A New Kind of Zombie Variant

I'm so sick of Zombie variants. They cause quite the predicament when it comes to making shelf space every Tuesday night. And seriously, was a Howard the Duck Zombie variant really necessary? However, one such upcoming variant issues does have me excited.

To celebrate issue 50 of Walking Dead, Image Comics and series creator Robert Kirkman will be releasing a 1 out of every 100 variant, featuring the series' most popular characters, Rick, Tyreese, Michonne, and the despicable Governor, as super-heroes. The idea for the celebratory cover came from a conversation Kirkman had with Image executive director Eric Stephenson, who discussed an idea about a possible series of variant covers featuring Image's best known super-heroes Savage Dragon, Spawn, ShadowHawk and others, as zombies, a la Marvel Zombie variant covers. In an interview with newsarama, Kirkman explains "A certain other publishing company has been doing a slew of 'Zombie variants' on their super-hero titles, and so I thought it only fair to do a 'Superhero variant' on a zombie title." The cover, pictured above, was drawn by Erik Larsen and Ryan Ottley.

If you have not been following the current story arc of Walking Dead, let me tell you, no one is sacred in Kirkman's zombie apocalypse. With out spoiling in major plot points, all I will say is that you see a lot of major players dying off in the issues leading to the big 50. It seems like there has been a major shock in at least the last 4 issues, leaving my jaw dropped, gasping in disbelief. How many comics can boost that type of excitement for their fans? At this point, I almost have to predict the death of leading man Rick as the ultimate climax of issue 50, but we'll see.

The regular cover for issue 50 is pretty rad too, and I think helps illustrate my guess. Take a look:



Walking Dead 50 is scheduled for release April 23.

For more on all things Robert Kirkman, check out Kirkmania.