By Andrew A. Smith
Tribune Content Agency
April 9, 2020 — The pandemic burning through the world right now is terrifying, lethal and virtually unstoppable. But one thing it isn’t, is unexpected. We’ve been through this before — the 1918 flu, the Black Plague — and experts have long been predicting this one.
Which has made pandemics an irresistible topic to explore in fiction. Comic books, in particular, have a lot of them. Some are semi-realistic, and may afford some insights, and some are wackadoodle, which can infect us with the giggles.
Let’s take a look at my Top 11 Comics Pandemics:
11. THANAGARIAN EQUALIZER DISEASE
Back in 1975, a kind of pollen infects Thanagar, Hawkman’s home planet. In fact, the Winged Wonder is one of the first victims, who then infects the Justice League.
“I’d been equalized,” he explained, “as had almost the entire planet! Those particles from the alien were microbes … which affect people when they exert themselves — making them physically equal to everyone around them!”
In other words, it “equalizes” everyone’s strengths and weaknesses to make them all average. It affects people mentally, too:
Green Arrow: “What do you make of it, Batman?”
Batman: “Why ask me?”
Honestly, it’s a pretty silly premise. But it’s worth your while just to see Batman as a C student.
Brian K. Vaughan’s Y: The Last Man begins with a pandemic that kills all males, but that’s just a set-up for a five-year story about what women become without men holding them back. (Cover art by J.G. Jones, copyright DC Comics Inc.)
10. THE ANDROCIDE
In the first issue of DC Comics’ Y: The Last Man in 2002, an unknown plague wipes out everything on the planet with a Y chromosome, except for a young escape artist named Yorick and his pet monkey Ampersand. The source of the plague is never definitively explained, as Yorick is chased around the world by hordes of women — including ninjas, Amazons and the Mossad — who either want to kill him or breed with him.
It’s a terrific read, and a TV series has been in the works for a while at FX. I’d have rated it higher, except that the pandemic is little more than a set-up for writer Brian K. Vaughan’s exploration of gender roles, commentary on modern society and a crackerjack adventure story.
9. THE TRANSMODE VIRUS
The Technarchy, an alien, artifical-intelligence machine race introduced in 1980s X-books, transmit the Transmode Virus with skin-to-skin contact, transforming living tissue into “techno-organic” material, which they can suck the energy out of (i.e. “eat’). Left unharvested, techno-organic beings eventually become The Phalanx, a Borg-like hive-mind super-race.
Obviously, the Transmode Virus is used sparingly, because otherwise the X-Men would have all been assimilated by now. Not to mention us puny humans.
8. THE LEGACY VIRUS
This airborne disease first appeared in Marvel’s X-Men books in 1993, affecting only mutants, giving them AIDS-like symptoms. As the disease progressed, the affected mutant’s organs would begin to shut down, until death, when the mutant’s power (whatever it was ) would go into overdrive and explode. After the plague claimed Illyana “Magik” Rasputin, her brother Colossus sacrificed his life to end the virus. (Both got better.)
The first version of the virus (later variants killed humans, too) was created by Stryfe, the time-traveling clone of Nathan “Cable” Summers, who is the son of Scott “Cyclops” Summers and Madelyne Pryor, the latter a clone of Jean “Marvel Girl/Phoenix” Grey, who was sent to the future as a baby in the hopes of curing the Transmode Virus (see above), with which he had been infected by Apocalypse. Returning to our time as an adult, it turns out Cable uses his vast telekinetic powers to hold the virus in check, which to date has only transformed one arm and part of his chest.
As a metaphor for AIDS, I found stories featuring the virus heavy-handed and preachy, and by the time it was destroyed, I might have given my own life to end this storyline. Fortunately, Colossus beat me to it.
7. AMAZO VIRUS
Way back in 1960, the Justice League battled an android named Amazo. Created by the villanous Professor Ivo, Amazo could duplicate any super-power he encountered, resulting in Jeff Bezos’ Amazon, a company which has taken over the world through assimilation.
Just kidding. Mostly. Anyway Lex Luthor developed a virus based on Amazo, which suppressed super-powers in those that have them, but then mutated to affect ordinary humans, who would develop super-powers based on the subconscious. (Batman, for example, developed a bat-like echo-location power).
Until they died.
Yep. Blood would turn black, brains would boil, it was a whole thing. Anyway, the virus was defeated by using anti-bodies from Superman’s blood — he was exposed, but fought off the infection — and real science, with words like “isoprene bond” and "proteolytic enzyme" appearing in a Justice League comic book. At least, I assume that’s real science.
There was plenty of comic book science, too, resulting in a new Amazo (formerly a human being) and even a Kid Amazo. They just couldn’t leave well enough alone.
