Bang's Blogs: Marvel Zombies vs DCeased


“Never meet your heroes, they're not always who you think they are.” -Marcel Proust


Marvel Zombies, the gospel hunger of Earth-2149.


DCeased, the anti-life blights of Earth-55. 



Few world-ending scenarios are as irrationally feared as the zombie apocalypse. One virus that could end all of life as we know it, turning everyone into undead monsters with nothing but hunger. But what happens when the zombies come alive on the pages of comic books? The what-if and elseworld comics of Marvel and DC have given us two universes where a zombie outbreak changed the whole world, and today, only one will roam the cosmos in endless hunger. Race to the graves in this DEATH BATTLE!

Before We Start…

With Marvel Zombies we’re specifically focusing only on the 2149 reality in the marvel multiverse. There are plenty of other Marvel universes affected by a zombie plague, but they are usually pretty different from the original idea with the best example being the The Marvel Universe VS. series. 2149 is also just simply the one most people think about and is the one with the most media to pull from. Anything else will for the most part be ignored, other than maybe a small comment here and there. This includes the Battleworld comics and the Marvel Apes crossover, while they are similar, they are officially not the 2149 universe. So yeah, no Marvel Zombies Manga feats! Sorry- 


DCeased is more straightforward, as it only takes place in Earth-55 so we’ll only be focusing on that. 


As for a general rule of thumb for both though, we will be analyzing these hordes across all of their members, even those who have died and those who may have been miraculously cured. This is due to the fact that even if we say, left out Superman because he was cured but leave him in for scaling purposes, at that point we’re already using everyone who was infected anyways, so for completionist sake, we’ll just hypothetically imagine that every unimportant or important member is being planted on a battlefield against each other. Because it's more fun that way!

It All Started With…

Marvel Zombies

“You don't understand - We tried to fight this - we did - but we just can't! This is what we are now! There's nothing we can do!”


It was just a normal day in the universe of 2149, but that would change when a man fell from the sky and landed in New York City. He would soon receive a message from a Demon possessed Bag Lady, that an army of the dead would rise and this world would end. Ash Williams would then go to this world's strongest protectors and alert them to this prophecy. Though, due to his own stupidity and arrogance, they didn't take him seriously. Then shortly with a flash in the sky and a ripple in the clouds, a being from an alternate universe crashed in the middle of the city. The Avengers were first on the scene and before they had a chance to fight back, a hero from a dead universe fed on them, turning them into blood thirsty monsters. This was the beginning of the end. This was no longer a world of Marvel Heroes - It was now a world of Marvel Zombies.


The virus spread like wildfire, reaching every major continent within hours and giving little means for a proper quarantine. Nick Fury of S.H.E.I.L.D. in a desperate bid to fight back against the growing number of super powered undead would send out a distress call to all uninfected heroes and form The Resistance, mostly made up of a wildly varied group of heroes and even villains. Their plan was to strategically send teams down from the Helicarrier and take back the world pieces at a time until they saved it, while Reed Richards and other big brains tried to find a cure. Not a perfect plan but it was all they could muster on such short notice and with such limited resources. However, everything possible went wrong. For every member the Resistance lost, the Zombies gained another. Reed Richards went mad and infected himself and the Fantastic Four, who now planned to use a Interdimensional travel device constructed by Tony Stark to wreck havoc throughout the multiverse. Out of options, Nick Fury ordered Thor to destroy the device. So that this virus would be stuck in their universe, no matter what happened to them now.


Over the next twenty four hours the Zombie legions would wipe the entire planet clean of life. Russia, Japan, The Savage Land - none were spared by the plague and just in time for the Silver Surfer to arrive heralding the coming of Galactus. A select few of the Zombies were able to consume the Surfer, turning their new found cosmic powers against his master and consuming him as well. Over the next forty years they traveled the known universe, picking it clean of any life they came across. After their universal feast was over, they would then travel back to earth and find a small colony of living people who had Tony Stark's old interdimensional travel device. With some of them having come to fund the hunger had faded and their minds clouded by guilt, the last of the Marvel Zombies found begin to fight amongst each other in a battle for what was left of mankind. But in a twist, one of the survivors would trick them and use the portal to send them to another universe and rid their world of these monsters. They were someone else's problem now.

DCeased

“There was one thing I didn't know…There's a monster inside all of us.”


An invasion of Apokolips. Like any other regular Tuesday, the Justice League of America thwarted Darkseid and his Parademon army, forcing him to never again return to the Earth. Fortunately for Darkseid, he felt no need, saying he had found what he needed for something greater. The Justice League realized one of their members was missing; Cyborg. He was nowhere to be found throughout the entire galaxy, and it turns out Darkseid captured Cyborg and took him to Apokolips. Cyborg’s body of man and machine housed part of the Anti-Life Equation, of which DeSaad tries to transfer the equation from Cyborg to Darkseid. To ensure Cyborg doesn’t die in the process, Darkseid summons the Black Racer, the New God of Death itself, using his essence to corrupt the Anti-Life Equation. The transfer worked, but it had corrupting, terrifying side effects. Darkseid fell prey to the equation’s overwhelming despair, and DeSaad sent Cyborg back to Earth via Boom-Tube while Darkseid laid waste to Apokolips. On Earth, Cyborg’s systems immediately went online, starting a techno-organic infection of the Anti-Life Equation that went through all screens and networks. Any who looked at the equation on screen would become infected the same way Darkseid was; an agent of the anti-living with a single-minded purpose of extinguishing all life, becoming the horde of the DCeased Universe. 


That day, the Earth fell. Countless heroes and villains became part of the anti-living horde, and what little resistances remained were scattered across the world, taking safe havens in Australia and the jungle fortress of Gotham City. But the damage was far too great, and what little heroes remained had to build arks to escape Earth and the millions of people still alive, while some vigilantes stayed behind on Earth to hold out for those that could not make it. Within five years, the heroes had gone to Earth-2 and become the next generations of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, and more. It seemed like the life before was just behind them. Until something from that life reached out to them. 


Despite being presumed dead, Cyborg’s head remained, and using all of his power, sent out a distress signal to the heroes on the counter-Earth. There was still a sliver of hope that remained in the man responsible for the end of the world, for Cyborg held in him the Life Equation as well. But the cure needed to come fast, as godlike deities started rampaging all over the universe left and right, from Trigon coming to destroy Earth to the anti-living Darkseid waking up with a storm of anti-living New Gods. With some manufacturing from Cyborg, Swamp Thing, and Kid Flash, a cure was able to be made, just in time to stop the Amazo Army from wiping out the anti-living. Millions of lives were saved that day, but the battle was far from over. In order to truly stop the anti-living virus, they had to go to the source; Erebos. The Greek personification of primordial darkness and the true mastermind behind the Anti-Life Equation. Traveling to Limbo with heroes and villains alike, the son of Batman had one last contingency; to bond with the Life Equation itself, and charge into Erebos’ essence with Warworld, starting a Big Bang that will stop all of this from ever happening. And so, the anti-living virus was gone, and a new cosmos was created, born from the sons and bats of dear old Alfred Pennyworth. 



