Blade Kills the Zombie Avengers in New Marvel Comic

Blood has been spilled in Marvel Zombies: Black, White & Blood. The four-issue anthology series unleashes an undead plague on the Marvel Universe with bite-sized stories separate from the original Zombiverse, asking questions like: What if Spider-Man fought his zombified Aunt May? What if Daredevil was a zombie cage fighter? And what if a grief-stricken Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four had just seven days to save humanity from a zombie virus? Another question was answered in this week's fourth and final issue: could Blade the vampire hunter slay Earth's most undead heroes?

The answer: #$^% yes.

This week's Marvel Zombies: Black, White & Blood #4 includes the story "Strange-Ass Bedfellows" by writer and artist Steve Skroce (Doc Frankenstein, We Stand on Guard) and color artist Brian Reber (Mary Jane & Black Cat, Unstoppable Doom Patrol). In the standalone story, the zombie plague has infected every superhuman — except for the half-human/half-vampire Eric Brooks, a.k.a. Blade.

The sword-wielding Daywalker is the last-living hero. Humanity — what's left of it — seeks refuge in the polar north, where a domed city called The Sanctuary is the only safe place left on Earth. Blade is an exterminator, a vampire hunter-turned-zombie eradicator. He decapitates a zombie Mr. Fantastic, stabs the undead Daredevil and Spider-Woman in the brain, and dispatches the zombified Thing, Iron Fist, Iceman, and the Human Torch.

It's in the frozen tundra where Blade makes his last stand against the zombie Avengers: Captain America, Iron Man, Hulk, Black Widow, Black Panther, and Namor the Sub-Mariner. "Earth's mightiest brain-munchers" are drawn to The Sanctuary for "fresh meat," but the zombies can't get through the city's protective force fields. It's a self-sustaining safe haven for humanity, except for one thing: food for the ruling class. 

Blade has been working with the (still alive) Rick Jones — the once-sidekick of the Hulk and Captain America — to "provide seed for the forever-hungering soil." Rick, driven mad by the zombie apocalypse, is now Blade's sidekick. He transports "precious cargo" — the living — in a fortified battle van that opens fire on the undead Avengers with missiles and machine gun fire. Rick and Blade blow Black Widow and Black Panther to bits, but Iron Man's chest beam blasts a hole into the van.

It's the end of the line as zombie Hulk, Captain America, and Iron Man attempt to feed on the humans making a run for The Sanctuary. But then the cavalry arrives: a gun-wielding Dracula and his retinue. As Rick dies by detonating an old Stark Industries nuke to permanently disassemble the zombie Avengers, it's revealed that humanity's last utopian refuge is run and controlled by Dracula's immortal vampire nation. 

The Sanctuary has all the long-lost amenities of the old world, and the only cost is for humans to give up their immortal soul. Instead of a zombie's flesh-eating bite, immortality from a zombie's bite. The vampires offer protection from the zombies... but only to fuel the blood-suckers as their "blood cow" for life. Blade is disgusted with himself for enabling the vampires — he laments how "humanity is being saved to become nothing more than pampered slaves" — but it was the only way. Dracula raises a toast with a glass of blood. 

Blade is biding his time until the zombie menace is extinguished and the rose of humankind can bloom once more. Until then, Blade tells himself: "I'm going to kill every last one of these bloodsuckin' %$@#&$@%&# vampires in this rathole." The end.

Marvel Zombies: Black, White & Blood #4 is on sale now from Marvel Comics.