A pandemic based on long-running New Gods MacGuffin “the Anti-Life Equation” turns most of the Justice League on a parallel Earth into zombies in DCeased. (Cover art by Francesco Matrina, Copyright DC Comics Inc.)
6. THE ANTI-LIFE PLAGUE
Somewhere in the DC multiverse, there is an Earth exactly like the one we read about in DC Comics, but isn’t ours. Because in this one, as depicted in the DCeased miniseries, Darkseid won.
Sort of. In DCeased #1 in 2019, the ruler of Apokalips combined an aspect of Death (known as the Black Racer among the New Gods) with the Anti-Life Equation (long story) and created a disease that turns everyone who sees it into a ravening, cannibalistic monster (a “fast zombie” in nerd-speak).
And it’s spread on the Internet. So it infects anyone who looks at a phone, or a Wikipedia page, or Netflix … yeah, pretty much everyone.
It doesn’t go well. Darkseid is the first victim, and he destroys Apokolips. In his last moments henchman DeSaad infects Earth, and pretty much the whole Justice League goes full-on, super-powered zombie. I won’t spoil the ending, but there’s a sequel out currently — DCeased: Unkillables — which should tell you something.
It’s really well done. I would have ranked it higher, only it came out in 2019, and Marvel Comics beat DC to the punch by 14 years:
5. THE HUNGER
Somewhere in the Marvel multiverse, there is an Earth exactly like the one we read about in Marvel Comics, but isn’t ours. In fact, Marvel helpfully tells us that it’s Earth-2149, for those fans who are mapping the multiverse. (And you just know they exist.)
On that Earth in 2005, a superhero known as The Sentry arrives from outer space, already infected with “The Hunger,” which transforms people into fast zombies with a single bite. He bites a bunch of Avengers, and super-speedster Quicksilver spreads the disease globally. I don’t want to spoil anything, but it’s probably enough to tell you that the last hope of mankind … is Magneto.
The story is by Robert Kirkman, who had created The Walking Dead at Image Comics two years previously. You can find it in Marvel Zombies and related miniseries.
4. THE JIGSAW DISEASE
In the dystopian future of Judge Dredd, everything in Mega-City One is over the top — including epidemics like The Jigsaw Disease. If you catch it, giant cartoon holes start appearing all over your body. Where your parts go is unknown, and it doesn’t even make sense how people can continue to function with see-through openings all over their heads and torsos. The only cure is, essentially, suicide.
Honestly, Mega-City One makes Gotham City look like paradise. Speaking of which:
3. THE CLENCH
In 1996, between the storylines where Bane broke Batman’s back and Gotham City suffered a magnitude 7.6 earthquake, Batman’s home was infected with the Ebola Gulf A strain. Created out of regular Ebola by the Order of St. Dumas (and later modified by Ra’s al Ghul), the airborne enemy constantly mutated, and infected all of Gotham. Technically the disease was called the Apocalypse Virus, but everyone called it The Clench because of how victims cramp up. Before, you know, bleeding from the eyes and dying. Within 48 hours.
Needless to say, Batman (and a few friends and enemies) found a cure in time so there are still people living in Gotham. Although God knows why.
2. SPIDER-ISLAND
An unnamed disease, invented by Spider-Man arch-foe and clone-maker The Jackal, gave all of Manhattan’s residents Spider-Man powers in a clutch of Marvel titles in 2011. That’s pretty awesome, except as the disease progressed, victims mutated into giant spider-monsters.
Which, as downsides go, is right up there with cartoon holes in your body. Writer Dan Slott kept the story moving along briskly so that we didn’t have to dwell on that too long, and everyone got cured anyway. But it’s worth it to watch J. Jonah Jameson become a giant, hairy spider — and finally stop talking.
Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead launched as a comic book in 2003, and later became a TV empire on AMC. (Cover art by Charlie Adlard, courtesy Image Comics)
1. THE WALKING DEATH
Do I really need to say anything about the pandemic that collapsed civilization and gave us The Walking Dead comics and TV shows?
The most interesting thing about this unexplained disease is that apparently everyone on Earth has already been infected by it. Sure, a walker bite can turn you. But so can death by any means. The burning question remains: How did everyone get it? Only Kirkman knows, and he ain’t tellin’.
That’s a wrap. There are a lot more bizarre diseases in comics than those listed above, but those are my favorites. Maybe knowing we won’t turn into giant spiders will make COVID-19 a little less scary? God knows we could use a little good news.
Find Captain Comics by email (capncomics@aol.com), on his website (captaincomics.ning.com), on Facebook (Andrew Alan Smith) or on Twitter (@CaptainComics).
Replies
But you missed the first one that popped into my head...
Dang, Cap, that paragraph nearly made my head explode.