What Corrupts Them…

Marvel Zombies

The Hunger Virus

Otherwise known as “The Gospel”. This isn't just a regular zombie plague, it's a sentient extraterrestrial virus that specifically targets metahumans. As they are the most likely to spread it. Physiology does not matter for the Hunger Virus. Anyone is susceptible to it, even through the slightest break in skin. Gods like Thor and Hercules, Mutants, Inhumans, cybernetics, animals… all have fallen victim to this plague. The Virus on record can take anywhere from 5 to 18 minutes to take effect, resulting in vomiting massive amounts of blood (Though, Hank Pym does state that it took over Colonel America “almost immediately”). When the virus invaded the 616 Continuity, A.R.M.O.R. Agents said it could spread through the entirety of America within 24 hours and this is the same amount of time it took them to kill their own world. The Virus inflicts its host in an insatiable hunger for living flesh. They are quite literally addicted to it and cannot help themselves. Everyone infected still retains their main traits, intelligence, powers etc. They are still the same person technically but are just inflicted with an incurable addiction that can only be satiated by consuming flesh but this will only last for so long. While they may get an hour to think about what they've done, the hunger will always swiftly come back and force them to hunt down more prey. As it causes them an immense amount of pain


On the flip side though, the Virus renders them basically immortal as stated by Reed Richards. He also said during his studies on them that the infection essentially makes them into a more efficient life form, using far less energy than a living person. Most bodily functions are shut down, as they are just no longer necessary with little more than their brain fully functioning, although due to this their bodies develop a massive amount of natural acid, which just dissolves anything they eat. Yet they still retain all of their mobility and intellect. They are immune to most forms of physical death as long as their brain is intact, don’t require sleep, food or water and essentially have unlimited stamina. The virus also grants them a heavily decreased decomposition rate and enhanced sense of smell to better tract prey. There are some downsides however, notably, healing factors are rendered moot. As shown most prominently with Wolverine. And natural necrosis does affect them in some ways such as slight memory loss, as shown with Iron Man and Morbious

DCeased

The Anti-Living Virus

When Darkseid used a portion of the Black Racer’s essence to bond with the Anti-Life Equation, a deadly virus was created. To be able to control this kind of Anti-Life Equation is stated by DeSaad to be the end of all free will, or the domination of all sentient races, to control death itself. Contrary to what was believed, the anti-living aren’t actually zombies. Those infected by the virus become ‘blights’, anti-living creatures that aren’t consumed by hunger, but rather simply want to spread death by stealing life, triggered by the equation, capable of sensing life and searching for it.


Batman stated that due to being Apokoliptian in nature, the anti-living virus is capable of spreading as a techno-organic virus as well, making it a hybrid of a techno/biological virus. When Cyborg was returned to Earth, his systems went automatically online, and the anti-living virus spread on social media as a techno-organic virus, infecting the minds of all who saw it, and those controlled by it began messaging or tweeting it to spread it further. Biologically, it is capable of spreading through a variety of means. Most commonly, anti-living will wound those it seeks to infect, a simple slash or bite can do the trick. Even accidentally swallowing blood or interacting with decayed flesh/wounds of fallen anti-living can cause an infection.


The rate at which the infection spreads is astronomically fast. Humans are helpless against the virus, becoming anti-living the moment they come in contact with it. Even metahumans such as Superman are not safe from its infection rate, as despite Kal being able to fight the infection longer than most, he couldn’t even reach outer space by the time he was infected. The anti-living may seem totally mindless, but they are capable of speaking, almost like one hivemind (given the “we”), and are capable of working out in their minds their ability to beat an opponent. More proof of not being traditional zombies is the fact that there are still souls trapped within the anti-living as confirmed by Ragman and Etrigan the Demon


Members

Marvel Zombies

The Galacti

Our main group of Zombies that we follow throughout most of the series. When the Silver Surfer arrived on Earth and after a hectic brawl, these guys were the select few to get to munch down on him and gain cosmic power… which they then used to cook and eat their non-cosmic comrades and then the Mighty Planet Eating Galactus - which then gave them even greater portions of the Power Cosmic. Granting them massively faster than light speed flight, paralysis infliction, heightened senses, force field creation, power amplification, self sustenance, and the capability to consume entire planets (Already starting out big huh?) Though it is important to note that by the end of their run, their cosmic power is likely weaker as Tony has stated that feeding themselves off it does progressively weaken it


The Frightful Four

After being driven mad by the sight of the brutal deaths of his children, Reed Richards began to see the infected as the next step in evolution and purposefully infected his teammates and then himself. Together they mostly operated separately from the other Marvel Zombies but would plan to have them aid in the infection of the Ultimate universe after tricking that reality’s own Reed into crossing over with theirs. Their plan would ultimately fail however, as they were thwarted by the Ultimate Reed Richards and Doom. 


Thor Odinson

Thor was the undisputed MVP of the Resistance during the first days of the outbreak and was the last founding Avenger standing. Taking on the zombified Thunderbolts, bashing in the Abomination’s head and at the command of Nick Fury, he destroyed the Interdimensional Transporter to keep the infection from spreading to the rest of the Multiverse, sacrificing himself in the process. As it turns out not even Gods were immune to the virus. Joined by his cousin: Hercules, Thor is a major player for the zombie hordes, being one of their strongest members. He’s still a God of Thunder, and has the belt of strength and mighty Mjolnir. Which grants him most of his powers, such as flight, weather manipulation and the ability to summon and control electricity to use it for powerful attacks. However, after around a week, Thor lost the ability to wield Mjolnir because… well he was fucking eating people. So he made a replacement out of rebar and concrete. (We’ll be assuming he has Mjolnir though.)


Quicksilver

Pietro, after being tricked by a Zombified Mystique disguised as his Sister, was turned and is the soul reason S.H.E.I.L.D. were unable to properly quarantine the infection before it spread. He was so fast he ran to every major location on the planet within hours and spread the Hunger Virus to various other heroes and villains, like Captain Britain, Ka-Zar, Silver Samurai and the Red Guardian. After managing to escape the Galacti’s massacre of New York’s zombies, he became a lackey for King Pin and acted as muscle against anyone who opposed Fisk. While Pietro doesn’t get much action outside of this. He should be comparable to Earth-Z Quicksilver, an alternate universe counterpart infected by the same Hunger Virus. This version, due to the virus, could still operate without a head, working hard to evade the New Avengers and keep Spider-Man “cure” away from them as commanded by his head. It would seem that like with other zombies, destroying the head would stop this, as seen with 2149 Pietro.


The Sentry

The one who started it all. After being put into a time-loop by the Watcher and making a deal with Magneto (This was probably retconned??), he came from another dimension into 2149 and spread the infection to the Avengers. With the power of a million exploding suns, The Sentry is undoubtedly the most powerful member of the Marvel Zombies. He battled against a variant of Green Scar Hulk, led the Earth-Z Zombified Avengers against a plethora of armies and whipped out that entire universe. He would then go on to battle against the New Avengers of Earth-Z but had their battle interrupted by 2149’s Giant Man, using the opportunity of the Sentry becoming weakened to use him as a power source for The Watcher’s technology. He was also the first zombie that Ash Williams encountered while in the afterlife (long story). So Ash tried to shoot his ass when he saw Sentry eating a bunch of people’s souls. Sentry obviously was unaffected and then proceeded to swat Ash’s soul out of Heaven and back down to Earth… cause sure!


Deadpool

The Merc with half a mouth. He’s got fourth-wall breaking capabilities and despite healing factors supposedly being rendered moot by the virus, he could still reattach his head to new bodies. He’s a highly skilled combatant, armed with various throwing knives, dual katanas and is capable of being able to tangle with the prime universe versions of Wundarr and Deadpool, later going on to join the Deadpool Corps…. As just a severed head. We’ll be assuming he’s at his peak for this though. So, no need for that helicopter cap thing or whatever.


Sorcerers


The Horde

Of course, just about every Marvel Superhero and Villain you can think of fell victim to the Hunger Virus. But for the sake of keeping things simple, this section will focus on characters we felt were important or had enough to work with to be worth mentioning, but keep in mind… There were quite literally thousands of Marvel Zombies at their peak in numbers.


Resistances

DCeased

Superman

The Man of Steel himself, Kal-El of Krypton was one of Earth’s last lines of hope against the anti-living virus, but unfortunate circumstances saw that in stopping the Flash from spreading death at super speed, he would catch but a small infection, turning him into one of the strongest members of the anti-living virus. His Kryptonian physiology gives him many abilities such as superhuman strength, speed, durability, and the ability to absorb solar radiation from Earth’s Sun. One of his first moves as an anti-living was to drain the Sun by going into its core, and his superhuman stamina let him do this for five years straight. He can use x-ray vision to see through buildings and detect who has/hasn’t been infected, see far distances to sense opponents coming, use wind/freeze breath and can hear across entire planets of billions of people. His heat vision he shoots from his eyes can disintegrate people into ash, and with a combination of heat vision, x-ray vision, and microscopic vision, Superman severed Black Adam’s vocal cords to prevent him from saying Shazam


Wonder Woman

Princess Diana of Themyscira was also one of Earth’s strongest heroes in fighting off the hordes of the anti-living, saving Jotunheim from Black Adam’s wrath and holding the line against Superman when the arks had to leave for space with what remained of humanity. But unfortunately, Superman was able to infect Diana, turning her into one of many heavy hitters of the anti-living army, being responsible for the slaughter of many of Earth’s heroes and remaining villains. Apart from her superhuman physical characteristics, Wonder Woman has many tools at her disposal as gifts from the gods such as the Lasso of Truth, which can compel anyone to tell the truth or follow any command in its grasp, as it was used against Black Adam to force him to turn into a human by saying “Shazam!”. She fell by her own Sword of Athena, which was enhanced by kryptonite.


