If a zombie outbreak ever happens I’m dressing up as Batman. If I survive and rescue other humans, I would–for all intents and purposes–BE Batman in this brave new world. And if I die and become a zombie…? Almost as good, ’cause now I’m Bat-Zombie! It’s a win/win scenario.
• Zombie Batman •
Better turn off that night light, Jim.
My boyhood crush on Yvonne Craig made me feel kinda dirty when I was making Batgirl’s butchered corpse. Weird, right? On the other hand, I could make Robin roadkill all day long. Wheeeee, CHOP CHOP CHOP!
Zombie Batman (“Bat-Liche?”) isn’t a total dick. After killing and eating his junior partners (their legs were the best part!), Bats carries his now-undead sidekicks around when prowling Gotham for a snack. Then, when he spots something edible he just throws Zombie Batgirl & Robin at it and lets them get the first mouthful. Way to be a team player, Zombie Batman!
I’m guessing the Penguin–the plump, juicy Penguin–was the first Arkham inmate on the menu. I wanna see Jim Lee draw that:
A sweaty, panicked Penguin beating a limbless Zombie Robin with an umbrella. The Penguin would get the upper hand and then–in the moment just before victory–clutch his chest, fall forward and SPLAT!, right on the bitey Boy Wonder. Silence…then movement, the Penguin’s body shakes and SPLORCH, Zombie Robin pops out his back. Yay, he ate his way through…! He’s so resourceful.
Ingredients: Batman’s base body is a Dark Knight HeroClix figure (Collateral Damage) with a new left hand (Hercules/Infinity Challenge). I whittled out his lower face (everything below the cowl line) and replaced it with the misshapen, broken jaw of a Mage Knight Tomb Horror (Sinister). His dead sidekicks started out as standard HeroClix figures (Batgirl/Unleashed, Robin/Crisis), though Robin got a new head courtesy of a Mage Knight Gorgon (Pyramid). Custom Zombie Batman dial here.
Wounds & Rotting Flesh: I sketched out what I wanted each figure to look like and–when I wasn’t sure if it would translate well into a figure–I’d test it out on some scrap HeroClix. Once that was all sorted out the x-acto went to work, slicing off limbs and carving out bites. To create deep wounds, I used sculpting tools to drill into the figure. To give the exposed flesh a nice rotting look, I tore off tiny (like a quarter the size of a Chiclet) pieces of toilet paper and lined the inside and edges of every wound, holding them in place with a pinprick of Elmer’s. A small drop of Krazy Glue then hardened the mess (quickly absorb any excess glue with a small strip of paper towel). When that all dries, it’ll have a great ragged, raw look. That same trick can be used to make rips in costumes & capes. Acrylic paint then gored up the assorted boo-boos with shades of pink, purple and red, exposed skin got a wash of sickly green and costumes–depending on their color–got a wash of black or muddy brown. Protruding bones are just a small snip of plastic–a wrist, ankle or other small part of a random scrap figure.
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• Zombie Superman •
“SuperCadaver, a strange cannibal from another planet with urges and appetites far beyond those of mortal men! SuperCadaver, who can chew the core of mighty rivals, rend skin with his bare hands and who, disguised as Corpse Kent, mind-mannered ghoul for a great metropolitan newspaper, eats a never-ending buffet of tooth, jaundice and the zombie way!”
Looks like Stargirl put up a pretty good fight before Superman crushed her into a meatball and mixed her with some Hamburger Helper. I bet it was chili cheese flavor.
That big open wound looks better when the camera flash doesn’t illuminate the Man of Steel’s insides. “Better” may be a subjective term.
I started putting small bits of translucent green plastic in his wounds–”kryptonite”–but with all the cuts, bruises, dirt and blood splatter, he was getting way too busy so I ditched ‘em. All that red and green made him look like a Christmas tree.
I put a nice big hole in the back of his head, but we’re gonna need to try this without the camera flash…
Ingredients: Superman’s base body is a HeroClix figure (Justice League) with a new noggin courtesy a Mage Knight Zombie Centaur (2.0). The big nasty staff he’s impaled on was lifted from a Stargirl HeroClix figure (Legacy). Actually putting the staff all the way through the figure would be kind of a hassle, so I cut it in two, bored the entrance and exit wounds into the figure and then glued each end of the staff in separately. Custom Zombie Superman dial here.
