Caught in this post-apocalyptic hellscape will be The Vision, Wonder Man, and Jim Hammond, the original Human Torch—along with someone writer James Robinson says will be “a very cool surprise.” While everyone will be trying to kill the heroes (along with everyone else in from the former multiverse exiled with them), the Ultron/Zombie armies won’t be very chummy.“Ultron sees his world as the epitome of perfection and the Zombies are the antithesis of that, so no they don’t get along at all,” says Robinson. “They war for whatever humanity they can find, with Ultron wishing to either control it or kill it and the zombies wanting to eat it. They’re definitely at war.”



If that all sounds very over-the-top, that’s because it is! A hallmark of the various Marvel Zombies miniseries (the first of which was written by The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman with art by the great Sean Phillips) were their inherent outrageousness—but they also functioned quite well as taut thrillers. The team behind Age of Ultron vs. Marvel Zombies hope their series will strike that balance equally well.



“[The series will be] at times tongue-in-cheek in that I’m trying to capture the black humor of the zombies and their situation, in the spirit of the original series,” says Robinson. “However at the same time this is about what it means to be human and what it means to have that humanity taken from you, so there are some serious elements too. We’ll also see this bizarre scenario through the eyes of a character from a less technologically advanced domain where Ultron hasn’t been created. He must coming to terms with what he has the potential to/is capable of creating and then learning how to defeat it. And yes, it will be a story of survival too.”



Age of Ultron vs. Marvel Zombies #1 goes on sale June 3, and will be written by James Robinson with art by Steve Pugh and covers by Carlos Pacheco. Courtesy of Marvel, here’s an exclusive four-page preview.