Black Adam

Black Adam is the ruler of Kahndaq, seen by the people as their god, quick to easily dispatch the anti-living at the speed of Mercury and save his nation…or so he thought. Black Adam tried to humble himself by disguising as a human to walk among his nation as just another citizen when juggling the idea of letting Kahndaq be a safe haven for survivors. Unfortunately, a mother's child was still infected with the anti-living virus, which caught the human Adam off-guard, and not even his transformation back into Black Adam could save him from becoming infected. Black Adam is an incredibly powerful being, becoming a leader of one of the biggest anti-living hordes that was still left on Earth, wielding the power of six Egyptian gods by saying “Shazam!”:

  • S for the Stamina of Shu: Black Adam has superhuman stamina, able to function without tire or strain.

  • H for the Swiftness of Heru: Black Adam is capable of flight and tremendous speed.

  • A for the Strength of Amon: His superhuman strength lets him go toe-to-toe with some of the strongest heroes on Earth such as Superman, Wonder Woman, and Martian Manhunter.

  • Z for the Wisdom of Zehuti: The Wisdom of Zehuti provides Black Adam counsel in times of need and enhanced intellect both educationally and tactically. 

  • A for the Power of Aton: Black Adam can unleash bursts of magic lightning, and bring down a lightning bolt upon saying “Shazam!”

  • M for the Courage of Mehen: Black Adam is indestructible and immortal, unable to age as long as he is in his superpowered form and able to power through attacks with sheer force of will.


Supergirl

In the Earth-55 continuity, Supergirl’s parents sent Kara to go live with the New Gods, boasting it to be superior over Kal-El’s parents sending him to live on a planet like Earth. Unfortunately, by the time she got there…the New Gods had all been infected by Darkseid, and she too was quickly infected. She became one of Darkseid’s most powerful allies, being the one to take control of Sinestro’s Warworld base with a Motherbox, giving them a massive superweapon. Like her cousin, Supergirl is a Kryptonian, meaning she has superhuman strength, speed, and durability, enhanced senses, freeze/wind breath, super-hearing, x-ray vision, microscopic vision, telescopic vision, and heat vision that can reduce people to skeletons.


Plastic Man

When Shadowpact was tracing anti-living hordes in the depths of Australia, an absolute nightmarish Plastic Man rose from being disguised as a wave of blood, killing Ragman and Blue Devil and sending tendrils into Zatanna’s lungs and forcing brain matter out of Blue Devil’s head. Plastic Man is primarily a shapeshifter, with the ability to disguise himself as other people, stretch his body as far as he can, and morph his body into any shape or construct he wants to.


Martian Manhunter

After being infected by Black Adam, Martian Manhunter became a stealthy terror in infecting any heroes that remained. J’onn has many unique abilities, such as telepathy, mind reading, psychic screams, turning invisible, going intangible, shooting heat vision from his eyes, and making psychic links between heroes. However, he is still vulnerable to fire, as shown when Firestorm used it to kill him.


The Flash

Flash was unfortunately caught off-guard and infected by an invisible Martian Manhunter, making him one of the biggest threats on the battlefield for his ability to spread the virus at a much faster rate than most of the anti-living. Due to his connection to the Speed Force, he can move fast enough to infect people faster than the speed of sound and run on water, create lightning, phase through solid objects, think at speeds beyond human comprehension, and heal at an accelerated rate. 


Green Lantern

Hal Jordan was among the first of many major heroes to be infected by the anti-living virus while he was camping with Green Arrow and Black Canary. Technically speaking, his time as an anti-living was fairly short, merely blowing up his tent and making one construct before dying at the hands of Black Canary, who would take Hal’s ring and become Green Canary in the DCeased story. Regardless, Hal’s ring gives him at least a few powers such as energy blasts, making constructs, and making forcefields that can hold thousands of people at once.


Mirror Master

Infected by his fellow rogue Captain Cold, Mirror Master is a very dangerous and mobile threat, since his mirror gun lets him access the Mirror Dimension, a traveling point with mirrors all across the world for McCulloch to travel through, which he uses as an anti-living to grab people through them, though he can’t use or interact with a mirror if it is broken.


Big Barda

Big Barda is a New God born on Apokolips, escaping its harsh environment after falling in love with Mister Miracle, even having a son with him named Jacob. Unfortunately, she and her husband were overrun by anti-living, but she ended up being one of the first major superheroes to be cured by the Life Equation. As a New God, Barda has been trained all her life in hand-to-hand combat, and is able to heal wounds quickly. She also has access to Boom-Tubes, letting her travel to any planet she desires.


Darkseid

The feared ruler of Apokolips himself, Darkseid was the very first to be corrupted by the anti-living. Due to laying waste to his homeworld, the origin of the virus would be forever gone. Awakening five years later after Apokolip’s destruction, Darkseid began laying waste to the cosmos, turning all of the New Gods into anti-living and causing the virus to spread beyond the reaches of Earth, which put the universe itself in jeopardy. Darkseid’s powered by the Omega Effect, giving him terrifying deathly powers such as the Omega Beams, automatic tracking lasers that are powerful enough to clash with two Lantern blasts at once, hurt Superman and Guy Gardner and kill Primaa, an Almerican (same race as Maxima). After killing Sinestro and ravaging the Sinestro Corps, the ring found a replacement in Darkseid, turning him into a Lantern of Fear itself. This gives Darkseid even more abilities such as energy blasts, forcefields, energy constructs, and the ability to instill great fear in his opponents, which can also make him stronger. 


The Forever People

The Forever People are the name of the New Gods who became infected by Darkseid and the anti-living virus, including the likes of Highfather, Orion, Lightray, and Kalibak. Highfather is the leader of the New Gods and of New Genesis, being so powerful he is a member of the Quintissence alongside the Phantom Stranger, Spectre, Hera, Ganthet, and the Wizard Shazam (who was also infected). Like Barda, these are highly trained warriors, capable of using high tech weapons such as Boom-Tubes. 


Mister Mxyzpltk

That’s right. They got this guy too. An imp from the fifth-dimension and perhaps the deadliest asset of the anti-living virus, Mister Mxyzpltk is a terrifying reality warper, so dangerous that even before becoming infected, he was confident he could easily turn Darkseid into a little arrangement of flowers, as he merely had to think and Darkseid would’ve been undone, but he didn’t take the threat seriously, and Darkseid used a Motherbox to turn Mxy into a member of the anti-living. The threat of Mxyzpltk was so great that the Spectre himself stepped onto the battlefield to face him, in perhaps the most important battle that would decide if the living or the anti-living won that day. 


The Anti-Living Army

After infecting Kahndaq, Black Adam amassed a terrifying army of the anti-living that only grew bigger, reaching up to millions of people in one horde. Among the army, many other heroes and villains were turned into anti-living blights, including:


Resistances

Equipment

Marvel Zombies

Cosmic Amplifier

A device developed over the course of a few days by Hank Pym, Tony Stark and Bruce Banner for the purpose of taking down Galactus. When each member focuses their energy into it at the same time, the machine amplifies their power and focuses it into a high powered beam that with just a single shot dealt significant damage to Galactus and killed anyone else in its way, with a second blast Galactus was fatally harmed and was ready to be feasted upon by the former heroes. This thing basically amped up their power enough to harm a guy who didn't even feel either attacks prior.


Interdimensional Portal

First built by Tony Stark as a way to escape the universe and the virus, it was then destroyed and rebuilt by Reed Richards as a way to traverse the multiverse. Tony designed it to locate, study and eventually bridge a passage to an alternate universe, including dimensions like the Negative Zone. It is able to transport a good number of people at a time and Tony even said he could make it able to transport the entire Helicarrier. However, depending on quantity, the device would only have enough power for one go.


