At the end of the second trade (Marvel Zombies 2), the original zombies (mostly the Avengers) disappear. What happened to them? Where did they go? It turns out that they were scattered throughout the universe. Spider-Man, featured in the first issue of this trade, is thrown back into a world where both Gwen and Mary Jane are still alive. Unfortunately for Spider-Man, he can't really control the Hunger (again). Horrified by what he's done, he's determined to stop the Hunger from devouring the other worlds and dimensions. Along the way, he runs into (and recruits) Wolverine, Hulk (fresh off his Planet Hulk run), and Iron Man (but not Tony Stark) - each featured in an issue - to form the "new Avengers" and take on the other Avengers, who are zombified and trying to find a portal to other worlds to feed the Hunger.

It should have been interesting, but it wasn't. Fred Van Lente is just not Robert Kirkman. Although Van Lente tries to write a good sequel to Kirkman's run on the Marvel Zombies series, he falls very short. When I read the first two trades by Kirkman, I thought that the story ideas were interesting and darkly funny, served alongside a helping of gore. But now the Zombies are just all gore with very little plot and no humor. The series really should have ended after Kirkman stopped writing it, but heaven forbid that Marvel give up something that smells like money for the sake of the story line's integrity.

The Marvel Zombie line is dead, and not in the good "zombie" dead way, but in the "this stuff isn't worth reading" dead way. It's really a shame, because the trades by Kirkman were excellent. I won't be picking up another trade from the Marvel Zombie series. ( )