Contagion

/ Alex Good

Contagion

A little disappointing. But I started out with low expectations that were quickly surpassed. I was thinking it would be a kind of Marvel Zombies, which it is, but the story really whips along and throws in what feels like half the Marvel Universe without losing too much focus. The main hero is the ever-lovin’ Thing, who is called into action when zombie-like creatures are found roaming the New York City subway (beneath Yancy Street, even). And yes, C.H.U.D. is referenced, which scored them an extra point.

What’s happened is an ancient evil in the form of a magic fungus (think green mold, not mushrooms) has been raised beneath the ancient city of K’un-Lun. And . . . then it travels to NYC. Don’t ask me how. It has the ability to take people over and absorb their powers, which makes it pretty tough to beat once it’s taken out the rest of the Fantastic Four and then the Avengers. The Thing is immune, as this sort of mold can’t infect his rocky exterior, but he can’t go clobberin’ it either because it just brushes him aside.

But here the story also got pretty hard to follow, since the consciousness of everyone the mold defeats goes into a sort of hive-mind repository within whoever the primary host happens to be. It’s up to Moon Knight to get inside the hive mind and figure out how to beat the mold, but I can’t for the life of me tell you how it’s done.

So it’s a decent idea, and I liked the range of heroes assembled, even if Iron Fist and Luke Cage, one of my favourite teams, had nothing much to do. Generally I felt that things sort of went downhill though, both in terms of the story (written by Ed Brisson) and the art (each of the five issues has a different artist, and I felt they got progressively weaker). The ending, which I’ve said I didn’t understand, was particularly soft, although there’s a nice coda with the Thing back in the ‘hood.

So, it’s a quickie and winds up feeling rushed what with having so many characters involved, but don’t expect too much and you should enjoy it.

Graphicalex

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