Tommy
09-14-2005, 10:51 AM
Summery
This issue opens with Reed (Zombie) Richards telling Reed (Ultimate) Richards how their world became the cesspool of zombie madness that it is. Apparently a Superhero (I believe Sentry) fell to Earth after breaking in from another Universe. The first people on the Scene were the Avengers who were turned to Zombies themselves. The infection only targets metahumans, normal humans are just consumed. Twenty-Four hours later the entire planet was devoured and the starved Fantastic (Zombie) Four went out looking for a new supply of food.
Reed (Ultimate) Richards asks what this has to do with him, and Reed (Zombie) Richards tells him that they want to crossover to the UU for more food. But first the Fantastic (Zombie) Four try to eat Reed (Ultimate) Richards. Reed (Ultimate) Richards manages to escape into the sewers only to be followed by the Human (Zombie) Torch. The Human (Zombie) Torch comments that really superheroes don't run like little girls as he flies right past Reed (Ultimate) Richards who has flattened himself on the sewer’s ceiling. Reed (Ultimate) Richards comments that the Human (Zombie) Torch must have been reading too many comics books.
Reed (Ultimate) Richards climbs out of the sewer onto a destroyed times square. He gets snagged in the webbing of a Zombie Spider-man and at least 12 other Zombie Superheroes show up when they smell the fresh meat. Their meal is interrupted by the Zombie Hulk who pops by ripping Reed (Ultimate) Richards out of the webbing intending to eat him. Unfortunately before he can a Semi truck lands on top of him. Reed (Ultimate) Richards wonders what is going on while the scared Zombies try to run away. About 20 cars are hovering over their collective heads. The Cars smash down and explode.
Magneto (Not Zombie) appears before Reed (Ultimate) Richards and tells him that following Magneto is the only hope to live.
Meanwhile back in the UU the Human (Ultimate) Torch is looking for Reed (Ultimate) Richards. He and the other Ultimate Fantastic Four go into the lab to discover the teleported.
Back in Zombie land Magneto tells Reed (Ultimate) Richards that the two of them are the only ones left with powers. Magneto reviles that the world has only been over run in two or three days. Then he introduces Reed (Ultimate) Richards to the last three humans, one of whom needs medication. The survivors wonder if Reed (Ultimate) Richards is related to Reed (Zombie) Richards. Reed (Ultimate) Richards reviles that he is from another universe, and realizes that Reed (Zombie) Richards now has access to his world. He wants to go to the Baxter (Zombie) building and stop them from accessing the Baxter (Ultimate) building. Magneto tells him it is too late his world is dead.
Meanwhile The Fantastic (Ultimate) Four stand in front of the teleported which clicks on and they meet the Fantastic (Zombie) Four.
Review
To start off I would like to say this is by far the best Zombie story I have ever read in comics. What makes zombies scary is the swarm factor. That it does not matter if you can out run them since there is just a never ending legion of them. This is really hard to do in a mainstream superhero book for two reasons. Number one is that you simply can not supply enough zombies with out it spilling over into other books. Unlike DC comics most of the cities in Marvel are real cities so killing the entire population of an existing city and making them zombies is just not practical. The other reason is that Superheroes have superpowers that would make most Zombie swarms useless no matter how many of them there are. The Human Torch could wipe out entire Zombie armies with little effort. So we are usually treated to about five or six dead super-powered individuals fighting some living superheroes.
However this story got it right. Only super-powered people already are zombies. And then entire planet is destroyed. And then Ultimate Reed stumbles upon it as arrogantly optimistic as 616 Reed.
Now for my nitpicking. Most of these can just be ignored as it being an alternate universe, but still kind of annoying. First off even if we go by the approximate 16 million metahumans in the 616 universe here then it would still mean that each one of those 16 mill would have to eat about 375 people in under 24 hours. That is just not all that realistic. And secondly what are they all doing back in New York if it has only been about two days? Most of them should be places like Obscure Japanese Islands and savannas of Africa if they really had consumed the whole planet. But hey alternate universe, we do not know their geography or population.
I am extremely happy to see that the story archs have been cut down lately. All of the previous archs I felt were far too long, particularly the last one where Nihil didn't even appear until issue four. This pacing seems much more interesting.
The Art of course is gorgeous. They were really wise to bring the whole Phoenix Endsong team to this book. I do think that Greg land's hair designs could use a little tweaking (particularly Reed and Johnny). But all in all it looks gorgeous.
