Marvel Zombies: Dawn of Decay

For starters, it’s a lousy title. This four-part series isn’t part of the Marvel Zombies universe but instead deals with a bio-plague that turns people into homicidal plant creatures. Pansies and rosettes for eyes, bark and fungal growth breaking out over their skin, that sort of thing. Plus they go around biting people, which is the way thing the virus spreads. Though I don’t think anyone gets eaten.

Second, it isn’t clear that this is “decay.” The infected haven’t died and in fact they can even be cured and turned back to normal at the end.

So not zombies. Just zombie-adjacent. Sort of like the Contagion storyline in that respect.

Groot and Rocket of the Guardians of the Galaxy are in superhero prison before being let out by the Avengers. It seems Rocket was up to his usual Rocket stuff but everything is OK aside from the fact that Groot now has a case of the sniffles. On the jet back home though Groot sneezes on Captain America, which instantly has the effect of turning him into one of the aforementioned plant zombies. And Cap then infects Black Widow, Ant-Man, Thor, and Iron Man before Groot bails from the jet with Bruce Banner. Practically by the time they hit the ground all of NYC has been turned into plant zombies and Banner figures the only way to stop the plague is to get to the Avengers HQ where he can find a cure in the lab. The only problem is that in order to cross the city and get there he will have to turn into the Hulk (who, along with Groot, is immune to the virus). And the Hulk doesn’t want to find a cure, he just wants to smash.

That’s all there is to it, and even though there’s a lot of fighting between Groot and the Hulk on one side and the zombified Avengers on the other, the real conflict is between Groot and the Hulk. As noted, the Hulk doesn’t care about the mission and he gets really sick of listening to the stick man keep saying “I am Groot.” Something I can certainly relate to.

If you like the primitive comic banter that goes on between two characters so limited in their speech then you might have a good time. But even at only four issues I wouldn’t have wanted any more of it. And I say that despite how rushed the ending felt to me. There’s a twist I won’t get into, but the main thing is that they need to find a cure and then they just get one by accident. I actually had to go back and read it again to understand what happened.

I would say this might pass muster for zombie fans, but actually they may be the least impressed by it. There’s less gore and horror, for one thing, because they were targeting a younger audience. But more than that, I found the story too simple and the characters too flat and uninteresting to care very much about it.

Graphicalex