The Vision

Vision started out as just another member of the horde, however, eventually the Zombies used him as a sort of jamming device. Leaving him hooked up to a series of wires and machines within the King Pin’s stronghold. He was able to halt communications between Machine Man and Jocasta, although the range on this is a little unclear, but seemingly Machine could not contact Jocasta within the borders of New York City.


Forge Technology

 

While Forge himself won’t be involved in this fight directly, a few Zombies have been suped up with his technology, such as The Wasp, Black Panther, Luke Cage and Hawkeye. He’s had 40 years to tinker with and improve on everything Tony Stark ever did, and it shows. With these enhancements, Janet, T’Challa and Clint were able to directly fight against the Galacti being able to dodge, react and even deal damage to them despite their Cosmic Power. Forge even built his own Iron Man suit, using it to tangle with Gladiator.


Cure Canister

(Dear god i just realised he’s using his fucking veins to hold it there)

Peter has tried in the past to create a sort of suppressant for the virus, though, thanks to some help from the Earth-Z New Avengers, Peter crafted something that would wipe the zombie plague out for good. With the previous serum he developed and special nanites developed by Tony Stark to target diseased and decaying flesh at a cellular level - He used Earth-Z’s Flint Marko as a way to disperse if more effectively through the air. This could work as a double edged sword though, for obvious reasons. This thing was meant to be a suicide move.

DCeased

Motherboxes

With Earth’s technology effectively shut down, new ways to spread the techno-organic virus were eventually found, with Darkseid bringing his advanced Apokolips technology to the battle, making it so like most technology, looking the equation held in the Motherbox would turn someone into an anti-living blight. The sheer power of the Motherbox incinerated the citizens of Korugar. One ability upgraded by the virus is the Boom-Tubes. Now, they are called Doom-Tubes, anti-living Boom-Tubes that only the dead can pass through. These Doom-Tubes can open up to other planets and even other universes such as the Limbo dimension, and the size of the Doom-Tubes can grow so big, an entire planetoid can fit through them.


Warworld

A planetoid of destruction originally owned by Sinestro, until Supergirl used a Motherbox to infect the largest most destructive computer in the galaxy, turning it into a weapon of the anti-living. Its main ability is delivering huge, deadly blasts of energy capable of killing Sinestro Corps member Arkillo, and blasts that can annihilate entire planets.

Feats

Marvel Zombies

Overall

  • Eventually overwhelmed Nick Fury’s Resistance made of humanity’s remaining heroes during the first days of the outbreak.

  • Completely wiped out Earth's population within 24 hours, then later the entire universe within 40 years.

  • Stole the power cosmic from the Silver Surfer and took down Galactus.

  • Did battle with The Prime and Ultimate Marvel Universes.

  • With little issue, they defeated a nation wide horde of Deadites resurrected by Ash Williams and the Necronomicon.

  • Successfully broke through Doctor Doom’s defenses and invaded Latviera.

  • Probably the single most milked idea Marvel has ever pushed. It even got a Disney Plus show. 

Power

Miscellaneous Members:

Pre/Post-Power Cosmic:

Power Posmic:

Speed

Miscellaneous Members:

Pre/Post-Power Cosmic:

Power Posmic:

  • Phoenix, Gladiator and Firelord also joined in this. 

  • This is also technically a lowball, since they stopped to eat Ego in this time.

Durability

Miscellaneous Members:

Pre/Post-Power Cosmic:

Power Posmic:

DCeased

Overall

  • Wiped out the entire planet of Earth, forcing any remaining heroes to seek refuge on a counter-earth

  • Killed or infected many of Earth’s strongest heroes and villains such as Batman, Mr. Terrific, Red Hood, Deathstroke, Blue Devil, Wonder Woman, Waverider, and even the Spectre

  • Broke through numerous strongholds including Gotham City's jungle, the Fortress of Solitude, and the Rock of Eternity 

  • Eradicated over 12 planets, including New Genesis and Apokolips, and destroyed over 100 billion lives across the universe

  • Infected numerous races such as the Thangarians, Almercians, the New Gods, Themyscyrians, Atlanteans, and even some members of the Quintissence

  • Stole numerous resources such as Warworld and the Sinestro Corps rings

Power

Speed

Durability

Scaling

Marvel Zombies

The Resistance 

Many people rose up to fight against the zombie legions, and just about all of them failed in the long run (Even Ash Williams just had to get the hell outta there) and of course, all of them were either torn to shreds or swiftly killed. However, none of them went down without a fight.


The Ultimates and Earth-616 (Debatable, see Before the Verdict)

Despite what the Marvel Wiki will tell you, no, you shouldn’t just assume Earth-2149 was basically 1-1 with 616 before the outbreak just because we don’t see life before it. There’s just way too many inconsistencies for that to be rational, but interestingly the Marvel Zombies have interacted with the two most major realities in the Marvel Multiverse. 

DCeased

The New Heroes

These are the heroes that survived the many years of danger and death, many of which took up the mantles of fallen heroes such as Jon Kent becoming Superman, Damian Wayne becoming Batman, Cassie Sandsmark becoming Wonder Woman, and even weirder ones like Black Canary becoming Green Lantern and Cassandra Cain becoming Shazam! Several anti-living members have fought heroes of a high tier caliber, such as Maxima fighting Wonder Woman, Jon fighting his father, and many of the heroes being able to fight against the Forever People, aka anti-living New Gods. More concretely though, the top tiers such as Darkseid and Mxyzpltk would upscale these feats.


The Villains

Along the road to save the universe, many dangerous villains unaffected by the virus came into the crossfires, and the heroes had to face them down with just as much of a challenge ahead of them. The forces of Captain Batgirl, Wonder Woman, Superman, and Mary Marvel were capable of fighting the Amazo Army and Jon Kent was capable of standing his ground against Trigon despite being fated to die by his hand if he tried to fight him by Constantine.

Weaknesses

Marvel Zombies

Spreading the Gospel has more than its fair share of downsides. Firstly, it’s pretty consistent that a lot of the weaker characters shambling around are easily susceptible to just getting shot lol. Ash gave The Winter Soldier and Doctor Druid a buckshot sandwich, and The Punisher was mowing down an entire group of them with a couple assault rifles. Now obviously this wouldn't apply to every character, but on that note, we should list out everything we’ve seen put these fuckers down for good or at the very least low them down.

DCeased

Despite not being your traditional zombie, there are quite a few weaknesses for the blights of DCeased. For starters, most weaker infected are basically glass cannons, and are incredibly inconsistent in the kind of damage they can take. They can be ripped apart by vines, shot with an arrow through the head, or killed by a shotgun. And despite retaining some intelligence, the anti-living are ultimately driven by spreading death, and any sign of the living will attract them, which can allow a more tactical approach in dealing with them if you know their weaknesses, especially since they tend to gather together in large hordes. As for dealing with the virus itself, there are a variety of ways that have been tried in the DCeased universe to quarantine, stop the spread of, or outright cure the virus:

Before the Verdict…

What's the deal with Sentry?

It’s time to address the big Elephant in the room. Does Sentry actually punch through dimensions? Well, it’s a bit weird. In Marvel Zombies Return, it’s revealed that The Watcher is responsible for Sentry arriving in 2149, through using a dimensional portal that Hank Pym was tinkering with prior. You’d just assume that’s cut and dry but the page still makes note of the Sentry punching. You could argue multiple things can be true at once. Perhaps the portal acted more like a gateway for Sentry to punch his way through. It’s also worth mentioning that even Reed Richards fully believed Sentry could do this and it’s even just directly stated to be the case in official guidebooks.

However, even if we do afford Sentry this, it doesn't necessarily apply to physical attack potency, more than likely just a sort of side effect of Sentry’s strength. Punching through a dimensional barrier isn’t really quantifiable as strength itself, and if it were something on a universal scale like some like to claim, the effect would’ve been much more noticeable than.. What is basically a thunder storm for obvious reasons. You could also argue this power in its entirety was just simply retconned, but we do just see Sentry swat Ash Williams out of the afterlife. So it should still be fine, but it’s not a grand showing of power for Sentry. Being multi-solar system from the million suns thing is still pretty damn impressive though.


