If you thought Ollie was negligent with his sidekick, Marc says "hold my beer."

Plus, Brother Voodoo! And a Geraldo Rivera cameo...oh, too far to stop now, let's just shove through here. From 1989, Marc Spector: Moon Knight #9, "Zombie Saturday Night" Written by Charles (Chuck) Dixon, pencils by Sal Velluto, inks by Mark Farmer.

Brother Voodoo had gotten beat by voodoo priest/wannabe drug kingpin Dr. Friday, and was only now recovering from the zombi drug that had been force-fed to him. His medallion had been taken, so he couldn't use his powers; so he came to Moon Knight for help. B-V didn't look great, but was willing to go in guns blazing, with Moon Knight and Midnight! Midnight...? I hadn't read a lot of his appearances: this was Marc's short-lived sidekick, Jeff Wilde. He was the son of old Moon Knight foe the Midnight Man; and had fought MK under that alias, but was maybe trying to redeem himself. For his part, Marc doesn't seem particularly invested in him? Midnight nearly gets shot by the zombi henchmen while trying to get down from the chopper, and Marc only just now realizes his costume wasn't Kevlar. (Marc also takes a call from his accountant, who is furious over an upcoming IRS audit, and can't figure out why Marc would need so much aviation fuel.)

Dr. Friday is killed by his partner, for bringing heat down on them, but he gives his back-up plan or instructions to a chalk-white zombi, who gets out while Brother Voodoo guns down several others. Brother Voodoo then connects with his brother's spirit to break the zombi spell. Midnight isn't sure he believes in "all that Shirley MacLaine junk," but Marc says he's had some experience with it. Later, the white zombi--that sounds familiar somehow--tracks down Friday's killer.

Man, if Jason Todd rubbed you the wrong way back then, Jeff is raising the bar. He repeatedly refers to Brother Voodoo, Jericho Drumm, as "Jerry" which seems really disrespectful, too. He's probably best known for the Spider-Man biweekly story "Round Robin: the Sidekick's Revenge," which I've read like one issue of, and I think I just got the Robin/"Sidekick's Revenge" thing? Seriously, I could never get past why that was in Spidey's book and not Moon Knight's, but enh. And again, Midnight's showed up a couple times since, because Moon Knight really needs a deeper bench of bad guys. I know one event issue or mini or something tried to make another bad guy from the Marc Spector run out to be a big deal, but Marc doesn't remember Chainsaw any more than you do. Read more!

I'm trying to remember the last zombie movie I watched on DVD, since it was a cheap pick-up, and spectacularly bad. (It wasn't One Cut of the Dead!) It was pretty low budget, but not no-budget; it was the plot that killed me: the protagonist boldly made the wrong choice, every time one was presented to him, getting his friends killed every time! It also had almost a rebuttal of a traditional zombie movie trope: the guy that gets bit, but tries to hide it, then turns at the worst possible time. One friend gets bit, and knows he's going to turn, so wants to stay behind, and the 'hero' won't let him! So I possibly liked that movie even less than today's comic, but it's close. From 2018, Marvel Zombie #1, written by W. Maxwell Prince, art by Steffano Raffaele.

It's a pleasant sunny day, post-zombie apocalypse, at least for Simon Garth, the capital-Z Zombie: he's not really part of the horde, since he's not that kind of zombie but close enough. While what's left of earth's heroes try to Defend against the horde, a little boy finds the other Amulet of Damballah, which prompts Simon to save him from being eaten: not because he's being controlled, but because they have matching necklaces! Once the heroes get past their shock, they realize he could come in handy: Moon Girl had created a fission device, that could probably wipe out most of the horde, except without any radioactive material, they would have to use the elements in a human body as a suicide bomber! But, there's the same atoms in Zombie, right?

As the heroes try to get the horde all together, and largely get overrun; the kid guilts Moon Girl into giving back the Amulet, and the Zombie. Simon considers her smart and compassionate, but she wonders if she's not going to hell for betraying humankind. The boy and his friend, make their way out of the city, towards...probably death! The zombies were still out there, unless Moon Girl decides to blow herself up; which she wouldn't have do; she could just stick the bomb on any zombie and it'd probably be close enough! Also, Simon is way more cheery and friendly than usual: wasn't he a tool before he became the Zombie? And Moon Girl probably could've maybe let some of the heroes know and not get eaten? She's right about going to hell. I can be sentimental too, but come on. A shame, because there were a couple jokes that landed. 

This wasn't the usual Marvel Zombies continuity, the bad guy zombies are pretty inarticulate. This issue didn't appear to be part of anything, just a lone one-off; like they had to renew the copyright or something.

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Only six-inches tall, but still terrifying...

I was surprised to find this issue for fifty cents, then mildly surprised it didn't have the Comics Code seal on the cover. Then extra-surprised midway through: from 1988, Sword of the Atom Special #3, written by Jan Strnad, pencils by Pat Broderick, inks by Dennis Janke.

Like the previous Sword of the Atom stories, Ray Palmer is still trapped at six-inches tall, in the Amazon jungle, with the alien Morlaidhans. Which isn't as bad as all that: Ray got the girl, Princess Laethwen, and a surprising aptitude for both sword-fighting and survival. Ray and Laethwen have made their way to the city of the Skul-Riders--OK, actually they're hawks, I think. But since the aliens, like Ray, are trapped at six-inches tall, they can do that; but this batch don't have Laethwen's yellow skin. I'm not sure why, but whatever. Ray's there to try and investigate the scientific equipment of the former king, Torbul. (The aliens, yellow or no, had been more advanced but fallen into savagery; in fact, some may have been there as a penal colony.)

