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| Zombie | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | Tales of the Zombie #1 (August 1973) Menace #5 (July 1953,retroactive) |
| Created by | Atlas: Stan Lee Bill Everett Marvel: Roy Thomas Steve Gerber John Buscema Tom Palmer |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Simon William Garth |
| Species | Zombie |
| Team affiliations | Phil Coulson'sHowling Commandos |
| Abilities | Superhuman strength Magical healing |
The Zombie (Simon William Garth) is a fictionalsupernatural character appearing inAmerican comic books published byMarvel Comics. The character was created by writerStan Lee and artistBill Everett for the standalone story "Zombie" in the horror-anthologycomic bookMenace #5 (July 1953), which was published byAtlas Comics, a forerunner to Marvel.[1] The character later became well known for starring in the black-and-whitehorror-comicmagazine seriesTales of the Zombie (1973–1975), usually in stories bySteve Gerber andPablo Marcos.
Marvel Comics editor-in-chiefRoy Thomas plucked the character Simon Garth, the Zombie, from a pre-Comics Code horror tale inMenace #5 (July 1953), published by Marvel forerunnerAtlas Comics, and brought the character into modern-day continuity inTales of the Zombie #1 (August 1973). The initial modern story, co-scripted by Thomas andSteve Gerber and drawn byJohn Buscema andTom Palmer, was a 12-page tale that led into a seven-page reprint of the 1950s story (with the art slightly altered to give the Zombie shoulder-length rather than short hair).[2][3] That original story was also reprinted in 1975'sTales of the Zombie Super Annual #1,[4] and again two decades later inCurse of the Weird #4 (March 1994), the final issue of a short-lived Marvel horror reprint series.
Following the premiere, all the Zombie stories were by Gerber and artistPablo Marcos (one of these in collaboration with writerDoug Moench and artistAlfredo Alcala). The original series' finale, set at Garth's daughter's wedding in issue #9, was a three-chapter story written byTony Isabella (chapter 2 with co-scripterChris Claremont), and drawn bypencilers Virgilio Redondo, Yong Montano, andRon Wilson, respectively, andinked by Alcala (chapters 1–2) and Marcos (chapter 3).
Tales of the Zombie published the last work ofGolden Age greatSyd Shores,Captain America's first penciler followingJack Kirby's departure from the character in 1941. Shores had finished penciling two-thirds of the eight-page story "Voodoo War" for issue #5 (May 1974) before dying of a heart seizure.Dick Ayers penciled the remainder of writerTony Isabella's anthological horror tale.
Although laid to peaceful rest inTales of the Zombie #9 (he did not appear in the following, final issue, which contained aBrother Voodoo story and three anthological tales), Simon Garth was reanimated in the horror-comics magazineBizarre Adventures #33 (Dec. 1982), in an out-of-chronology story hard to reconcile with the remainder of the character's continuity. The Zombie returned to color comic books in a backup story inDaredevil Annual #9 (July 1993). At the time of that appearance, the Zombie remained unearthed, and controlled by his daughter Donna, who pledged to have him eliminate other such enthralled undead.
The Zombie thereafter appeared inPeter Parker: Spider-Man Annual '97 (1997); in a behind-the-scenes reference inBlade: Crescent City Blues #1 (March 1998) leading into a guest appearance inSpider-Man Unlimited #20 (May 1998); and in a solo story in the anthology seriesStrange Tales (vol. 4) #1 (Sept. 1998). A decade later, he starred in a solo story in theone-shot omnibusLegion of Monsters:Man-Thing #1 (May 2007). He was also one of the main characters inMarvel Zombies 4.
He made an appearance inMarvel Zombie (October 2018).[5]
Simon William Garth was born inBirmingham, Alabama and became a work-obsessed executive of Garth Manor Coffee, based inNew Orleans,Louisiana,United States. Ambushed and kidnapped by his formergardener (whom he had fired), Garth is to be avoodoo cult'shuman sacrifice; however, the cult's priestess Layla recognizes Garth as her own everyday-life employer, with whom she is in love. Though her attempt to let him escape is thwarted, and though she is forced to mystically transform his corpse into azombie with a clouded mind, under the control of whoever holds the matching Amulet of Damballah worn by Garth, Layla and her grandfather, Papa Doc Kabel, continue to try to help the uncomprehending Zombie reach his final rest.
Despite his zombie state, he retains some vestige of his soul: for instance, when under the control of the Amulet, he has been forced to hurt or even kill people he has come to care about (such as Philip Bliss and Layla). The moment he is free from control, his vengeance is terrible. Because of these remnants of soul, Layla and Papa Doc perform a ritual that allows Garth 24 hours in his restored human form in order that he might attend the wedding of his daughter Donna and set in order what was left of his previous life.[6]
He was resurrected by thevoodoo witchCalypso who discovered that, through acts ofselflessness, this particular zombie possessed free will, i.e. the ability to act of his own accord and not always at the request of whoever was wearing the Amulet of Damballah — an unusual feature for a member of the walking dead. In this case, he ignored her orders and pushed Calypso aside in order to release the captive soul of his friend Papa Doc Kabel, whom Calypso had murdered as part of the process of reviving Garth.[7]
Simon Garth had been a test subject ofA.R.M.O.R. when the zombie plague killed everyone on the base. He retrieved the head of zombieDeadpool, and used the base's teleporters to escape to the bottom of the sea, where Deadpool's head infected all of the Men-Fish and their leader, thePiranha. Garth was compelled to travel to the island nation of Taino in the Caribbean Sea, where he toldBlack Talon about the zombie plague. Black Talon assumed control of Garth, and captured Deadpool's head.[8] When the zombie Deadpool's head bites one of the Black Talon's henchmen, he uses this opportunity to get Garth to help him escape.[9] At the end of the series,Jennifer Kale and theBlack Talon confine the zombie virus inside Garth.[10]
The Zombie was later recruited byPhil Coulson to join his incarnation of theHowling Commandos in order to fightDormammu's Mindless Plague.[11]
As the Zombie, Garth is supernaturally strong and able to heal mystically from injuries; however, he is also virtually mindless. Also, due to the Amulet of Damballah, which he wears around his neck, he must obey anyone who holds that item's duplicate.
A revamped version of the Zombie appeared in a new continuity in Marvel's mature-readersMAXimprint, in the four-issue miniseriesZombie (Nov. 2006 - Feb. 2007), written by Mike Raicht and illustrated byKyle Hotz.[12] Here, Simon Garth is a bank teller who, with his co-worker Layla, becomes tangled in the affairs of two robbers and an infectious zombifying gas. Simon plantspaint bombs in the money bags that only he can defuse, so he and Layla are kidnapped and accidentally brought into the zombie quarantine zone, thinking that the barriers were to stop the robbers from escaping rather than to keep the undead in check. The series concludes with a bitten and bullet-riddled Simon, the only survivor of the outbreak, being taken into the custody of the military and extracted from the scene via helicopter.
Zombie was followed by a second four-issue miniseries,The Zombie: Simon Garth withEric Powell replacing Reicht (with the cover of the first issue paying homage to the cover art of the first issue ofTales of the Zombie), which chronicles the events following the extraction, and Simon's escapades as a "heroic" zombie.
Other characters known as Zombie in theMarvel Universe include:
Simon Garth, the Zombie was ranked #19 on a listing of Marvel Comics' monster characters in 2015.[13]
Some of the stories have been collected intotrade paperbacks:
Garth isn't your typical zombie. He retains a vestige of intelligence and morality which is somehow intensely disturbing. Imagine, rotting from within, but being completely aware of your desiccated state.
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