For tips & tricks on zombified modding, see the “Wounds & Rotting Flesh” write up at the bottom of the Zombie Batman write-up.
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• Zombie Wonder Woman •
Oh look, Wonder Woman pulled out her large intestine and is gonna lasso the Teen Titans with it. I find it difficult making new friends.
To get the texture on Amazombie’s intestinal lasso (fun sentence!), I used the toilet paper trick outlined at the bottom of the Zombie Batman entry. “Tedious” sums up the experience.
Disembowel-Cam close-up!
Ingredients: The body from the waist-down came courtesy a Wonder Girl HeroClix (Crisis), as did the arms and magic lasso. The upper body & hair are from a Wonder Woman HeroClix (Cosmic Justice) and the skull face was lopped off a Mage Knight Stinging Skeleton (Pyramid). Minor costume detailing (boot stripes, tiara, etc.) are thin strips of index card paper cut to shape, held in place with a pinprick of Elmer’s and then hardened with a tiny drop of Krazy Glue. Custom Zombie Wonder Woman dial here.
For tips & tricks on zombified modding, see the “Wounds & Rotting Flesh” write up at the bottom of the Zombie Batman write-up.
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• Zombie Flash •
The whole world is a drive-thru window for Zombie Flash! (Click here for a night version of the above pic.) This figure makes me laugh…I liked the idea of a super fast zombie that–since he had no arms–just runs around taking bites out of people. Look at this face:
HA, he looks like some kind of crazed zombie Pac-Man. I love it! I can picture a character in a comic facing the reader and talking, just a normal everyday scene, then a second panel–almost identical–but now there’s a bite in the character and they have a surprised look on their face. No one is safe from the fastest corpse alive!
Hey, check it out, Green Arrow got a shot in before Zombie Flash ate his face. I was actually gonna make a Zombie Green Arrow but didn’t get around to it in time for this Halloween blog post. The plan was for Ollie a quiver full of human arms (all with recognizable supehero sleeves & gloves), and he was gonna be notching an “arrow;” a Green Lantern arm with its glowing power ring at the tip. BONUS: he’d be a zombie with a Van Dyke. Win!
Ingredients: Base body is a Copperhead HeroClix (Origin) with a head lifted from a Mage Knight Marsh Zombie (Lancers). Arrows came courtesy Green Arrow (Crisis), random costume trimmings (belt, logo, yellow thingies on head) are bits of index card shaped and held in place by a pinprick of Elmer’s, then hardened by a small drip of Krazy Glue (blot the excess!). Custom Zombie Flash dial here.
For tips & tricks on zombified modding, see the “Wounds & Rotting Flesh” write up at the bottom of the Zombie Batman write-up.
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• Zombie Hawkman •
Trying to shoot zig-zagging legless Zombie Hawkman sounds like the best carnival game ever.
I went back and forth on what Zombie Hawkman here was gonna look like. One idea had him–still just an upper torso–sprouting skeletal, featherless wings and walking around on his hands, but I felt it wouldn’t look enough like Hawkman. Plus it’s more fun to have some terrible bird zombie thing flying around and pecking at you from above. FUN FACT: Thanks to Zombie Hawkman’s open belly, instead of bird poop, bits of partially-chewed victim land on your windshield when he flies overhead. That’s, uh, that’s not to imply Hawkman sh*ts on people’s cars when he flies around the DCU. Or maybe he does, I haven’t read comics in awhile.
That little peg that plugs into the HeroClix base…? Yeah, I originally had it at the bottom of his pelvis, but, uh…yeah, that wasn’t a good look.
I tried sneaking small extra elements of the DCU into each figure and thought Robotman’s noggin worked pretty well for a replacement mace. Cliff Steele can’t catch a break…he’s in an accident that destroys almost everything that makes him human and then zombies show up.
“Sooo…what part of your body is still human, Robotman…?”