Friendly local doctor Ylaan isn't sure what to make of Torbul's work, but a booby-trap sets off a deadly plague. The current tyrant king comes down with it, and while Laethwen tries to help a local farm couple who's son comes down with it, Ylaan tries to warn Ray to flee. They almost escape, except for the Skul-Riders; and Ray and Laethwen end up in the dungeon. The tyrant dies, and while most of the plague victims are thrown into a pit, a funeral pyre was planned for him. Ray and Laethwen try to make their escape during the funeral, but the tyrant rises from his pyre, still on fire! And that farm couple, who's son died? He comes back.

I was absolutely not expecting that! The zombie son kills his mother, before the father has to put him down. Meanwhile, a dying Ylaan explains the plague didn't kill it's victims, but between the fever and the pit-burial, they would have nothing but hate. Kill-crazed, the dead rise, and Ray and Laethwen's only hope is to fight their way to a Skul trapped in a burning rookery and escape.

The next day, the zombies are again dead, their bodies burned out after their brief "re-life." The bodies would be burned this time. As Ray notes in a journal, wondering if he was responsible for this or if it would've happened regardless, he and Laethwen would spend a couple weeks alone in the jungle, to make sure they weren't infected before going home. But he was in no particular hurry.

It feels a little overwritten in spots, but a surprisingly dark story here. Sadly, Laethwen would be given short shrift, fridged at the start of Power of the Atom. I thought that was a misstep then, but they had to get Ray back to America.



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Wow, I was actually more productive when I was on vacation...

Took a day, partly because I got both Marvel Unlimited and the Transformers Humble Bundle. The latter contains 48 issues of the classic Marvel series, then bonuses like two volumes of More Than Meets the Eye and Robots in Disguise. DRM free, and for about $15!

The Marvel app was on sale for ninety-nine cents for a month--then regular price after that, so I will have to remember to cancel it. The site also went down hard for the first couple days, and charged me twice signing up! But it seems to be all right now, and so far I've read sixteen issues of Uncanny Avengers (all the issues currently available there, but at least two away from the conclusion of the story arc!), the 2008-2010 Abnett-Lanning Guardians of the Galaxy run, and the so-much-more-charming-than-the-original Marvel Zombies 5. (Investigating outbreaks of different varieties of zombies in different alternate Earths, Machine Man and Howard the Duck also visit the worst, most disappointing earth of all: ours.) So, I'll probably be plowing through as many issues as I can for most of August.

I also picked up these two: a custom Lego Nightcrawler from England; and a not-Lego set of Batman, Robin, Loki, Green Lantern, Wolverine, and Deadpool minifigures. I'm sure I'll find some use for them...
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Not an Ellis issue, but all right:

It actually is the issue before Warren Ellis took over the book: from 1994, Hellstorm: Prince of Lies #11, "Life in Hell" Written by Len Kaminski, art by Peter Gross Leonardo Manco, per the GCD.

After a failed attempt to storm the gates of Heaven; Daimon Hellstorm has been cast down into the fiery pits of Hell. There, he's given a walking tour of the place by a chap by the name of Simon Garth. Daimon recognizes the name, and you might as well: he was the Zombie, and says while his "mortal shell" was cursed to walk the earth, he was cursed to do the same in hell. They examine both the changing form and natures of Hell, and Garth describes it as "a mirror for the collective unconscious" as well as completely without justice. Sometimes the innocent are punished, sometimes the guilty rewarded, and souls are sent to heaven or hell more due to "flavor and texture" than sins or virtures. Of course, this may all need to be taken with a grain of salt, since Daimon realizes "Garth" knows more about hell than he should...

There's also a U.S. Postal Service Statement of Ownership, Management, and Circulation, which means someone was getting Hellstorm in the mail at one point. Weird, huh? The average number of issues sold the previous twelve months was 123,453; with the actual number of the single issue closest to the filing date was 77,310. Hellstorm was a lower-tier book in the hundred or so titles Marvel was grinding out a month around 1993, but per the January sales numbers, nowadays those sales would be good enough for #1 or just behind #5, respectively.
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"The Overdramatic Dead."

Much as I enjoy AMC's the Walking Dead, sometimes...well, probably no more than a lot of other shows, honestly: if characters did things in a methodical, thoughtful manner; rather than running off half-cocked, getting worked up and emotional, or just outright being stupid; there'd be a lot less problems. Actually, yeah, that probably is the case for 95% of anything.

But I probably over-think the Walking Dead anyway, since currently I'm hung up on the idea that the zombies or walkers or whatever probably shouldn't be much of a threat at this point, since they probably should be dried-up husks. Or should freeze solid. Or rot. Unless there's some in-story explanation we're not privy to, like radiation, or some freaky T-virus thing like Resident Evil keeping the zombies their best.

I'm looking forward to the premiere on Sunday, although I had thought there would be more horror movies on cable by now for Halloween. (And it's super-weird to see a "Treehouse of Horror" before Halloween...)





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Retro Toy Week: Toy Biz Resident Evil Zombies!

We're more than doubling up on this one, but this is a batch of toys I especially wanted to look at this week. Not just because it's still more videogame characters from a game I haven't played: the Resident Evil Zombie with Forest Speyer and Resident Evil 2 Zombie Cop with exploding action!


Even though I enjoyed the first couple Resident Evil movies, I've never played any of the games. It's not that I've been avoiding them, but they haven't fallen into my lap, either. I have only a nodding acquaintance with the mythology of either version; the T-virus, the Umbrella Corporation, lickers, and whatnot. Ditto the characters--I know a couple of the zombies came with Claire or Hunk or whoever, but they're in a different bin. (No, they weren't; I just wasn't interested in them.)

The bald zombie that came with Hunk reminds me of the cover of the original Dawn of the Dead, and since he came with a crow, I do believe that's an intentional homage. He may be a tough one to dig up now. The link is to eBay since I didn't find one of him on Amazon, and even with Hunk (the gasmasked fellow) and accessories he's a bit spendy. In that vein, if you look for the cop zombie, be sure he has the little top-of-his-head, cap/brain piece: press his guts, and he explodes into three parts!


