Zombies. No matter what happens, they just don't seem to go away. When it's predicted that zombies are over, along comes something that brings them flooding back into pop culture again. Right now, superheroes are still in full swing, and like the zombie craze, people have been predicting that the bubble is going to burst soon.
Both genres are enduring and have even crossed over before. Stories weaving together superheroes with zombies have tackled the subject of being both powerful and the constant hunger that being undead brings. If done well, it's a fun story that brings back some dead characters to interact with the still alive heroes. It shows how even the best of heroes can succumb to the undead plague that can gobble up entire comic universes at its scariest.
10 Victorian Undead
It's zombies vs. the greatest mind in all of literature. After being summoned by Scotland Yard, they discover that some workmen have uncovered a zombie. It has bitten one of the workmen, and he is turning into one of the undead.
It's eventually revealed that one of Holmes's greatest enemies has hatched a plan to take over London with an undead army. With the lives of citizens at stake and, of course, more importantly, the Queen's, Holmes and Watson fight to find a way to end the zombie horde.
9 Necrosha
Selene, the Black Queen of The Hellfire Club, gains access to the Technarch Transmode Virus, which she uses to raise an army of dead mutants to do her bidding while she seeks to gain powers that will make her a goddess. The X-Men see former teammates such as Banshee and Thunderbird resurrected to fight against them.
After an assault on Utopia, the X-Men and X-Force are pushed to their breaking points. Warpath looks back to his heritage to find the strength to battle the undead. Selene grabs the power she is seeking and almost ends all of the mutants but is stopped by Warpath.
8 Invincible: The Reanimen
Invincible was a great series showing a teenage superhero coming into his own after his powers emerge. After he begins to work for the Global Defense Agency, one of the threats he runs into is the Reanimen. Corpses have been taken and reanimated by the scientist D. A. Sinclair with the use of technology.
After being defeated by Invincible, he ends up being offered a job by the GDA. During The Invincible War, Sinclair used the discarded corpses of alternate reality versions of Invincible to create The Invincible Reanimen! These Reanimen were even stronger and more dangerous than the previous versions.
7 Curse Of The Spawn
A spin-off of the original Spawn title, this title followed Daniel Llanso in the future. He dies and returns as a Hellspawn, just like Al Simmons. In this future, the world is an apocalyptic wasteland where demons hunt humans. He finds his sister and nephew and saves them from being killed by a demon.
The devil is upset at this and sends out an army of Navkies, which are undead children, to hunt down his sister and nephew. The Vatican has been taken over by The Anti-Pope, who rules the Earth and dispatches his demon and an undead army to do his bidding. The fight between this Spawn and the Antipope ended in a miniseries Spawn: Blood & Salvation.
6 Batman: Endgame
The Joker has returned! After his disappearance at the end of Death Of The Family, he reappears with plans to gas the Gotham residents. It beings to turn them into raving maniacs like the infected hordes in 28 Days Later. The virus is spread by laughter and gives everyone The Joker's trademark grin.
During the battle, Alfred loses a hand, and Batman is thought to be dead after part of the Batcave collapses on himself and Joker. The entire city has to be cured after the cure is found in a section of the cave system that Joker had been hiding. An infected zombie horde was running around for a short time, tearing things apart and killing other residents.
5 DCeased
After defeating the forces of Apokolips, Cyborg has been captured. While being tortured, it's revealed that his cybernetic body has the Anti Life Equation has been living in it. The equation becomes corrupted and begins to infect Apokolips. He is sent back to Earth, where the virus begins to spread as a techno-organic virus.
It is discovered that people looking at screens when the virus appears will turn them into zombies. The JLA fights to contain the virus's spread and curb the virus before it infects the entire world. After going back and forth, it is decided to send survivors to a new earth to escape the virus. The threat is still looming out in the Multiverse.
4 Marvel Zombie vs. Army Of Darkness
After bouncing around the afterlife, Ash Williams ends up falling into the Marvel Universe. Thinking he's finally clear of the Deadites, he breathes a sigh of relief. He doesn't know that he has dropped into the Marvel Zombies Universe just before the infection starts to spread. While trying to warn The Avengers of the incoming zombie plague but they dismiss him.
When the zombies start roaming the streets, he is left to find this universe's version of Necronomicon. It says it can't end the zombie wave because they are not deadites. Fighting off zombies alongside some other survivors that include Doctor Doom. Finally, Doom teleports Ash to another reality leaving the zombies to finish off all humanity.
3 Infestation
IDW decided to do a line-wide crossover with some of their licensed properties. Starting in their Zombies vs. Robots title, it would eventually spread to other titles like G.I. Joe, Star Trek, Transformers, and Ghostbusters. While the properties did not cross over each other during this event, the same zombie plague infects all the books separately.
A vampire agent from Covert Vampiric Operations named Britt gets bit by a zombie and becomes overly powerful. She opens portals to new worlds and sends waves of zombies to conquer each one. This series includes zombie Transformers! Fans also get to see the Ghostbusters fight off a zombie attack while trapped in their firehouse.
2 Blackest Night
In the Green Lantern centered event series, we see the emergence of the Black Lanterns. Black rings seek out dead heroes and villains' corpses to raise them from the dead and eliminate all life in the universe. There was a lot of emotional returns of dead heroes throughout the series. The creepiest is the body of The Elongated Man, cornering a hero and saying his catchphrase, "I smell a mystery!"
Black Hand took a central role as he tried to help Nekron take control of the Black Lanterns. Thinking the skull of Bruce Wayne was their ace card Black Hand carried it around for most of the run. Some of the characters we saw return were Maxwell Lord, Firestorm, Aquaman, and Deadman's body.
1 Marvel Zombies
Starting as a quick blurb in Ultimate Fantastic Four, Marvel Zombies ended up being a big series for Marvel in the early 2000s. Set in an alternate reality where zombies have infected the famous heroes. Black Panther is still uninfected and rallies to try and keep the zombies at bay. While fighting, he gathers survivors and leaves earth.
The zombies run out of a food source, but when the Silver Surfer arrives to announce Galactus's coming, he is overwhelmed and devoured. By the time Galactus does arrive, the zombies have been imbued with Silver Surfer's cosmic power. They swarm Galactus and gorge on his raw power. This gives them enough power to leave Earth and take their hunger out into the universe.