COMICS: Marvel Reveal Plans For MARVEL ZOMBIES HALLOWEEN

The franchise is known for being really over the top and focusing on the insane idea of zombie-infected super heroes. And in the past, we've done stories with martians, robots, knights and many of Marvel's monster characters. So for our Halloween one-shot, we're doing more of a "classic" zombie apocalypse story about a woman and her son. The kid has grown up in a zombie apocalypse universe and when Halloween rolls around, he wants to go trick or treating. He's heard about it and read about it, but his mom doesn't think it's a very good idea because they're surrounded by zombies. So he asks her, "What's the purpose of us staying alive during the zombie apocalypse if we never get to have any fun? What's the point of just surviving?" He then sneaks out on Halloween night and goes Trick or Treating in a Spider-Man costume and events spiral from there. It's a horrific but sweet little tale.

What inspired me to come back was that this is very much a holiday special comic. In many ways I'm writing this for my wife who has a scary love of holiday specials. She forces me to watch them with her especially during Halloween, Christmas, and Easter. It doesn't matter if it's animated, live action, or stop motion. We'll watch them all. So this is kind of for her. It's a fun, little, gory, one-shot horror story.

I can reveal that this is going to really focus on Marvel's kid and teen heroes; Avengers Academy, Runaways and even Power Pack. You'll see more gruesome versions of these teams than we're used to seeing. It's sort of what "Lost Boys" did for vampires.

Alessandro and I did a back up series involving teen heroes in "Fear Itself: The Home Front." So I think that's why he was chosen for and this and is such a good fit. Alessandro also brings a great youthful quality to the story, which is important because of the various characters involved. Francesco did a great job with the cover. I'm thinking there's something to be said about impulse buys in comics. We need more of those, and I'm a sucker for these holiday special comics. People are going to walk into the store during the last week of October and see Francesco's cover, and this thing is just going to jump off the racks at them. They'll get a fun, beautiful-looking comic that hopefully captures the spirit of Halloween. To me, that's the whole purpose of a holiday comic. It's something to get people into the mood of the season.