But for figures from 1998-99, the Resident Evil zombies hold up great on the sculpt and paint fronts. There's a lot of exposed bone, tendons, and blood; as well as nice detail work on the lab zombies' little ID badges or the bald zombie's plaid shirt. However, they haven't aged as well in scale or articulation: they're too big to go with 3 3/4 inch figures like Star Wars or G.I. Joe, and too small for the six-inch(ish) scale of Marvel Legends or DCUC...


The zombies did turn up a couple times here, even though yeah, they're woefully out of scale. NECA has had the Resident Evil license in recent years, and I don't think they're the only one, either. So, there are more options out there for your videogame zombie needs, but I think a lot of them will be slightly bigger than six-inch scale!

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This post cost me $5.50.

I was going to post pictures of these little Zombie Planet toys yesterday, while watching the Walking Dead, but I fell asleep before the new episode. That may or may not be an indicator of the last half-season of the show, I do have to get up pretty damn early. And then my pictures didn't turn out anyway, and then I bought a couple more at lunch, so here we are.

I haven't read the comic, but I usually enjoy the Walking Dead, even if there are a few things that hurt my suspension of disbelief...yes, I can totally accept zombies or walkers or whatever, but don't understand, for example, why the group doesn't move off of Hershel's farm to like the next one down the road. Can't be that hard to clear one out, relatively speaking. And how come the 'walkers' haven't dehydrated into mummies? Anyway, I usually watch it with my Oldest son, but I also usually watch it beforehand to make sure there's nothing too out of line for him to see. We usually discuss what they do wrong; for example, please wear gloves while handling corpses. Or, Shane's tirade at the end of "Pretty Much Dead Already" is correct, but he picks the worst way to go about it.


Back to these little figures, Battlegrip.com has a right fine review of 'em up, as well as links to get your own. Buy a case! Buy a vending machine! They're fifty cents a pop in my neighborhood, although you may also see them for seventy-five cents, maybe even a buck. I've done pretty well on the assortment, though: I did get an extra cheerleader, but I think that's my only duplicate out of nine tries.

The other dollar went for the girl in the picture above, Ann from the King Kong capsules of a few years back. (I took a picture of one some time ago.) The paint apps may actually be better on the Zombie Planet figures, though.
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Good grief. I have 80-Page Thursday posts written for January, I've started links and pictures for the sixth annual year in toys, and I've even got one done for next year's Retro Toy Week; so why isn't Friday's post done?

Because I've been sitting about watching zombie movies is not an acceptable answer...I watched George A. Romero's Survival of the Dead the other day, even though I hated about every character in it fifteen minutes in: while it has it's moments, there is a lot of handling of the idiot ball. That, and the ostensible lead, a National Guard Sargent (formerly a Colonel) who deserts, was previously seen in Diary of the Dead, robbing the students from the prior movie, at gunpoint. That scene is shown as a flashback early in Survival, and made me want to punch him in the face for the next hour and a half. I don't remember Diary of the Dead as being great either, but I did pick up the original Dawn of the Dead at a pawn shop the other week. I want to sit down and watch it, but I get tired of zombie movies ongoing message that zombies are bad, but people will kill you. (The entire Aliens series likewise beats you over the head with that one.) It's probably true, but still.

Really need to sort out that pile of DVD's I haven't watched yet...a running joke with my Oldest is the Incredible Hulk DVD: we saw it at the cheap theatre, but went late, and he managed to fall asleep during the final Hulk/Abomination fight. I bought the DVD new, and we still haven't opened it. I didn't think it was too bad, and watched it a bit back on FX. Might miss Norton in Avengers, even.

For a couple days there, I was exceedingly worried about the #Occupy Wall Street protesters. While it would be nice if they had a clear idea of what they wanted to accomplish (although, the fear is that their concerns would be broken down into easily digestible/ignorable talking points) I think they're doing a good thing. For example, if this country cared enough to punish bankers and financiers that exploit or abuse the system; to the same extent that, say, drug offenders are prosecuted...throw a few Wall Streeters into a federal lockup for their crimes, and I think you'll find their associates hold to the straight-and-narrow a little more firmly.

No, my worry was that it could take a determined 1% type about twenty minutes and maybe, I don't know, a hundred thousand dollars to crush #OWS. Step 1: Get a disguise. Step 2: Gather up three or four garbage bags full of one-dollar bills. It's a one-time expenditure, and what, you want to pay that money as taxes? Step 3: In disguise, take said money to the roof or convenient window, and start dumping it on the crowd of Occupy protesters. Playing Prince's "Trust" at this point is completely optional, but I'd strongly recommend it. Step 4: Get out of there, removing your disguise when you're out of sight. Don't sit around watching the riots you've just started; you can watch them at home, on Fox News, over and over and over. Even if 1% of the crowd goes crazy for the cash, the entire Occupy movement will be lambasted as greedy, violent savages that just want a handout; even though you would get much the same results dumping money at a NFL game or a girl scout meeting. I can't decide if this is an irrational fear...or wishful thinking, 'cause that would be kinda cool.

In other news, it feels like winter is already starting, and I'm already lamenting the lack of exercise I'm about to get for the next couple months; since left to my own devices I'll wrap up in the blankets and try to hibernate. On the upside, my cholesterol should be in the negative numbers by now, since I've eaten box after box of Chocolate Cheerios. How many Spongebob toys did we get for the Youngest? Um...


The promo appears to be over, but if I happen to see a box with Squarepants on it, I'll be compelled to buy it, since out of eight possible figures, we only got five or six. (Luckily, the Youngest doesn't really care about that.) I'm sure somewhere, someone's pulling out their hair about not getting a baseball Spongebob; and I have a spare one on my desk at work.