I would probably rate this issue the best issue of UFF to be published.
This issue opens with Reed (Zombie) Richards telling Reed (Ultimate) Richards how their world became the cesspool of zombie madness that it is. Apparently a Superhero (I believe Sentry) fell to Earth after breaking in from another Universe. The first people on the Scene were the Avengers who were turned to Zombies themselves. The infection only targets metahumans, normal humans are just consumed. Twenty-Four hours later the entire planet was devoured and the starved Fantastic (Zombie) Four went out looking for a new supply of food.
Reed (Ultimate) Richards asks what this has to do with him, and Reed (Zombie) Richards tells him that they want to crossover to the UU for more food. But first the Fantastic (Zombie) Four try to eat Reed (Ultimate) Richards. Reed (Ultimate) Richards manages to escape into the sewers only to be followed by the Human (Zombie) Torch. The Human (Zombie) Torch comments that really superheroes don't run like little girls as he flies right past Reed (Ultimate) Richards who has flattened himself on the sewer’s ceiling. Reed (Ultimate) Richards comments that the Human (Zombie) Torch must have been reading too many comics books.
Reed (Ultimate) Richards climbs out of the sewer onto a destroyed times square. He gets snagged in the webbing of a Zombie Spider-man and at least 12 other Zombie Superheroes show up when they smell the fresh meat. Their meal is interrupted by the Zombie Hulk who pops by ripping Reed (Ultimate) Richards out of the webbing intending to eat him. Unfortunately before he can a Semi truck lands on top of him. Reed (Ultimate) Richards wonders what is going on while the scared Zombies try to run away. About 20 cars are hovering over their collective heads. The Cars smash down and explode.
Magneto (Not Zombie) appears before Reed (Ultimate) Richards and tells him that following Magneto is the only hope to live.
Meanwhile back in the UU the Human (Ultimate) Torch is looking for Reed (Ultimate) Richards. He and the other Ultimate Fantastic Four go into the lab to discover the teleported.
Back in Zombie land Magneto tells Reed (Ultimate) Richards that the two of them are the only ones left with powers. Magneto reviles that the world has only been over run in two or three days. Then he introduces Reed (Ultimate) Richards to the last three humans, one of whom needs medication. The survivors wonder if Reed (Ultimate) Richards is related to Reed (Zombie) Richards. Reed (Ultimate) Richards reviles that he is from another universe, and realizes that Reed (Zombie) Richards now has access to his world. He wants to go to the Baxter (Zombie) building and stop them from accessing the Baxter (Ultimate) building. Magneto tells him it is too late his world is dead.
Meanwhile The Fantastic (Ultimate) Four stand in front of the teleported which clicks on and they meet the Fantastic (Zombie) Four.
Review
To start off I would like to say this is by far the best Zombie story I have ever read in comics. What makes zombies scary is the swarm factor. That it does not matter if you can out run them since there is just a never ending legion of them. This is really hard to do in a mainstream superhero book for two reasons. Number one is that you simply can not supply enough zombies with out it spilling over into other books. Unlike DC comics most of the cities in Marvel are real cities so killing the entire population of an existing city and making them zombies is just not practical. The other reason is that Superheroes have superpowers that would make most Zombie swarms useless no matter how many of them there are. The Human Torch could wipe out entire Zombie armies with little effort. So we are usually treated to about five or six dead super-powered individuals fighting some living superheroes.
However this story got it right. Only super-powered people already are zombies. And then entire planet is destroyed. And then Ultimate Reed stumbles upon it as arrogantly optimistic as 616 Reed.
Now for my nitpicking. Most of these can just be ignored as it being an alternate universe, but still kind of annoying. First off even if we go by the approximate 16 million metahumans in the 616 universe here then it would still mean that each one of those 16 mill would have to eat about 375 people in under 24 hours. That is just not all that realistic. And secondly what are they all doing back in New York if it has only been about two days? Most of them should be places like Obscure Japanese Islands and savannas of Africa if they really had consumed the whole planet. But hey alternate universe, we do not know their geography or population.
I am extremely happy to see that the story archs have been cut down lately. All of the previous archs I felt were far too long, particularly the last one where Nihil didn't even appear until issue four. This pacing seems much more interesting.
The Art of course is gorgeous. They were really wise to bring the whole Phoenix Endsong team to this book. I do think that Greg land's hair designs could use a little tweaking (particularly Reed and Johnny). But all in all it looks gorgeous.
I would probably rate this issue the best issue of UFF to be published.