin tale)
Marvel Zombies The Return 3 (Wolverine)
Marvel Zombies 5 issue 5 (naturally)
Marvel Zombies : The Book of Angels, Demons & Various Monstrosities, a handbook
In my Wishlist I have :
Marvel Zombies The Return 5 (Avengers)
Marvel Zombies Halloween
That Halloween issue is what I’ve been waiting to kick start the Halloween post with but we’ll see what happens by Halloween this year, October seems like forever from now.
So I read the the Ultimate Fantastic Four issues that introduced this universe. Then I followed the first two miniseries, which were quite good. Then Marvel started making these an annual event and I jumped out.
The Zombies have shown up in a bunch of various other comics and I couldn’t keep track of it.
So onto this issue :
The issue opens with a quote :
Bill Schelly from The Golden Age of Comic Fandom: “In an earlier contact with DC, a youthful (Roy) Thomas had been informed that trading and selling old comics could not be officially sanctioned by the company, for it might spread disease.”
Which takes several pages before that plays a role in this issue.
Wendell is a huge comicbook fan, in our universe. He is at his local comic book store, complaining about the quality of his comics. He has bought Marvel Zombies 5 Issue 4 and complaining about how the previous creative team was better, which was Robert Kirkman and Sean Phillips. I had forgotten that Walking Dead creator, Robert Kirkman had done the first two Marvel Zombies miniseries. He also wrote the third volume of Marvel Team-Up.
He’s a completionist so he has to keep buying the comics, even though he’s not a fan.
Wendel goes home and sees a box in front of his door and on top of his Spider-Mat.
He goes inside, tells his purple parrot, Lockheed, that his box has finally come in. He opens the box and, once doing so, a cloud of dust comes up and he breathes it in. He complains that the shipper did not wrap the comic.
The comic is Marvel Team-Up 151, which doesn’t exist in our actual universe, but they explain it away by saying there was a printing error of a vulgar expression so the issue was destroyed but a few got out (as it always does). The cover is done by Frank Brunner, who gets a shoutout in the issue itself by Wendel. I like it when Marvel gets an older artist to draw stuff like this, such as flashbacks or old art. They don’t have to so its a nice thing to do, giving older artists a chance to be seen again and maybe create new fans who go back and buy their older work.
Marvel Team-Up has Machine Man and Howard the Duck teaming up. Those two have been the stars of this miniseries, so that makes sense.
Wendell goes on with his nightly duties. He goes to the Marvel Comics message boards, complaining about a latest issue of a comic, calling Quesada out on his Editor in Chief decisions. He brushes his teeth with a Spider-Man toothbrush, this guy is a superfan.
He goes to bed.
When he wakes up, his is moaning. He goes to the bathroom, turns on the light and he is now an actual Marvel Zombie!
Which is what hardcore fans of Marvel use to be called back in the day, I’ve always counted myself amongst them as I only flirted with DC but have always been more Marvel and now, I’ve solely Marvel.
Issue cuts to the Proper Marvel Universe where Morbius is helping ARMOR, Altered-Reality Monitoring and Operational Response, which is an off-suit of SHIELD.
Morbius is trying to help his friend, Jack Russell – Werewolf at Night (get it?), who is infected with the Zombie virus. The point of this miniseries is that Machine Man and Howard the Duck have been tasked with going to five different universes and obtaining samples of their zombie virus so that Morbius can create a cure.
Machine Man, Howard the Duck and Jacali Kane are on our Earth. Howard’s handtop refers to it as Earth-0000. He tells them that everyone on the planet, is normal. This scares Jacali and Machine Man pities us.
Wendell is examining himself. He knows he is undead. He becomes hungry and starts eating all of his food. This doesn’t satisfy him, at all.
Lockheed draws attention to himself, and Wendell puts the parrot into his mouth. He gets a tear and breaks the window, freeing Lockheed. It is an awesome page.
There is a knock on the door. There is a girl scout, selling cookies. He thought it was the government. This sequence keeps zooming on the girl’s neck. He just buys the cookies, in a fun next page reveal. He knows this won’t ward off the hunger.
He looks outside and sees people. First, he is tempted by some large bone citizens. Then he sees a jogger, and is tempted to eat lean. He starts to reflect on his new circumstance.
Wendell decides the best course is to kill himself. I like how he questions all Patient Zeros before him. If they killed themselves, none of those outbreaks would never have occurred.
He’s about to do it, when he hears a lady’s scream. He realizes that he should use his new found powers to aid mankind. He doesn’t have a healing factor, he has an undead factor.
Turns out, it was a lady just being excited and loud on her phone.
Wendell doesn’t know this, he’s too busy creating a superhero outfit out of old outfits. He will be known as The Zombie Marvel, get it? Very clever.
Howard the Duck busts into the room. Wendell has fallen to rigor mortis. His costume is – Thor’s hammer, Captain America’s mask, Spider-Man’s right sleeve, Iron Man’s left armor portion, Daredevil’s shirt and Wolverine’s pants.
Machine Man takes a sample of Wendell’s DNA, calls him a nerd and burns his body.
Issue and miniseries ends there. Morbius must cure his friend, as I believe there is no Marvel Zombies 6.
Howard the Duck asks some great zombie questions, to leave us thinking.
Shadow and Flame with Magik 