I did have a spare few minutes to re-read a recent purchase, The Mammoth Book of Zombie Comics. For an anthology, it comes in with a pretty solid hit/miss percentage, although I was slightly disappointed since I already had Scott Hampton's adaptation of Robert E. Howard's Pigeons from Hell. It's quite good, though. Well worth picking up, especially if you can find it for $3.49! (Try Hastings.) It's not quite big enough to use to bludgeon a zombie, but it's close.
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Some odd choices on this one:

Sigh. Other blogs are probably organized or focused enough to bring you a whole month of scary posts in October, but that's why this is Random Happenstance and not Precision Nonsense Funtime. Anyway, I got Star Trek: Infestation #2 on the cheap a couple of weeks back. (Written by Scott and David Tipton, layouts by Casey Maloney, finishes and inks by Gary Erskine.) It's part of IDW's crossover with their Zombies vs. Robots franchise and their licensed properties, including Transformers, G.I. Joe, and Ghostbusters.

OK, so it's basically Kirk, Spock, and McCoy versus zombies. (With a little help from some friendly, clunky robots.) But it struck me as odd that this story was set during The Motion Picture era--brown away uniforms, the security guys wore heavier gear and pads--instead of the classic, Original Series look. McCoy is also able to cure the zombies here--mostly. They're still carriers and have to be quarantined on the planet, and zombie-ism really jacks you up, but still, not bad.



I'm usually not one to go out of my way for variant covers, but these are notable: both issues had Gold Key-styled variants, the other cover for #2 featuring zombie Tribbles. Man, I still wouldn't mind getting that one.
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OK, this last week:

I don't think I had a single new comic this week; although that's not to say there weren't some books I'd conceivably read if they fell in my lap, even if I wouldn't pay $3.99 for 'em. Still, I got down to the Comic Book Shop since they opened some new Heroclix packs, and I wanted a Nightcrawler. Of course he's a chase, so he ran a bit more; and that costume isn't my favorite, but at least he didn't have the damn priest's collar. (I would've had to sharpie it out...) Plus, he comes with a disc of some kind! Yeah, I don't actually play Heroclix, so I couldn't tell you if he's a good piece or not; but all three of the Nightcrawler pieces for the game are on my desk at work. (Plus Man-Bat and Thor, for some reason.)

I mentioned the other stuff yesterday, but I also picked up Kevin J. Anderson's the Last Days of Krypton a bit ago. Um, at a dollar store, which isn't indicative of quality, but of some vagaries of publishing and over-printing. I'm only a quarter-way through it, and it's already a bit of a downer, since like the Titanic or the Alamo, you already know what's going to happen. That, and I keep waiting for Jor-El to slap Krypto into a rocket...actually, I wonder if Anderson's going to do a callback to Tomar-Re, the Green Lantern that tried to save Krypton. (Or was it Tomar-Tu?) Kinda doubt it, but Rann, Thanagar, and Oa have gotten shout-outs so far.

Oh, the Essential Tales of the Zombie? Not too shabby. There's some great art, primarily from Pablo Marcos, that I can't scan since I can't cram that thing into my scanner, so buy your own, why don't you? And for those of you who are tired of zombies, this is a singular Zombie, and while his origin is in voodoo, it's more about a man trying to find his soul, even though he didn't realize it was missing while he was alive.

Over at Chase Variant, there's been a couple pretty good writeups on the new G.I. Joe Pursuit of Cobra Duke and Spirit Iron-Knife figures, and a pretty convincing argument of a movie they strongly resemble characters from...tempting. And these figures come with the ever-popular metric assload of accessories, enough to make other lines seem like their sold in empty blister packs!

More nonsense, and lazy YouTube whatnot, after the break!

I had the misfortune of catching about ten seconds of Entertainment Tonight, where they were reporting (oh, that should be in quotes) on the outrage over Katy Perry's outfit on Sesame Street. (The Onion's AV Club has it for you, if you must.) Look, I'm not a fan of Katy Perry--I'm old, I only have the vaguest idea who she is--and I'm definitely not a fan of Elmo, but if you're a parent and this gets you worked up, then understand: I hate you, and you are exactly what's wrong with America, and read to your goddamn kids yourself. Maybe she should cover up, perhaps a burqa?

Sigh. Every so often, I think my sense of outrage is dead, or at least really sleepy, and yet here we are.

At any rate, I'm waiting for Fringe to start, so it's time to open some toys! Have a good weekend, and see you soon.

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Batman versus zombies...will be seen tonight!

Even though Blackest Night involves zombies of a sort, it's a little surprising that there isn't a full-on Batman against the living dead story. Day of Judgement looked like it was going to, but was a bait-and-switch. This one's closer...but still not quite there, although it does have a couple things going for it; mainly a great Brian Bolland cover and art by Leonardo Manco, in Batman: Gotham Knights #29: "The Mortician, part two: Zombie Zero." Written by Devin Grayson.

We enter this one mid-story, as Batman rescues a young thug and his zombified friend, from the aforementioned Mortician and his zombie horde. Well, it's probably a couple dozen zombies, so not quite a horde per se. Also, most of the zombies are a bit on the lethargic side, even for zombies: scary-looking, but not that active.

Elsewhere, a young boy has a more lively zombie, that he's been using to kill his rivals--that's how this issue puts it, and without seeing the prior issue, I can't say rivals for what. Kept in the boy's closet, it turns on him, and chases him out of the house.

Batman researches the blood samples of the zombies, while the Mortician is trying to bring back more corpses, with the aid of his zombified dad. He then tracks down the boy's zombie (while the disbelieving police tut-tut the boy's story) and then finds the Mortician's cemetery workshop, which really seems like a no-brainer. Not like he's going to be holed up in the abandoned joke shop or flower store, now is he?

Giving the Mortician an antitoxin, Bats explains that the boy's zombie wasn't dead when he was embalmed with contaminated fluid, and will "live out the rest of his days as an imprisoned, poisoned, inhuman host body." This is another one of those situations where Batman's code against killing seems like abject dickery; but then we do get a neat two-page spread of Bats fighting the zombies. And...that's pretty much it: Mortician injects his zombie folks with the antitoxin, returning them to plain old dead, and the rest apparently just die off-panel after Bats beats them up.