I highly recommend Y: The Last Man, I was anticipating as nice long read when I bought all of the trades. I ended up reading the whole series in 2, maybe 3, months at work during my lunch and break,
Jeff, I think "Contagion" is the first chapter in the Ebola Gulf A storyline that I discuss above. It's been a while, but doesn't it start in a gated community of rich people, and evoke Poe's "Masque of the Red Death"? Pretty sure that's The Clench.
From what I remember, that's the disease created by the Order of St. Dumas. Batman beats it, but then Ra's al Ghul mutates it into something much more virulent. If I'm remembering the order of events correctly, which is not a given.
I also left out whatever the Terregenesis Cloud did to mutants. I don't think it counts as a pandemic, since it wasn't transmissible between mutants, but could only be gotten through contact with the cloud. That's more like mustard gas than a disease. And besides, it was too similar to Legacy Virus.
Also, it annoyed me since it was such a transparent effort to demote the X-Men (because Fox owned the movie rights) and replace them with the Inhumans, a group that had failed to be interesting for decades.
I thought of a couple more pandemics as I was writing this column, but none of them were as interesting as the ones I listed. For example, there are at least two "Virus X" stories in Superman comics, at least one of which required him to stay away from Supergirl and Krypto, which means it was an infectious Kryptonian disease. But they only lasted an issue or two.
But I'm open to correction/reminder of any others!
Jeff of Earth-J said:
To tell you the truth, Travis, I enjoy writing sentences like that, just for the effect they have!
Travis Herrick (Modular Mod) said:
"Jeff, I think "Contagion" is the first chapter in the Ebola Gulf... Pretty sure that's The Clench."
I... don't know. I don't remember "The Clench," but "Contagion" was right around the time of that earthquake you mention, so you're probably right. That was also around the time endless crossovers drove me away from the Bat-titles for good, so I really don't recall all that much about it. I don't think I even read it.
Travis Herrick (Modular Mod) said:
I highly recommend Y: The Last Man, I was anticipating as nice long read when I bought all of the trades. I ended up reading the whole series in 2, maybe 3, months at work during my lunch and break.
Thanks for bringing up Y: The Last Man. I've never read it but lucked out getting the Omnibus new for 80 bucks, which is less than I would pay for all of the TPBs. Awaiting its arrival.
Why they call this coronavirus "novel" is that we've probably all had a coronavirus in the past, since as I understand it most of this "family" are common colds. This makes the antibody tests tricky, as they have to be able to distinguish this particular coronavirus.
Captain Comics said:
Jeff of Earth-J said:
I remember that there was "The Clench" and also "Contagion," although I don't recall the particulars of either of those sagas. I know I've read them because back then I read all the Batman titles.
I also recall that The Clench and Contagion, and the earthquake after those, were the justification for the federal government to declare Gotham is not part of the United States in "No Man's Land."
(It took more than the endless crossovers to drive me away from the Bat-titles for good. It took "Hush.")
I remember at one point DC put a moratorium on Bat-verse crossovers for a year. I was already out by that time, but I decided to stay back to see if they meant it. They did got that entire years IIRC, but then jumped right back into crossovers when the year was up.
I liked Hush when it first came out, well enough to later buy the "unwrapped" version in hardcover. I read that and didn't feel one way about it or the other. I didn't remember what I had liked about it the first time, and I don't rmember much about it now.
Jeff and CK: Yeah, The Clench was in the timeline you mention (and I sorta mentioned): Bane broke Batman's back, then came the Azrael saga, then (or possibly at the same time) The Clench, then the Earthquake, culminating in the government essentially kicking Gotham out of the county. That latter part was packaged as "No Man's Land," but that title may have been extended to include some of the previous storylines. I don't remember, because like everyone here, I was heartily sick of the endless Bat-crossovers and was essentially skimming at that point.
This was when I began wondering why anybody still lived in Gotham -- and after No Man's Land, why anybody moved back. I don't say this just as a joke; it was also beginning to interfere with my suspension of disbelief. Seriously, after The Clench, the earthquake, No Man's Land and the recurrent threat of The Joker, why live there? Isn't it safer and just easier to live anywhere else? Especially if you're rich. If somehow your business empire is tied to Gotham, there's still no reason to live there. Move to Martha's Vineyard, and leave the business -- and the danger -- to underlings.
As to Hush, I liked it initially because they threw just about every Bat-bit they could into the mix, and it was fun seeing Superman bits, Catwoman bits and more all in the same story. But it fell apart for me when we found out who Hush was. Spoiler, it was Bruce Wayne's lifelong friend that we'd never heard of before. That's not playing fair with the reader, and it irritated me. But the Jim Lee art was nice.
I had the same reaction to Tyler Stone in Iron Man. Another lifelong friend we'd never heard of before. That's just lazy writing.
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