Ultimate Fantastic Four #22

Background

During his experiments with the N-Zone, Reed comes across a signal from a parallel Earth. Communicating back and forth between their realities, an alternate version of Reed Richards met with the Ultimate version to talk about a mission the older Reed is putting together using the smartest minds throughout every universe. With his help, the Ultimate Reed builds himself a teleporter to transport himself to the other Reed's universe. Making the jump, young Reed finds himself in a post apocalyptic version of New York, with mass destruction and corpses everywhere. Wondering what could have happened, the alternate version of the Fantastic Four show up, except something is terribly wrong with them. Enter the Marvel Zombies. The Zombie Reed tricked Ultimate Reed in order to get him to come to their universe.

Story Details

One super hero from an infected universe was all it took to wipe out the entire universe of the alternate Reed Richards. The Sentry was the one that spread the disease, turning all of the super heroes into flesh eating zombies one by one until there was no one left. This is why the alternate Reed Richards lulled the young Ultimate Reed there. With no one else left, the zombies needed more food.

The young Reed does the only thing he can up against the zombified versions of the Fantastic Four, he runs away as fast as he can down into the sewers where the Human Torch takes off after him, taunting him each step of the way. Reed manages to escape up out right into Times Square, or where Times Square use to be, but is quickly webbed up to the side of a building by the zombie version of Spider-Man. He along with a whole bunch of other infected super heroes are surprised to find a still uninfected person left. I guess the zombie Reed didn't fill everyone else in on his little plan to bring food to their dimension.

It Looks like it's curtains for Ultimate Reed, when suddenly the Hulk jumps forth, separating Reed away from the other zombies, saying Hulk is hungrier then them all. Talk about jumping from the frying pan into the fire, but Hulk's victory is short lived when a tanker truck lands on top of him, followed by a number of other vehicles crashing into everyone else. Magneto extends a hand down to Reed saying if he wants to live he has to come with him.

Back in the Ultimate universe Johnny is looking for Reed and gets the help of Susan and the Thing. They check everywhere with no luck. Gaining access to his lab Susan discovers what looks like some kind of teleporter. Johnny thinks they should tell his father that Reeds missing but Susan knows that Reed is already in hot water with him and she thinks that whatever Reed has been up to will just make it worse.

Back in the Zombie universe Magneto has taken young Reed to their hide-out explaining that there are other people still alive and zombie-free but he, Magneto, is the only person left who has any super powers. Located in an old train yard, their secret location is hidden by a number of derelict trains that Magneto moves without any trouble.

Magneto tells Reed that all this started maybe three days ago. Impossible to imagine that all this destruction and chaos all started about 72 hours earlier. We also are introduced to the other survivors being protected by Magneto, a father and his diabetic daughter, and a trigger happy officer named Kelly. Everyone asks what's up with Reed, is he somehow related to their Reed Richards or something and Reed tells them that he's from a parallel reality and that their Reed tricked him into building a teleporter to bring him there. That's when Magneto realizes exactly what has happened. Reed gave the zombie Reed access to and uninfected universe filled with "food". Reed demands that they all get to the Baxter Building and destroy the teleporter but Magneto tells him they're already too late. His universe is already dead.

Back in Reed's lab, Susan, the Thing and Johnny are standing by the teleporter when it is activated. "Something's going through," Susan says and it looks like Magneto is probably right about the Ultimate Universe as the Zombie versions of the Fantastic Four appear.

General Comments

Having tricked the Ultimate version of Reed Richards into building a teleporter and sending himself to their universe, the zombie versions of the Fantastic Four are there to meet him on the other side. Young Reed manages to get away from them with a little help from Magneto of all people. Magneto tells Reed how just one infected super-hero came to their world and within 3 days almost everyone was either dead or a zombie and that he's the only super power left in the world. Reed mentions that its a bit ironic that Magneto is now the protector of a bunch of humans, but Magneto tells him that with everyone dead, you have to stick with what's left.

Magneto and Reed hash it out that by tricking Reed into building a teleporter to their world, he also built a way for the zombies to get to his. Back in Reed's lab that's exactly what has happened as the zombie versions of the Fantastic Four meet up with the rest of the ultimate versions of themselves and all that stands in their way between an entire world filled with millions of fresh, uninfected people are Susan, the Thing and Johnny.

Overall Rating

When I first heard about a mini-series starring zombie versions of the Marvel universe I pretty much laughed it off as a joke and then didn't think too much else about it until one day I noticed the first issue at my comic shop. It had a cover reminiscent of Amazing Fantasy #15 so I got it thinking, what the hell. I read it and lo-and-behold, I loved it. I just had to have more so I found out that the Marvel zombies made their first appearance in this 3 issue series of Ultimate Fantastic Four. So I came into the picture already loving the Marvel zombies so how else was I suppose to rate the origin story of them?

Footnote

This is actually the second appearance of the Marvel zombies. The first happened in the previous issue of Ultimate Fantastic Four but since it only had the zombie version of Mr. Fantastic and not Spider-Man, it is not in the database.