Tough to call without the prior issue, but this one does seem to end pretty suddenly. Still, that art helps it a lot. This issue also features a black-and-white story from Paul Kupperberg and John Watkiss, involving the Riddler and an escape artist that trained Batman. It's not bad, but there's a death in the end that isn't clear if the Riddler committed murder, or an accidental homicide; like a lot of Riddler stories, it doesn't seem sure if he's a mad-dog killer or a neurotic attention-seeker with a gimmick.

I prefer him to be a bit more of both, truth to tell.
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This seems like the hard way to get a Zombie.

Although his return is hyped on the cover without mentioning his name, the third story in Daredevil Annual #9 is a mild disappointment, since it doesn't feature the promised Zombie/Daredevil/Doppelganger throwdown that was promised: Daredevil doesn't appear in this story. Instead, Calypso, best known for her appearance in Todd McFarlane's first Spider-Man story, sets out to bring back Simon Garth, the so-called Living Zombie, since she wants to see the "zombie whose spirit never fled his body at death." She tries to seduce Papa Doc, who buried Garth to put him to rest, then stabs Doc when that doesn't work. Classy.

After Garth rises from the grave yet again; to test him, Calypso brings back the Doppelganger, or the Red Devil, or the Devil Ge Rouge: Daredevil's evil counterpart from the Infinity War crossover. The ungrateful Doppel-Devil turns on Calypso, and the Zombie obeys orders and fights him, in a spiritless manner. The Zombie does bite him one, but more from instinct than anything; and as a creation of voodoo, this Zombie's bite isn't infectious, it's just gross. Doppel-D knocks the Zombie's jaw off in turn, and escapes.

Calypso is furious that the Zombie lacks free spirit, but Garth then disobeys and frees the soul of his friend, Papa Doc. After that, he returns to his previous order, "Kill the Redman!" Which isn't very specific, and I'm not sure if that meant the fake or the real Daredevil, so who knows what the Zombie thought; but I don't think it ever came up in DD's book.

The Doppelganger would, though; and I do like his design. This one, and the Spider-Doppelganger, were probably the two best evil copies from Infinity War; and the Spider-Doppelganger got a Toy Biz action figure back in the day. I'll dig him up later, but I wish Doppel-D had got one as well. Although his horns look kid-unfriendly...

Panels from "Resurrections," Glenn Herdling, 'scribe;' Scott McDaniel, 'diabolist;' and Bud LaRosa, 'hoogan.'

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It's all fun and games, until I run someone over.

From a link at CNN, Road Signs Warn of Zombies: "cameras caught many drivers slowing down to read the signs as they approached. Some read, 'Zombies ahead! Run for your lives!'"

Funny, but if I had been driving through there, I guarantee you I would have completely freaked out, and quite probably run someone down while screaming "Die, you inhuman monster!"

Little known fact about me: I love zombie movies, and am at a constant level of cat-like alertness for zombie attack. (And only zombie attack, sadly, any other crisis I'm as unprepared as anyone else. Zombies I've got, though.)

So please, think twice before panicking extreme zombie-phobes like myself, won't you? And, it probably says something about our times that "zombies" are the boogieman du jour; considering we used to be afraid of alien or communist invasion... Read more!

"Ah! Zombies! And swears. I guess it's up to you which you're more afraid of..."



(Yesterday, Poe Ghostal's Points of Articulation became Points of Mutilation, as he ramps things up heading into Halloween, and he started things off with a zombie attack post. He's been in on that before too, since Poe inspired this one: I started it at least a year ago. But since I'm stuck offline at home anyway, why not? Oh, and while I don't usually around here, this one has curse words, bloody violence, and unfortunate product placement. Enjoy!)

To begin, I want to say I'm safe enough for the time being. Oh, I'm completely fucked, yeah, but not yet. I just have to get this down in the hopes that someone is able to use this information either to save themselves, or maybe even wipe out these zombie fucks.

I saw my first one yesterday at lunch. On my lunch break I had biked over to Burger King, and was getting a kid's meal because I wanted the Silver Surfer toy. Even after everything that's happened, I still have the toy in the bottom of my backpack. Yeah, I don't have anything useful like a shotgun or a chainsaw, but I've got the Surfer. That probably says a lot about me.

He looked like a homeless guy at first. Hell, he probably was a homeless guy. He lurched towards the restaurant, planting his face into the glass. A couple kids laughed, and I thought it was funny for a second, until he moved and the hole in his chest slid across the window, leaving a smear of dirt and muddy red. It wasn't a straight hole through him, but diagonally somehow, so you wouldn't see through him if he was coming right towards you.

He had seemingly appeared from nowhere in the south side of the parking lot, and started around the building, ramming and rubbing on the glass. Pretty obvious he wasn't a homeless guy then. Lots of zombie movies have that first zombie just seem like someone lost or insane or sick. In retrospect, I'm probably lucky my first was a capital-Z zombie, a Lurcher. When he started heading for the drive-in window, some of the other customers and I yelled at the employees, but we didn't have to bother: the SUV leaving the window had pulled forward, and the zombie had gone right for the window of the moving vehicle. The driver, presumably scared to fuck, floored it forward, flying into the street and traffic with the zombie still trying to get through the window.

If you're reading this, you probably had this feeling too: that instant of revelation, like the alcoholics' moment of clarity; when you realized zombies were out there, and everything was going to go to shit in short order. There was a pay phone in the Burger King, and I grabbed my backpack, got over there, and called my wife. I...don't want to go into what I told her. It's personal, but I had her grab the kids, get what food and gas that she could, and get out of town. My folks have a cabin quite a ways away, but it's isolated, safe, and there's food and guns there. I told her to head for it, not to wait for me, and I'd be right behind them; which is probably the biggest lie I've ever told her. I was on my friggin' bicycle: if more zombies were already out there, the odds of me making it back to my house on it were mighty slim.