Now, some may also question whether Sentry should even be taken into account for this, since he does come from a different universe than 2149, but he is just the reason Marvel Zombies begins and is a major part of the origin and just the plot in general. It’s also just kind of lame to ignore him and makes shit more interesting. 2149 and Earth-Z are just directly tied throughout the entire plot of the original MZ run, as the Watcher has them in an infinite time loop so the Hunger Virus can be contained and essentially feed on itself endlessly. We just can't ignore it. But if you feel strongly about this, take it up with my complaint department.


Do the Marvel Zombies scale to Earth-616?

This is actually quite simple. While there is a common misconception that 2149 was the same as 616 until the infection, you can still argue scaling through direct crossovers. Specifically and most notably from Marvel Zombies 3 and Deadpool Merc with a Mouth, where characters from 616 just come over to 2149 and fight against Marvel Zombies. While the zombies are ultimately defeated in these encounters and are pretty much treated as jokes in Merc with a Mouth, we found that there is at least enough to warrant typical street tier scaling. Things like Zombie Morbius beating down Machine Man and subduing his 616 counterpart are probably the best showings, although other Zombies do give Machine Man some trouble and 616 Deadpool gets ragdolled by Zombie Absorbing Man. And with the Ultimate Universe things are just as clear, with Zombie Reed stating his FF are just superior to the Ultimate FF and Spider-Man being able to basically incapacitate Ultimate Reed. Not really much else to say here, but there is one more thing.


What about Herald scaling? Whoo boy. Okay, so in an older run of Black Panther comics, the current Fantastic Four at the time - T’Challa, Ben Grimm, Storm and Johnny Storm are transported to the 2149 Universe. They do fight against this Negative Zone bug creature, who in turn tangles with the Galacti Zombies very briefly as does the Fantastic Four. So what’s the problem? Well, there’s the fact that there’s never really a full on fight here between anyone and also the Annihilation Wave are not all equal or created the same. We can’t really afford any really high tier scaling here, especially considering the planet of the story blowing up kills the damn thing in the end anyways on top of all of that. So TLDR; You can definitely argue for street tier scaling regarding some of the weaker characters, herald scaling is a solid no, however. 


What's the deal with Erebos?

At the end of the DCeased storyline in War of the Undead Gods, it's revealed midway through that there has been a puppet master pulling the strings on everything that happened, particularly the spread of the Anti-Life Equation. A being so powerful that even Darkseid himself was merely a pawn, and he had no idea what he had truly unleashed into the universe. Everything they thought they knew about the equation and the virus was wrong, and Darkseid allowed something to leech into this universe; a threat to the universe itself not even the Quintissence could stop known as Erebos. The Greek mythological personification of darkness and anti-life itself. For those that have read DCeased, you may be wondering why the final boss didn’t show up in the members list of the DCeased roster. Admittedly, our reasons would’ve started and ended with “he’s lame as hell and would make the debate extremely one-sided and boring” (which to be honest is still valid btw), but we found other reasons anyways. 


First off, when you reexamine what Ares said about Darkseid letting Erebos in and Damian calling him anti-life, the implication is that Erebos is responsible for the Anti-Life Equation, not the virus itself. The virus was still very much Darkseid’s doing when he summoned the Black Racer and fused some of its essence with the Anti-Life Equation, it's just that in doing so, bringing the ALE into the universe was essentially bringing Erebos in, and that despite the virus conflict being over (since Darkseid was also cured), they still had one last battle to do with Erebos before he could attack, since he was considered a universal threat and on a personal matter, was partially responsible for all of this happening, so they went to attack him. He isn’t really much of a combatant anyways, and while the virus was a gateway for Erebos to eventually attack the universe, he never really intervenes with the virus when it was getting cured. So for these reasons, we just decided not to include him in the debate and just stick with the hordes for both because it's way more fun that way. 

Verdict


Stats


There are a lot of major and iconic superheroes and supervillains featured in the hordes of the MZ and DCeased cast. From Colonel America to Superman or Dr. Doom to Darkseid, there is no shortage of all-stars in this undead line-up. But in the darkest corners of the multiverse, just how strong are they if they are far and away from the mainline universes? With such massive hordes in the thousands to millions, there is a huge range of power between these monsters. Even the weakest of zombies can punch through steel doors or survive huge explosions, but we’re here for the juicy numbers. When it comes to their general heavy hitters, both tend to reach the planetary range of power. Both verses feature a very similar feat of being able to move planets outside of their orbit/magnetic field, with the Galacti and DCeased’s hero roster comprising of groups of heroes that could move entire planets, reaching 17 Yottatons (or 2.8 Yottatons per member) of TNT and 126.58 Zettatons of TNT per person, giving us a range of Large Planet to Planet Level for both. 


At first, Marvel Zombies has a decent advantage, but looking more of DCeased’s threats gives us feats to match as well. At the very beginning of DCeased when Darkseid is first infected, he wipes out his homeworld of Apokolips, obliterating it from the core, which reaches 1.159 Ronnatons of TNT, also Large Planet Level. Given characters like Superman even pre-infection could stand up to Darkseid and non-infected heroes like Jon Kent (whom characters like sundipped infected Superman could match) could fight Darkseid, there's enough heavy hitters to go around that would scale to these ends, which would put them at roughly even AP. Supporting feats would be things like Jon Kent briefly fighting Trigon, who has many statements from Etrigan the Demon about burning down the entire planet, and even stopping Warworld’s planet busting laser, though this did knock him out. Overall though, the heavy hitters of Marvel Zombies and DCeased are relatively even in attack potency…for now. 


However, when you look at more individual members, then things start to shift a little. Where Darkseid kickstarted DCeased, the Sentry kickstarted Marvel Zombies. The Sentry is regarded as one of the most powerful heroes, being able to punch through dimensional barriers and having a statement that is frequently echoed in his Earth-616 version, but is also found here, that being the statement of having the power of a million exploding suns, which would easily be Multi-Solar System Level, putting him very ahead of the heavy hitters of DCeased for this alone. Does DCeased have anyone that can answer this? But of course! Quite possibly the most dangerous member of the anti-living army is Mister Mxyzpltk, an imp from the fifth dimension. 


Not only is he considered an extremely powerful reality warper, but he proves it in the story as well. He fought toe-to-toe against the Spectre, causing a fight so devastating that the fabric of reality was being torn and black holes capable of sucking up planets and stars were punched into existence from their fight. More importantly though, his opponent was also stated to be quite the powerhouse. The Spectre was stated to be so powerful that a being of his caliber could easily reshape reality, which may seem like a hax mention, but Alfred’s narration urgently suggested that if the Spectre was infected, then the anti-living army would’ve lost due to having to fight a “creature of that power”, and that nothing they did would’ve mattered if Spectre got infected. So Mxy would be scaling to Spectre, who has a statement suggesting Universal levels of power, which eclipses the Sentry. So for raw power, the edge goes to DCeased due to their heavy hitters matching large planet level ends and Mister Mxyzpltk being a step above the rest.


Strength isn't the only factor here however, of course given what these series are, there’s no shortage of impressive showings on either side. But who has it better? As far as the weaker members go, Marvel Zombies should have a decent edge due to more solid hypersonic and relativistic scaling thanks to scaling from Ash Williams and 616 Street Tiers, like Moon Knight reacting to beams of light at 44% light speed and Wolverine reacting to Cyclops’ Optic Blasts at 1.49 x light speed. While DCeased isn’t unimpressive by any means, with characters like Cheetah having faster than eye sight feats and Damian Wayne could dodge around Amazo’s heat vision, these just aren’t on the same level. 


Things do get a little interesting where speedsters are involved though, Quicksilver should be pretty comparable to most Flash character feats in DCeased, both being able to cover insane distances in incredibly short amounts of time, though unsurprisingly Barry Allen should be leagues above Pietro in the end, at least as far as travel speeds are concerned. While Pietro could travel continent to continent within a few hours easily getting in the hypersonic ranges, Barry should be comparable to Wally in this universe, who has said he can reach near light speed. But that’s not all, Superman admitted he couldn’t catch Barry and had zip around the planet to intercept him. Superman in this universe can very easily reach FTL+ levels of speed and all things considered, Flash characters should upscale this by a pretty good margin. Overall this is very impressive, but in the end, Marvel Zombies has far greater feats than this later in the series, just not from Pietro (Sorry bud).


