The Hunger: A Marvel Zombies Novel by Marsheila Rockwell is a fun, gory female-led time-traveling superhero adventure. Doctor Strange is a zombie on the cover, so it is not a spoiler to say he doesn’t last long, but he sets the events to fix the zombie outbreak for his young librarian and apprentice Zelda Stanton. I have never read a Doctor Strange comic, I only know of Doctor Strange from the MCU, so I had never heard of Zelda Stanton. I liked her character who would rather be with books than dealing with deadly super-powered zombies, but she rises to the occasion in this fish-out-of-water story. She recruits Nico Minoru from The Runaways, Whom I have read most of the Runaways Marvel comics, Elsa Bloodstone, the monster hunter 2022 MCU Halloween special Werewolf By Night, and Deadpool, The Merc with the Mouth whom I’m familiar with in comics and movies. This is the gang of superheroes left to defeat the super-powered zombie horde. The notable zombies are Captain America, Thor, Captain Marvel, Hulk, Dr. Strange, Wasp, Iron Man, and Spiderman. The story is fun and gets off to a fast start. The novel does slow down after the characters debate too long about how to defeat zombies and the plan is very convoluted. The plan eventually starts to make sense but it takes a little too long, I needed Zelda to explain it in simpler terms to probably Deadpool, who screws up the plans anyway. The last two fights of the novel are pretty epic the first one I did not think they were going to the top but they did. The action comes all at the end, for most of the novel they avoid the zombies until they have to, I would have preferred the fights to be more spaced out but boy do they deliver. I was given a free copy by Aconyte Books through Netgalley for a review. The Hunger: A Marvel Zombies Novel was published on October 3, 2023.

Plot Summary: A meteor has fallen in New York City and Marvel’s Superheroes are first on the scene, poor Captain America is the first to be zombified, then other superheroes. The uniqueness of the virus is you can’t die like a zombie, but you are just super hungry, so if you eat enough flesh you become sane until the hunger takes over again, also superheroes get to keep all their powers. Doctor Strange was on his way to the site when he felt something was wrong, before he could react fully he was caught in a web of circumstances and Spiderman’s actual web, as he was bitten before he could send Spiderman to a portal to another time. Doctor Strange returns to the Sanctum Sanctorum where he bites and eats Wong (cry). After he realizes what he’s done and has clarity he goes to Zelda as the earth’s only hope and closes off this dimension, so that no one can leave and asks Zelda to kill him and use the library to survive. She can’t kill him but puts him away where he can’t hurt others and can’t hurt himself and use his powers. Zelda looks for other witches to help, The Scarlet Witch is already a zombie and Agatha Harkness is missing, she finds Nico Minoru just as she’s going to get bit and saves her as the other Runaways perish. Nico recommends Elsa Bloodstone the monster hunter, but they get no reads of life but can track her magical artifact the bloodstone. They follow the bloodstone to find Elsa is already a zombie, but a sane one thanks to Deadpool who is in a cage and has been an endless food source the flesh-hungry Elsa Bloodstone. Elsa vows to kill every last zombie and make the world whole again, and Deadpool wants the world saved for chimichangas to still get made. This squad of four has to save the world whom Deadpool nicknames the Golden Girls.

What I Liked: Spiderman biting and attacking Dr. Strange like a spider was pretty terrifying. The time travel aspect was really fun. The superhero zombie horde was written well, with who was chosen to go up against whom. The epic last battle scenes were a lot of fun and very intense. The Stone Age Avengers were awesome, didn’t know they existed but will have to get the comics they are a part of because they were awesome, not a huge part of the book but they make an impact. I like how briefly the history of a relevant hero or villain is explained Morgana Le Fey in particular. I liked how fast the zombie story got going. Deadpool’s jokes are pretty great and his relationship with Max is classic Deadpool.

What I Disliked: The time travel plan needed a layman’s explanation, and the squad seemed confused too. I felt Elsa refusing to tell the story of how she was bitten lasted too long, Zelda should not have to fight that hard and it didn’t even affect the story. As much as I loved the battle scenes I could have had them spread out or another battle scene in the middle and not all at the end, which made the pacing drag in the middle. The pop culture references should have stuck to Deadpool when another character uses it in a metaphor or quotes G.I. Joe it feels fake and out of place. Wong was eaten too soon and Dr. Strange showed no remorse at all. While I liked the action it was sometimes really hard to follow the whole time.

Recommendations: The Hunger: A Marvel Zombies Novel is a fun gory story. It takes characters that the general audience might not know and has a lot of fun with them. I don’t know everything about the characters and felt Rockwell did a great job in staying true to them. I felt Zelda was the most obscure and the book did a fair job of introducing her to the reader. The Marvel Zombies worked really well and this book is a good alternate take on those comics. The Stone Age Avengers were a highlight and made me want to read about them if you know of these characters already they have one heck of a scene, that I did not want to end.

Rating: I Rated The Hunger: A Marvel Zombies Novel by Marsheila Rockwell 4 out of 5 stars.

About Marvel Entertainment:

Marvel Entertainment, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company, is one of the world’s most prominent character-based entertainment companies, built on a proven library of more than 8,000 characters featured in a variety of media for over eighty years. Marvel utilizes its character franchises in entertainment, licensing, publishing, games, and digital media.