When the sirens started, one of the kids stuck his head outside, like he was completely expecting to get it bitten off. When he didn't, he took off, and his friends followed. I had to say goodbye, and I too ran. To my bike. You can undo a bike lock every day of your life in less time than it takes to type the sentence, but when zombies enter the picture it seems to take years.

The sirens were louder than I would've expected, and I was kind of hoping to be able to hear a little more clearly. You don't expect anything to sneak up on you on a clear, sunny day; but I wasn't ruling anything out there. I got my helmet on as I saw another zombie, lurching out of the Home Depot parking lot. He looked like someone had tried to kill him with a circular saw, but all it had done was make a straight red line from his face to his knee and tear up his clothes. It didn't look like his brain had been injured, which is probably why he was still ticking. I got on my bike and pedaled like hell, but luckily I knew exactly where I was going: the Smart Sports big-box store, about two blocks away.

Let me explain my reasoning, here, since later this won't seem like it was a good idea. At all.

I used to work at a music store in a mall. It was a boring, pointless job, since CD's were overpriced to begin with there, and this was during the early, glory days of Napster and file sharing and music thievery. So, my coworkers and I would talk about movies, and being trapped in a mall anyway, Dawn of the Dead came up a lot. (This started before the remake, although we talked about that one too later.)

"What kind of mall has that much food, and guns?" was often a discussion starter. "A magic, 1970's one," was the closest I ever got to an answer. Then we'd try to figure out what we would do if trapped in our mall.

"Sears," I would say, "is the only really useful place in this whole deathtrap. Tools, camping stuff, maybe propane, gardening stuff..."

"To grow food?" asked my friend.

"Probably, but I was thinking lime. You can't stay in the mall forever, so you're going to have to kill the zombies, even if you have to poke them in the heads with a long, pointy stick. Figure you'd need the lime to dump on the bodies and decompose them so they don't make a pile up to you."

Long pause.

"If zombies ever attack, I'm coming to get you, man."

One agreed upon point was the mall wasn't the best choice for riding out zombie attack anymore. A good sporting goods store, one with guns and camping equipment and food, would be ideal. Not only was it a tip of the hat to Army of Darkness, but we figured even if 95% of the population of the city turned into zombies, you could eventually whittle that number down.

"Get a .22 rifle to start, just to get used to shooting, get your aim. Nothing fancy yet. And just start shooting zombies in the head. Start in the morning, take breaks, punch out in the evening. Shooting zombies would be your full-time job." We also guessed there would be enough bullets in a sporting goods store to do the job, even if it took...we had no idea how long it would take, but someone suggested if you made a game of it: see how many zombies you can kill an hour, then try to beat your score.

So, when the zombies started, I had a rough plan in mind from the start, the same way you might have a general fire escape plan. The plan's a little different if you have to escape from a highrise rather than from your house, but the basic ideas the same. I wasn't going to be able to get to my family and get out of down, so I had to get to a sporting goods store.

There were a couple, better located and equipped stores downtown; but it was pretty obvious from the start that that going for them would be a bad idea even if I'd been in a car.

Smart Sports, however, was close enough that I could bike there. I hadn't been there in years, but it should have everything I was going to need, and in my master plan if I hurried I could get there before they locked the place up or the place filled with zombies. Plus, I had actually worked in that building when it used to be a Future Shop, so unless there had been some major changes, I knew the basic layout.

Note how all of this seemed a perfectly reasonable plan, when I was slacking off at a cash register watching preteens try to shoplift. Maybe it would've worked a little better if I had gotten to another store, maybe not. In actual practice, though, I had three lucky breaks, and an assload of bad ones.


As you doubtless know, the zombies spread pretty quickly. Most of the first ones I saw were slow. Lurchers. The real danger was other people, because panic was most people's first reaction. And their second. Maybe even their twelfth. Cars were flying through the intersections, one smashed into a coffee stand, and another hit another car into the pole holding up the stoplights, but I didn't have time to gawk. I only had to get across one busy street and a good chunk of parking lot.

The Old People's Buffet a couple of doors down from Smart looked full of zombies already. I was on the far end of the parking lot, but I saw two busboys light out of the back. I was about to yell at them to follow me--I was going need all the hands I could--but then the one behind lunged and caught the leader, and bit him in the back of the neck. That was pretty damn fast for a zombie! I wasn't expecting any running ones, especially since most people around here didn't run that great when they were alive. I noticed he seemed noisier, and bloodier than the other one I'd seen, but didn't have time to think about it.

The windows to Smart weren't as visible as I would've liked: there was a ton of ads and displays blocking my view of the inside. Still, I could hear more hell breaking loose behind me, so I didn't think there was a lot of choice at this point. I put my bike on the rack, and it took real effort not to lock it. I had that bike for over four years, and it had more than done a good job for me. I know it's stupid to be sentimental about a fucking bike with everything that's happened, but it was my bike and I loved it, OK? All right, I'm getting all moody about it now, when at the time I tore inside like my ass was on fire.

The store's lights were on, but it seemed dim inside, probably compared to high noon outside. I spun around looking for zombies, but didn't see any, which just made me look more frantically. "Hey!" I yelled. "Anyone alive here? Does anyone have keys to this door?"

"Shut the fuck up! He'll hear you!" hissed a voice from under a cash register counter.

The gurgling growl that followed made it pretty clear what she was referring too. I looked around: canoe display, skating equipment, camping stuff, shoes, shoes, shoes..."Where are the guns?"

"Are you high? We don't have any!"

"Motherfuck." The growler shambled forward, one obviously broken arm held in front of him. He seemed slow, especially since he had been a fat guy in a past life, but I didn't want to get cornered by him. Or crushed. There was a section of sports equipment like baseball bats, and I made my way to them.