Quite simply, no space travel feat in DCeased is coming near what the Galacti can do. Not only could the Galacti, Phoenix, Gladiator and Firelord travel from the edge of the known universe back to earth within a few weeks, getting 808 Billion x faster than light but they were also able to go through the universe in its entirety, picking every life supporting planet clean of life within just 40 years. It also helps that Thor, while unworthy, was able to tag the Silver Surfer, who the Galacti gained their powers from and thus you can argue certain characters like the Frightful Four and possibly the Sentry could scale. Making them easily and consistently massively faster than light and easily above any feat Darkseid, the Supermen or even Mr. Mxyzpltk have. So while the DCeased take a notable AP advantage thanks to the Mxy, the Marvel Zombies have just as notable an advantage in speed thanks to heavy hitters scaling to the insane speed feats of the Power Cosmic.


The Hordes


In a bigass zombie fight like this, of course we’re gonna compare the armies overall. Because it's cool, and also just very important to the debate overall. As far as intelligence goes, most people have the misconception that DCeased are just mindless bloodthirsty monsters. This isn't the case, as we do have cases like Superman abandoning a losing fight to go juice up on the sun and Wonder Woman specifically deciding to just murder people, like Cheetah, rather than just infect. While this is noteworthy, Marvel Zombies keep all of their thinking capacity even after being infected. They can strategise with each other, formulate plans and have on plenty of occasions engaged in large scale battles. Like when they overwhelmed Nick Fury’s Resistance and Ash's Deadite Army. It's also important to keep people like Reed Richards, Tony Stark and Doctor Doom in mind (You could also mention Bruce Banner but his ass ain't showing up in this). All geniuses in their own right, especially Reed. With him stating he's at least 10x smarter than Ultimate Reed, this is a level of intelligence the DCeased are heavily lacking. You could also bring up tacticians like Colonel America or Cyclops, who would be able to strategise during the heat of a fight.


It's definitely no contest in the power department when it comes to Mxy, but it's important to consider just how many high tier characters each side has to bring to the fight. Other than Mxyzpltk, Superman and Kara should be comparable to each other, and would in turn scale to Darkseid. Giving a decent handful of planetary level characters for the DCeased. With the Marvel Zombies you of course have the Galacti, all seven of them being Planet Level on their own if you split up the result of their planet bust feat. You also have characters like Gladiator, who Luke Cage has stated is a planet mover. This is sorta used as a blanket statement, suggesting other characters would be around this level. You could argue a worthy Thor would fit this, but you don't really need to, as Thor even when unworthy could give the Silver Surfer a good clobbering. This backed up by Forge Tech users scaling to the Galacti and the Phoenix being suggested to be a level above even them, Marvel Zombies have way more people throwing around this kind of power. Giving them a most consistently powerful overall army.


With their respective arsenals there’s a bit to discuss too. Warworld could be a heavily impactful weapon if brought into play, being able to just wipe out the planet and leave only a few survivors to continue the fight, though this would obviously be a double edged sword and the planet busting Galacti could make short work of it, especially with the Cosmic Amplifier. While we’re never given anything in the way of a clear multiplier for how much this thing amplifies their power, it was capable of killing Galactus, who was previously completely unbothered by the Galacti’s attempts to harm him. So this could also help aid in any sort of power difference between the Galacti and any of the DCeased heavy hitters. The Marvel Zombies could also attempt to just get rid of a good chunk of the Anti-Living via using the interdimensional portal device, which Tony did say with enough time, he could give it a radius large enough to transport an entire Helicarrier’s worth of people, although, if this were attempted on someone like Nightshade or someone with access to Doom-Tubes, this would be rather moot to try. And with motherboxes - just looking at the damn thing can infect someone with the Anti-Living virus which would be a devastating method for spreading it and brings us to…


Something that you might’ve been expecting is infection methods. It’s definitely an interesting back and fourth. With Marvel Zombies you have teleporters like Lockjaw or Nightcrawler. Who could easily just appear on someone and go for a bite, in potentially bringing multiple other infected along with them, giving them some pretty good mobility with Lockjaw even able to go to other universes. Hank Pym, Scott Lang and Janet Van Dyne utilizing pym particles could also be devastating, being able to shrink down to the size of ants, they’d not only just be pretty hard to hit or see coming, Scott’s helmet would be able to call over legions of infected ants to help them. In a similar vein, Squirrel Girl being able to call in armies of vicious flesh eating rodents makes for an effective way to spread the virus and is also just kinda funny. As well as Iceman and Gravity’s powers being pretty useful to just keep groups of people locked in place, for either them, or their comrades to finish ‘em off. 


For the DCeased they can match this pretty well, and even surpass it in certain cases. Nightshades can summon portals for whole armies of Anti-Living to travel though, a bit better in terms of capacity compared to Lockjaw and Mirror Master’s access to the Mirror Dimension, while definitely a bit more limited in comparison the Nightcrawler’s teleporting could be seen as more evasive and unsuspecting. Like who expects to get attacked from a mirror? A more notable edge though is with Ray Palmer, his shrinking is by far more impressive than anything we see Hank or Janet do, being able to go to a microscopic size would mean there would be little most Marvel Zombies could do to keep him from infecting them. While Marvel Zombies do have their own members capable of invisibility, characters like Martian Manhunter can also go invisible, or the Flash who can also go intangible which would be a massive problem, as none of the Marvel Zombies showcase much in terms of non-physical interaction, aside from The Sentry, Quasar and maybe Johnny Blaze. Doom-Tubes via the Motherboxes do also grant some very handy mobility to boot as well. 


The DCeased would also have an overall larger army, Black Adam led millions of infected in Hope at Worlds End while Reed has said there are literally thousands of superheroes in their ranks. With that kind of a numbers difference, you would naturally think the Marvel Zombies would get overwhelmed. But not all of those millions of anti-living are superpowered, just regular infected humans. While this would still make things tedious for sure. The Marvel Zombies have already been in a similar situation against Ash’s army of Deadites, where some of the do get overwhelmed but the non-superpowered legions are swiftly dealt with. Let alone with the insane speed and firepower a lot of the Marvel Zombies are packing. Such as the Galacti, and other heavy hitters like Phoenix, Thor and Forge Tech users ensuring their horde would be more efficient in a direct combat scenario. This would still mean that this could lead to many of the Marvel Zombies being infected however. But overall, we think the Marvel Zombies have the better horde.


The Hunger Virus vs The Anti-Living Virus


The means and methods to spread the infection can only mean so much…if the infections were to work in the first place. And in a fight between hordes of zombies, naturally this is one of the main talking points; can either side infect each other and increase their numbers? Can only one turn the other? Do they cancel out? Can they both infect each other? These are the important and juiciest questions for a fight like this, so let’s directly compare the nature, physiology, abilities, and weaknesses of both of these extraterrestrial viruses.


Starting with the Hunger Virus, here is everything we know about the virus in a concise summary;

  • The Hunger Virus is extraterrestrial and primarily targets metahumans, who are the most likely to spread it

  • Its means of infecting others with it are physical, even through the slightest break of skin, which includes Gods, Mutants, Inhumans, robots, and even animals

  • The time it takes for the infection to start can range from 5-18 minutes, resulting in massive blood vomit, though sometimes the process can happen “immediately”

  • The horde in general was capable of spreading it across the world in 24 hours, which did happen

  • Those infected are addicted to the virus like a “gospel”, unable to help themselves and constantly hungry for living flesh. Despite this, intelligence and powers remain to some degree, remaining the same person and often getting hour-long intervals where they think about what they’ve done, only for the hunger to come back.

