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Comic Lore

How the Marvel Zombies Began

Tied to: Ultimate Fantastic Four Facsimile Edition (2026) #21 · Marvel Zombies: War Zone (2026) #2

Marvel's undead heroes started as a twist in the Ultimate line. In Ultimate Fantastic Four #21–23 (2005), the "Crossover" arc by Mark Millar and Greg Land, the young Reed Richards answers a message from what he thinks is an older version of himself. The other world turns out to be Earth-2149, where nearly every hero has been turned into a flesh-eating zombie, and its Reed wants a doorway into fresh territory. With help from that world's Magneto, the Ultimate team escapes and the gateway is shut. This week's facsimile edition reprints #21, the issue where it all begins.

Marvel liked the idea enough to spin it off. Robert Kirkman and Sean Phillips's five-issue Marvel Zombies (2005–06), with Arthur Suydam's covers riffing on classic Marvel covers, picks up right after: the zombies take down Magneto, devour the Silver Surfer, absorb some of the Power Cosmic, eat Galactus, and head into space looking for new worlds.

Where did the plague come from? Ultimate Fantastic Four #22 says a zombified Sentry crash-landed on Earth-2149 and infected the Avengers, and the rest of the planet followed within a day. Later stories made it a time loop: the infected Sentry is eventually sent back in time to that same Earth, so the outbreak has no clear starting point.

Twenty years later the franchise is still going, through sequels, a Marvel Zombies vs. Army of Darkness crossover, and a 2025 Disney+ animated series. Marvel Zombies: War Zone (2026) is the newest entry. It's a five-issue series by Tom Waltz in which the Punisher and New York's street-level heroes fight to survive inside a quarantined Manhattan.

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The Books This Ties To