I grabbed an aluminum bat, not because I was worried about breakage, but only because I had had one as a kid. Growly was shoving his way through a rack of jerseys, and I took another bat off the rack and rolled it in the direction he was coming. Sure enough, he stepped on the bat and did a pratfall on his face, and either his arm wouldn't support him or he was too dumb to try and catch himself. I smashed the bat down on the back of his skull, at least three times, and it stopped growling. I thought not seeing his face would be easier, but I had seen his name tag, he had been Carl, the general manager.

I thought about looking on Carl for keys, but had to look around: something turned Carl into a zombie, so there was probably another one roaming around somewhere. I yelled to the counter voice, "Hey! Do you have keys to the door!? Are there more here?"

"No." I still couldn't see whoever was hiding, and the voice sounded like it was from miles and years away.

"No what!?"

"No, he got bit outside. No, there's no one else here. No, I don't have any keys." The voice started to sound a little less far away, with just a trace of annoyance, but I still couldn't see her.

"Well, all right," I muttered, and turned back to Carl. A sludgey goo was forming a puddle under his face, and in the dim lighting, I noticed Carl actually seemed to glow slightly. Not the green Turner colorized Night of the Living Dead with, but still a faint sick green. His clothes appeared to be starting to melt as well, but he had the big manager's keyring on his belt, and I pulled it off, the loop of his pants giving like it was Play-doh.
"I've got the keys!" I yelled at the Mystery Voice. "We can lock the door, and then see what's going on!"

"Okay," said the Voice. She started to come out from under the counter, and I started for the door. I stopped for a moment, and discarded the bat I had used on Carl for a new, cleaner one, then turned back towards the door.

So I got a good view of the SUV plowing through the front doors. It didn't stop until it was completely on top of where the front counter, and the Mystery Voice, had been.


The front of Smart Sports now had an SUV-sized hole where it's front doors had been. I remembered there had been concrete pylons, probably there to prevent just such an occurrence from happening, and the SUV must've been going pretty fast, since there was no sign of them. If there's one thing I'm not going to miss in whatever this future turns out to be, it may be fucking SUV's.

There's no way for me to be sure, but I'm pretty sure this was the same SUV I saw at the Burger King. What was that, ten minutes ago?

The girl at the front counter that I had never seen, the Mystery Voice, was gone. Smart Sports was now no longer securable and didn't have guns. And the driver of the SUV had been saved by the airbag but from the sounds in there was obviously a zombie. And there were more outside. None had started in the hole yet, but I figured that wouldn't take long.

I had one idea left: when I had worked at this building before, the break room had been in back. I ran for it, occasionally grabbing items I thought I might need: a duffel bag, a windbreaker, several bottles of water, rope, some Swiss army knives in blister packaging that would probably take a Swiss army knife to get out. And some piton, spike-things. Those I would definitely need. By the time I reached the back, I could hear glass falling, so I didn't think I had much time.

The back of the store was even darker, and considering something could be around every corner or waiting in any shadow, it was fucking terrifying. Parts of the back were stairs and shelves for larger sale items, with the manager's office and break room walled and roofed like little boxes within. The break room had horrible fluorescent lighting, but was bright and clean and felt safer. I put a chair to the door to hold it closed, then smashed open the vending machines and packed up as many candy bars and pops as I could fit.

I had been afraid the noise might attract something, though, and I was right, but a lot quicker than I had expected. With a roar, something ran at the door and hit it so hard I expected zombies to flood into the room, but the lock and chair stood. Then came pounding, and an enraged screaming. Different than Growlee/Carl. This one sounded pissed, where the other had sounded mournfully hungry.

Still, this wasn't entirely unexpected, and I knew how to get into the ceiling from here, so I climbed on top of the pop machine, then moved the ceiling panel and brought up my bags. It was dark, so I had to adjust for a moment after I climbed up and closed the panel behind me. I had grabbed a flashlight before, a nice, heavy blunt instrument of a maglite, but it was packaged with batteries and not ready to use. Being careful where I placed my weight so I wouldn't fall through, I climbed over the break room. The levels adjacent would be easy enough for me to get to, but also easy enough for anything to jump at me if I was spotted.

Ideally, I wanted to get to the roof without any thing seeing me, so I could close the door behind me and have less worry about being followed. Back when I worked here, depending on which manager was working, the big fire alarm lever on the roof access door would be turned off so people could smoke on the roof. Either way, I was going to have to throw down my bags, hop down, climb a set of metal stairs, and get out the door. Simple enough any other time, but now, there was no telling.

Carefully looking over the side, I saw my Screamer: it was the busboy I had seen previously. Shit. He still wore a dirty white shirt and apron, now stained down the front with blood. There was a gory scalp wound on the back of his head, but it looked more painful than anything. Still, it was only him so far. I dropped one of my bags on the opposite side of the break room, and Screamy went running after it. Fast. He ignored the bag, but looked around spastically, his head jerking around. I quietly climbed back into the break room. Unplugged the TV and took it down from the wall mount, then put it on top of the pop machine. Climbed back up, as Screamee went back to pounding on the door.

While he moved like he was receiving electroshock, Screamee was a lot more active than the other two zombies I had seen. The pace of the screams changed, and I realized Screamee was breathing. Was he alive? Well, he wasn't friendly either way, and had to go. "Screamee," I said. He screamed straight up, as the TV smashed his face shut. He twitched a lot.

I took a quick look around: no one in back yet, but I didn't want to go back out front. I hopped down, grabbed my bags, and ran them up to the roof access. The door was open, so I took a quick look: A nice, clear, zombie-free rooftop. After I threw the bags onto the roof, I checked the door to make sure I could secure it from the roof side, all the while glancing over my shoulder to make sure nothing else had made its way to the back room yet.