  • The virus makes people immortal according to Mr. Fantastic

  • The virus clearly enhances those it infects, making them more enhanced lifeforms that don’t use as much energy as a normal person due to bodily functions shutting down, and being immune to physical death

  • Can track prey with enhanced sense of smell

  • Can resist pain, magic, parasites, and heat seeking missiles

  • Healing factors are shut down if you are infected 

  • The infected are weak to gunshots (due to weak decaying flesh), necrosis, the destruction of the brain, transmutation, hunger suppressants, can be incapacitated by time loops, and cannot affect beings made of pure energy


Now let’s take a look at the Anti-Living virus in a concise summary;

  • The Anti-Living Virus is also extraterrestrial, being created by a mix of the Anti-Life Equation and the Black Racer’s essence

  • DeSaad calls the virus the “end of all free will”, inferring it to be inherently an ALE ability that mentally dominates any sentient race, to control “death itself”

  • The infected aren’t traditional zombies, nor are they considered undead or consumed by hunger, but rather monsters controlled by the equation that want to spread death by stealing life

  • Can sense and search for the living

  • The origin of the virus is technically considered gone due to the destruction of Apokolips

  • It is a hybrid virus, both biologically and technologically; it can infect people biologically via blood, wounds, bites, or just interacting with decayed flesh/wounds. Technologically, it can turn people by just looking at a screen, being spread through social media, satellites, etcetc.

  • Infection rate is basically instant with weaker members, and even metahumans like Superman will succumb to it within minutes

  • The anti-living are still somewhat intelligent, capable of hivemind-like thought and can work out their chances of beating an opponent and act accordingly

  • Still retain their souls, which cannot be forcibly taken out of them

  • Can resist mind reading, exposure to secondary viruses, pain, and hypnosis

  • Are weak to gunfire, and workarounds of the virus include disease immunity, shutting off/hiding technology, killing yourself, wearing special eyewear, or being exposed to cold

  • Things immune to the virus are animals or those considered immune to disease altogether, and healing factors can also reverse the infection

  • Magic, the Speed Force, and reality warping can kill or neutralize infected (though magic cannot instantly make the virus go away)

  • The Life Equation is considered a cure that completely undoes all effects of the anti-living virus


This gives us a lot to work with. Let’s go over a few things so we can work our way down;


What Cancels Out:

First off, both sides seem to be immune to similar things like pain and magic, so magic users like Dr. Doom or Strange cannot just handwave the virus away. Secondly, both have the ability to track the living with enhanced senses, though technically for DCeased it’d be ineffective since the Marvel Zombies are considered undead, but given they are a hivemind, they won’t really be tricked by the Marvel Zombies into thinking they’re one in the same. Both are also weak to transmutation just outright, and both have cures that have been found and capable of reversing the virus entirely. Their infection rates also range from instantly to within minutes. And lastly, while not outright stated, neither are like most zombies where they can resurrect themselves after a certain time so when they die, they’re dead for good. 


Marvel Zombies Counters to DCeased:

While both retain some intelligence though as pointed out in the Horde section, Marvel Zombies retains a lot more, capable of much more than just thinking about beating an opponent and talking, only really weighed down by their frequent thirst for human flesh. And weirdly enough, the Marvel Zombies do have a very neat and specific counter to the techno-organic virus aspects of the anti-living virus; Vision. In King Pin’s stronghold, Vision acts as a secret jamming device that stops communication between Machine Man and Jocasta, though the range of which is somewhat unknown, possibly being just within New York, though it could still act as a way of neutralizing any possible way for any poor fodder infected to be turned by the Anti-Life Equation.


DCeased Counters to Marvel Zombies:

Initially, characters like Deadpool and Wolverine would’ve been great counters of the anti-living due to their healing factors, but them being zombies renders their healing factors completely useless, meaning they’re still vulnerable to being infected. Stronger characters like Black Adam could also resist mind reading from Martian Manhunter, meaning telepaths such as Jean Grey likely won’t be able to pry into their minds. And while Vision can maybe stop Earth technology spread the virus via tech, the Motherboxes can make up for this, as simply looking at one was enough to even drive a powerful reality warper like Mister Mxyzpltk to be infected, and Darkseid and the New Gods should have access to their technology in spades since it makes them Boom/Doom-Tubes. This would likely be far too advanced of technology for Vision to override. 


The Cures:

Unlike Marvel Zombies, DCeased was never intelligent enough nor intended to weaponize a cure, whereas Spider-Man and his cure canister were weaponized by the Marvel Zombies, so DCeased trying to use a cure as a weapon would just flat out not happen. But what about the Marvel Zombies? They retain a lot of intelligence, and have amazing geniuses on their team such as Reed Richards, Tony Stark, and Dr. Doom. If given the opportunity and time, it is very likely that they could figure out what type of virus they are dealing with with the right resources and technology, as Mr. Terrific was able to do so. The main issue however, is getting their hands on the cure, because the cure was only found in one person; Cyborg. Who wasn’t infected at all. A bunch of problems arise from this, like putting Cyborg in this entire fight in the first place, them not knowing who he is and probably not being able to locate him, and if you were super duper generous and somehow did, there likely would not be enough time for them to make a cure like this with the types of heavy hitters running around in DCeased, and it's far safer to fight rather than try and use a cure. So yes, they could hypothetically discover the virus’s origin, but acting upon it requires lots of weird leaps in logic. 


Which is the Stronger Virus? 

Let’s first establish this; can they infect each other? Weirdly enough, the answer would be yes for both. In DCeased, we know Mr. Terrific tried to expose the anti-living to a ‘secondary virus’ and it showed no effects, but we were given no information on this secondary virus at all, so we don’t know if it would be even remotely similar to the Hunger Virus, meaning a counter-infection isn’t technically impossible. Meanwhile, if the anti-living aren’t considered normal zombies, could they even infect a zombie in the first place? We do have a zombie appear in DCeased, everybody’s favorite brute born on a Monday…Solomon Grundy. Well unfortunately, we don’t ever see anyone attempt to infect Grundy. He kills Bane and later dies to Wonder Woman, so we never see anyone actually attempt to infect him. The assumption for this would be because he is already an undead zombie, but at no point does it mention that this is why Grundy was able to stay alive. Vandal Savage, in a team consisting of Grundy, Deathstroke, Creeper, Lady Shiva, Mirror Master, Captain Cold, Deadshot, Cheetah, and Bane, says that only Slade and Creeper had a counter to the virus, never really saying Grundy was around because he is immune, so there isn’t any way for us to know for sure that it would not work. 


So if both can infect each other, we have this weird middle ground where the viruses can both exist in one body at a time; so which is stronger? When you narrow it down, both primarily affect the mind; the Hunger Virus makes one consumed by hunger constantly, causing pain and agony when not satiated, and the Anti-Living Virus dominates mental will entirely, making them single-minded in spreading death by obeying the Anti-Life Equation. Side by side, its retained intelligence satiated by hunger vs no free will, meaning that the Anti-Living Virus would probably be the more dominant virus. Why? Because the Marvel Zombies are still themselves technically. They retain their personalities, memories, and intelligence, they’re just being forced to eat people due to an addiction they can’t really shake off. Colonel America admitted they have tried to fight it, but they just can’t, meaning that their minds are intact enough to be controlled and turned into even more mindless monsters, completely violating their ability to regain control of themselves if they do go long enough without hunger. 


On the flipside, if DCeased were to be infected by the Hunger Virus rather than vice-versa, then nothing would change. If you assume that it gives them brief moments of humanity before being hungry, then something as potent as the Anti-Life Equation would certainly be enough to snap them back to their true purpose, since it has more of a hold on the mind then the Hunger Virus does on a more terrifying level, so an anti-living blight would get some additional hunger, but ultimately be pulled back with a single-minded purpose of spreading death. 


So when comparing the Hunger Virus vs the Anti-Living Virus, DCeased is the more aggressive and dominating virus when it comes to infecting the opposition. 


Kill Methods


That being said though, DCeased isn’t out of the water yet. The Marvel Zombies are smart and fast enough to realize that if they cannot infect the anti-living blights, then killing them is still certainly an option. Both hordes have shown that on many occasions, they will sometimes just outright kill an opponent if given the chance, such as the Marvel Zombies killing Magneto and Nick Fury’s resistance, the Galacti eating Silver Surfer, Galactus, and Ego, Captain Marvel Jr. killing Red Hood, Martian Manhunter killing Lex Luthor, Big Barda killing Mr. Terrific, or Darkseid killing Sinestro. On both sides, lots of characters have plenty of tools to kill their opponents in the way of powers. 