*HawkGhoul licks lips*
Ingredients: Base body is a Hawkman HeroClix (Origin) with a skeletal pelvis swiped from a Mage Knight Skeleton (Rebellion). Delicious, brain-filled Robotman head courtesy a Robotman HeroClix (Origin). Custom Zombie Hawkman dial here.
For tips & tricks on zombified modding, see the “Wounds & Rotting Flesh” write up at the bottom of the Zombie Batman write-up.
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• Zombie Aquaman •
“Sometimes that Zombie Aquaman looks right at ya. Right into your eyes. And the thing about Zombie Aquaman is he’s got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll’s eyes. When he comes at ya, he doesn’t even seem to be livin’… ’til he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then… and then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin’. The ocean turns red, and despite all your poundin’ and your hollerin’ those zombies come in and… they rip you to pieces.”
The thinking behind this is to have AquaChum here flopping around like an actual fish out of water. Imagine him wriggling around the floor, squirming his way closer to you as his gnashes his teeth together. Fun! In related news, here’s a zombie fighting a shark…
Hey, check it out…Zombie Aquaman has summoned zombie fish to his aid! Stay gold, Zombie Aquaman.
Ingredients: Base body is a Piledriver HeroClix (Avengers) with a head donated by a Gambit HeroClix (Mutations & Monsters). The severed Black Manta head/sofa cushion is a HeroClix Black Manta (Hypertime). Costume trimmings (shirt scales, belt buckle, etc.) are small bits of index card cut to shape, held in place with a pinprick of Elmer’s and hardened by a drip of Krazy Glue. Fish skeletons made the same way. Custom Zombie Aquaman dial here.
For tips & tricks on zombified modding, see the “Wounds & Rotting Flesh” write up at the bottom of the Zombie Batman write-up.
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• Zombie Plastic Man •
The Question would make a lousy zombie. No mouth = no biting (and, according to Harlan Ellison, no screaming, either). Click here for a night version of the above pic.
Ooops, the pointy bones in the Plastic Cannibal’s hand poked through his flesh and his rubbery skin peeled back like a popped ballon. Yuck.
I’m not a big Plastic Man fan (though his appearances on the Batman: the Brave & the Bold cartoon are winning me over). That said, Zombie Plas here might be my favorite of the DCU zombies (“DCUZ?”).
What I like is the juxtaposition of the goofy/silliness of the Plastic Man character with gruesome zombie elements. Batman, Hawkman, guys like that are already fairly intimidating, so adding monstrous elements to those characters isn’t that far of a stretch. Not so much with Plas…it’s like the clown from It. Take something cute & innocent, slap some evil fangs on it or whatever and BAMMO!, triple creepy!
Ingredients: Base body is a Plastic Man HeroClix (HyperTime) with the arms repositioned to make him a bit more “COMIN’ ATCHA!” I lopped off Plastic Man’s head, chopped it in two and discarded his smiling lower jaw. Taking its place: the lower jaw of a Mage Knight Tormented Soul (Whirlwind), giving Zombie Plas a nice, evil maw. The right hand of a Man-Thing HeroClix (Mutant Mayhem) gave Plas a meaty, menacing hook, but it was the left hand of a Mage Knight Skull Golem (2.0) that put him over the top. Well, actually, it was the left hand and an extra finger from that Mage Knight figure. Seems that Bone Golems only have four fingers on each hand, so I had to add swipe an extra finger for Plas. To get that horrible flap of loose skin on his left wrist I cut the basic shape of what I wanted out of index paper, made sure it fit, then added crumpled bits of toilet paper, attaching them with pinpricks of Elmer’s. When I was happy with the way it looked, BLAMMO!, small drip of Krazy Glue to harden it. The batarangs sticking out of his side are small bits of index card (three sheets thick) cut to shape and then hardened with that same Krazy Glue trick. Custom Zombie Plastic Man dial here.
For tips & tricks on zombified modding, see the “Wounds & Rotting Flesh” write up at the bottom of the Zombie Batman write-up.
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• Crisis on Infinite OM NOM NOM NOM •
More Superhero Zombie Madness:
Power Pack Marvel Zombies
Classic Marvel Zombies
• Gallery •
