Marvel Zombies 3 TPB

Fred Van Lente delivers the type of zombie story I hoped for from the start of this franchise. He basically plays the whole horror thing straight, and by putting the zombies up against actual characters from the "real" Marvel U, the horror is much more effective. Only a few named characters get killed here. I recognize Conquistador from Contest of Champions, but I have no idea who Siege is. It is nice to see that even Aquarian and Jennifer Kale are too big of names to get eaten.

The actual stars of the trade are obviously Machine Man and Jocasta, with Portal of Darkhawk fame as a supporting character. The robots are dispatched by ARMOR (think interdimensional SHIELD) to obtain a pure blood sample to create a vaccine for the zombie virus. The only problem is that there is a mole in ARMOR, and the vaccine will just infect all the registered heroes instead of innoculating them. There's some great ultra-violence as Machine Man engages in all the violence he wants against the soft fleshies. This Machine Man is the Aaron Stack of Nextwave, not the kind robot of the 70s. That's ok, Van Lente makes sure to give us enough glimpses of X-51's heroic side to still make him likeable. I'm really psyched for the next installment, especially if it really delivers with the Legion of Monsters!

Kev Walker handles the gore well, and still keeps within the style of the previous Marvel Zombies series. He'd be a little too scratchy for a core Marvel U book, but in a horror setting like this, he's perfect.