An
intercompany crossover between Marvel and
Dynamite Entertainment, published from May to September 2007 provided information as to the source of the zombie infection in the five-part limited series titled
Marvel Zombies vs. The Army of Darkness (Marvel) and
Army of Darkness (Dynamite). In July of the same year, a
one-shot graphic novel,
Marvel Zombies: Dead Days provided more story details, and the zombies also appear in a three-part storyline in
Black Panther (vol. 4) #28 – 30, although they make their appearance in the last page of #27 first, and encounter the
Earth-616 Fantastic Four. A sequel to the original series, the five-issue
Marvel Zombies 2, was published from October 2007 to February 2008, and
Marvel Zombies 3 a four-issue series, commenced October 2008.
Marvel Zombies 4 is a four-issue limited series published over the summer of 2009, and features characters from Marvel's horror comics (
Man-Thing,
Morbius the Living Vampire,
Werewolf by Night, and
Mephisto among others).
Marvel Zombies 5 is a five-issue direct sequel to
Marvel Zombies 4, published in June and ending in October 2010.
Marvel Zombies Return is a five-issue miniseries begun in September 2009, and is a direct sequel to
Marvel Zombies 2 that wraps up the original zombie plotline. Several other sequels and spin-offs have been produced. In 2006, the October issue of
Wizard magazine featured a one-page
Marvel Zombies comic by artist Sean Phillips called "Eat the Neighbors". It parodied
Hostess pastry advertisements featured in the Marvel titles in the 1970s, which showcased Marvel superheroes defeating villains by offering them snacks. In this instance, Spider-Man, Captain America and Iron Man serve two children as "Hostees Meat Pies" after the children mistake them for legitimate superheroes. Another humorous one-shot comic book was also published in 2007 featuring the alternate universe animal hero
Spider-Ham and titled
Ultimate Civil War: Spider-Ham. Spider-Ham accidentally crosses over into Earth-2149 and becomes, as
J. Michael Straczynski puts it, "Undead Ham".
Secret Wars (2015) The Marvel Zombies universe was featured in the 2015
Secret Wars storyline where it also had its own tie-in miniseries,
Age of Ultron vs. Marvel Zombies. The Battleworld domain of the Marvel Zombies is called the Deadlands; it, Ultron's domain, Perfection, and Annihilation's realm, New Xandar, all are separated from the other Battleworld domains by a wall called SHIELD, which is mostly made from
Ben Grimm. The zombies and Ultron's drones spent several years battling until they formed an 'alliance'. They start by targeting the Deadland resistance, led by surviving heroes the Vision,
Wonder Man, and
Jim Hammond, who gather those exiled beyond the Wall into a secure city they have established. At the time of the attack, the three heroes have managed to rescue a version of Hank Pym exiled from a Wild-West-era zone, who is able to use his counterpart's notes to devise a means of shutting down the hive mind of Ultron's drones despite his more primitive background, at the cost of sacrificing the Vision and Wonder Man to make the machine work (although Wonder Man's android lover is reconfigured so that she can die in Hammond's place). During the core
Secret Wars miniseries,
Black Panther uses the zombies as an army to attack the now-all-powerful Doctor Doom in the final stand, using his new 'King of the Dead' status and the
Siege Perilous to take the zombies directly to Doom's castle, although even this number is merely a distraction to keep Doom occupied while Reed Richards targets Doom's power source.
Dawn of Decay (2024) In 2024 a new and revamped Marvel Zombies
Dawn of Decay based on
The Last of Us (with a fungus based infection instead this time) was released. Featuring
Groot and
Hulk as the two main characters taking on the apocalypse. ==Collected editions==