In general, many characters have raw firepower as far as abilities. Characters like Thor or Human Torch can channel fire and weather. The Invisible Woman can make forcefields on the defense. Superman and Supergirl can disintegrate people with heat vision. Captain Atom can shoot blasts of atomic fire. However, while DCeased has far more brute strength when comparing heavy hitters, Marvel Zombies has a lot more versatility in some areas, such as magic sorcerers. In any case though, hardly any of this matters when the Galacti are running around with a power source as versatile as the Power Cosmic. Even more deadly however is the Sentry, who’s kill methods can be boiled down to just one-shotting anyone he fights, as the power of a million exploding suns is far above the paygrade of even Darkseid or Superman.


But at the top of the food chain is Mister Mxyzpltk, who would one-shot Sentry just as hard with his power advantage and status as a reality warper. While he doesn’t really use it when infected, the threat of transmutation is something nobody else on Marvel Zombies has an answer to…


…except the Scarlet Witch.


With her ability to turn zombies into glass, we now have two magic/reality warping characters. While Mxy is an imp and possibly more potent, nothing suggests he would be outright immune to transmutation himself either, so both are in a vulnerable position. However, Wanda similarly never really used transmutation when infected, only doing so once against an infected Howard the Duck, similar to Mxy threatening Darkseid with his. Mxy has an overwhelming power advantage, so Wanda would require speed if she wants any chance. 


Which unfortunately, is the final nail in the coffin here. There isn’t really any indication that the Scarlet Witch would scale to the Galacti’s massive speed advantage in particular. Our only interaction to go off of is Wanda retelling how she escaped the The Avengers initially to Dazzler, showing us a small panel where Wanda grabs Colonel America and Luke Cage with some magic from the ground. We don’t see the full fight pan out, nor do we know if it even was a fight, we just see Wanda tell Dazzler that she got out of there basically. Not only that, but the scaling chain to even get there is extremely long and wonky. Wanda stops Colonel in his tracks, who could react to Magneto, who reacted to Hulk and depowered Thor, who reacted to Silver Surfer. It's not really the most reliable scaling chain just looking at it. That being said though, Wanda would still be considered a ‘heavy hitter’ by virtue of being a magic user, and being implied to have nearly fought Dr. Doom.


One other thing to consider is range. Howard the Duck is a pretty small guy, and while Mxy never actually grows to the size of stars or black holes, he still grows big enough to be able to crush Lanterns in his hand, so it's entirely possible that Mxy being too big would hinder the range of Wanda’s transmutation abilities, but this isn’t nearly as reliable as just saying she wouldn’t be fast enough to hang for the final battle.


What you’re left with is two people who are roughly even in speed, can transmute opponents (but don’t really use it as zombies), but one is far far stronger, so Wanda would probably die along with the other heavy hitters besides Sentry due to Mxyzpltk. The second thing Mxy does upon getting infected is he completely annihilates Kilowog’s homeworld, meaning he’d probably take out a good chunk of the horde by just going ham. And even if some heavy hitters or Sentry remain, a reality warper that can punch black holes into existence with his fighting is still far too dangerous, and the gap in strength means it wouldn’t take long before Mxy deals the killing blow to the last fighters of Marvel Zombies. Mxy is just too overwhelmingly powerful to be dealt with physically, meaning DCeased takes the final category in a last man standing winner take all bloodbath.


Conclusion


“Within twenty-four hours, we'd consumed the entire planet. One super hero from an infected universe... That was all it took to end an entire world.”


Advantages:

  • The Galacti and characters who scale are significantly faster than anyone in DCeased.

  • The Sentry alone is more powerful than almost everyone in DCeased.

  • More members with high tier fire power overall.

  • Have better infection rate capabilities due to speed.

  • Overall has members with far greater intelligence.

  • The Cosmic Amplifier could shrink the power gap by some amount for the Galacti.

  • Wanda and Sue have the haxes to make short work of a lot of the DCeased.

  • Given enough time and resources Reed, Tony, Hank and Doom could figure out a cure for the Anti-Living.

  • The Vision could help dampen the spread of Anti-Life through technology.

  • Marvel Zombies VS. Army of Darkness.

Disadvantages:

  • Mister Mxyzpltk is far stronger than anyone in Marvel Zombies.

  • Warworld (or Mxy) could easily destroy the battlefield and by extension a majority of the hordes.

  • Less mobile and stealthy options when it comes to spreading the virus.

  • Motherboxes are too advanced for Vision to tamper with.

  • Characters like Deadpool and Wolverine having healing factors would’ve let them be immune from the virus, but they themselves lose their healing factors since they are infected.

  • The Hunger Virus is overall inferior to the Anti-Living Virus, and in a battle to overtake infected, the latter would be far more dominating mentally.

  • Scarlet Witch lacks the speed to capitalize on having transmutation.

  • Have no way to capitalize on making a cure even if they figure out how the Anti-Living Virus works.

  • Marvel needed to let this shit die 10 years ago.


“We lost. We lost so much, we didn't think there was anything else to lose. We were wrong.”


Advantages:

  • Has the strength advantage via Mister Mxyzpltk.

  • The other heavy hitters match the Galacti in strength overall.

  • More aggressive methods of infection via Atom’s shrinking, Martian Manhunter’s invisibility, Nightshade’s portals, Mirror Master’s traversal of the Mirror Dimension, and Doom-Tubes.

  • The Motherboxes are workarounds for Vision possibly jamming basic technology, allowing the virus to continually spread via technology.

  • Has the numbers advantage in millions vs thousands.

  • Anti-Living Virus is superior to the Hunger Virus in terms of fighting for control, meaning only they would have the ability to add to their numbers.

  • While the viruses cancel out in some factors and the Marvel Zombies could figure out its origins, they can’t really capitalize on trying to find a cure.

  • The Scarlet Witch is not fast enough to capitalize on transmutation for someone like Mxyzpltk.

  • Has some really cool textless covers and card stock variants.

Disadvantages:

  • Everyone besides Mxy is much weaker than Sentry.

  • The Galacti and other heavy hitters are much faster then DCeased’s heavy hitters.

  • The cosmic amplifiers would aid against Warworld in terms of matching firepower.

  • Numbers advantage means very little due to DCeased having less heavy hitters in terms of raw power and versatility.

  • While more aggressive in infection methods, it would overall do so at a far slower rate than the Galacti.

  • Inferior intelligence.

  • Erebos was a shitty secret villain #TruthNuke


With the horror finally over, yet another duo blog is at its end! We both agree that this fight is practically neck and neck, the entire debate got far more complex than we really expected. Both had massive advantages in their corners and neither would go down easy, but overall we think that the Marvel Zombies would clutch the victory more times than not… if it weren't for one giant (literally and figuratively speaking) factor; Mister Mxyzpltk. This smug bastard is quite obviously the most surprising and important piece to deciding a winner, and it’s just him. As realistically, this dude doing anything in the fight would just nuke the entire battlefield and kill everyone involved, meaning that unfortunately, Mxyzpltk would either infect any remaining heavy hitter from Marvel Zombies to turn the tide, or just…kill everybody by pulling up. The Marvel Zombies best shot would’ve been the Sentry or Scarlet Witch, but standing up to the anti-living imp from the fifth dimension will prove to have grave consequences.


The winner is DCeased Mister Mxyzpltk.


Also This Halloween Season…

A special thanks to Flip, Yuix, and Cabbage for going the extra mile and giving this blog some amazing art, and for the second Halloween in a row, big ups to ThiccGrimes for suggesting such a fun duo idea! While we painfully wait for Gohan vs Ultraman Zero, we have one more Halloween blog. Unfortunately, I lost a bet over Wile E. Coyote vs Tom, meaning that this Halloween, I have to do r/dbms favorite matchup…








Comments

  1. Bruh deasool sis not survive satellite . It was missiles , big kaboom, please someone calc it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That had nothing to do with this blog, dude. Are you just Oswald with a new name? You both leave similarly dumb comments.

      Delete
  2. This was a fun blog. I'm also very excited for next time. If anyone could figure out the madness of Fnaf, it would be you guys. If it helps, Loka did their own blog the matchup with some good research, although a lot of other commenters claim they got some stuff wrong.

    ReplyDelete

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