I could see smoke, from several fires in the city. But I didn't have time to survey the damage just yet. Leaving the roof door open, I went back down the stairs, bat in hand.

It occurred to me the fridge may have more food that I would want later, so I tried that first. There was the remains of a case of Mountain Dew and a Subway sandwich that was probably Carl's, so I dumped the trash out of the little office garbage can and put them in. I also grabbed a first-aid kit, like it was a health pack in a video game. What I thought it would do I couldn't have told you, I'm pretty sure it didn't have anything for zombie bites. Anyway, I didn't think I had much time, but I checked Carl's office.

On his desk was a laptop, still in its case. I didn't know if I'd be able to do anything with it, but I could figure that out on the roof, not there. I grabbed it, and glanced around for anything else that might be helpful. There was a pair of binoculars in a case hanging on a coathook. I only wondered why Carl had them for a moment, and then made my way back to the roof access.

I could hear more zombies, now, roaming around the front of the building. I didn't know if they would hang around if they couldn't hear or see me, and I didn't want a bunch of them inside Smart if I could help it. I took one more look, to make sure I hadn't been followed, then closed the roof door behind me, locking myself up there for the duration, unless I got desperate enough to smash it or something. I used the spikes to wedge the door shut, so even if something did find it's way up there, it would be almost impossible to get through without tools.

There was a fire escape ladder on the roof, anyway, that telescoped down from the top so I'd be able to get down but no zombie would ever be able to reach it. I was safe. For the moment, anyway. I stood, panting, I don't know how long, until I finally realized I was still wearing my bike helmet. I'm quite sure my resulting fit of laughter sounded quite insane, but there was no one there to confirm that for me.


My next course of action was to survey my kingdom of roof. Apparently Smart Sports still had a couple smokers on staff, since there were a couple stained yard chairs up there and an ashtray between them. The chairs were placed facing not into the city proper but into the hills of suburbs and houses, some of which were also burning unchecked.

There was also a radio and an outlet, and I turned on the radio (to static) and plugged in Carl's laptop: it was probably charged, but I didn't know how long power would stay up, and I could be up here playing solitaire for quite a while. I glanced over the computer, noting it was nicer than mine at home, and it looked pretty new. I hoped there wasn't a password or anything, but I still had to look around before monkeying with it.

While I might have preferred a parapet, or whatever you call those ridged edges to a castle, the roof was secure, but I felt agoraphobic at the openness of it. Still, I could see some of the rooftops of the other stores, and didn't see anything yet. And in a pinch, I could probably get to the Pottery Barn's roof if needed.

Still, I was safe. Safe enough for now. I went back to the radio, dialed through the channels to an emergency broadcast signal that didn't seem to be ending soon, then got the binoculars. Plopping down in the chair, I started to look around, but before I did I checked the time on the laptop; which, as you might've guessed by now, wasn't password protected, thank...whoever.

I had only been gone an hour from work. I walked over to the side facing the office building I had been just that morning, and could see it had zombies. Lots of them. Damnit, that was a secure facility, where you had to swipe your ID card to get in. Then again, I guess it only takes one zombie inside to ruin the lot. I didn't use the binoculars. I didn't want to see anyone I knew.

Intersections were crowded with cars, wreckage, corpses moving and not. Even though I could still hear sirens, I didn't see any ambulances or fire trucks moving; but they doubtless would've been the first on the scene, and into the fire.

I looked then at the Burger King, which had three or four zombies roaming about outside, and smoke billowing out the drive-in window, which appeared to be blocked open by a torsoless body. As I watched, one of the screamier zombies Frankenstein-lurched outside, on fire, probably from the frier. He waved his arms, screaming, but it seemed less like it hurt than it was angry.

One of the slower-seeming zombies, a fat man missing most of an arm, turned toward Burner. Oblivious to the flame, Fatty walked over and took a bite out of Burner. This set Fatty's face on fire, and Burner shoved his thumbs through Fatty's trachea. Locked together, they gouged and bit and burned, until they fell over together, like a melting candle.

What the fuck was that?


Even though I had a pretty good vantage point, there was only so much I could see. Partly because a lot of it was horrible to watch, but also because there was so much going on. By two o'clock, there was an emergency broadcast about staying indoors, locking your doors, making peace with your god, etc. But by that point, I hadn't seen that many people--living people venturing out for a while.

The Safeway at the far end of the complex looked safe for a bit, but eventually I could see while a lot of zombies were still trying to get in, there were a fair amount of zombies inside as well. Crap. A couple of the smaller stores that way, a Hallmarks, a cell phone place, Radio Shack, a jewelers; all had doors closed and shutters down, which made me wonder if anyone might be OK there.

The Petsmart had a small pile of dogs, cats, maybe other animals milling about in front of it, seemingly unbothered by the zombies that occasionally walked through them. Someone had to have just let them all loose, rather than leave them to starve in their cages. The animals hadn't taken off just yet, though, as it looked like a couple of bags of food had broken and scattered in front of the doors. I hoped whoever let the animals out made it, but I wasn't gonna bet the farm on that one.

Best Buy didn't look infested, but the area directly in front of the store was littered with computers and DVD's and such. Looking at it forensically, I'd guess looters would run in, grab crap, run out, get eaten, get up, wander off. Great.

Target looked quiet, and part of the front of the store was blocked by a bus. Several zombies banged on the windows, but didn't seem like they were getting anywhere. Still, I couldn't see inside. I wondered how many of these places looked safe, but had zombies trapped inside like flies inside your house, buzzing about and hitting a window over and over.

(The big idea for this one, if and when I ever came back to it, was going to be that there were several distinct types of zombies roaming around: George Romero-style ghouls, voodoo zuevmbies or however you spell that, infected virus carriers ala 28 Days Later, even alien controlled corpse slaves as seen in The Earth Dies Screaming. Sort of Jane Goodall for the zombies, then.) Read more!