strongest Universe that Max Brooks' Zombies can overrun

[Masonicon]

so what's the strongest Universe that Max Brooks' Zombies can overrun with either their carnivorous violence

[LordMikel]

Not the Marvel Universe, I'm willing to say the X-Gene would trigger the zombies, "it's sick and thus to be ignored."

[Twickster]

It would have to be significantly weaker than the real world. WWZ Zombies, sans PIS, can't even overrun this Earth.

[Radical]

Not the Marvel Universe, I'm willing to say the X-Gene would trigger the zombies, "it's sick and thus to be ignored."

And I now have a mental image of Wolverine reacting with, "Great, now I can't decide whether to be relieved that I'm off the menu, or offended that even zombies won't accept a 'filthy mutie'."

[Sharkerbob]

Despite sharing a title, "Max Brook's" zombies are distinctly not the movie zombies.

Realistically, as well as Max layed out a plausible doomsday scenario with the zom's, I'm thinking that the best they could do would be a mostly street-level supers setting, and that's only if they got their numbers up significantly at first without people somehow noticing.

Ex-Heroes is a supers setting that got hit with a WWZ (book)/Walking Dead style zombie apocalypse, and the two most powerful heroes are a flying brick who'd lose to Spider-Man in a fight, and an energy-being hero with very significant weaknesses. So, if you want a good example, that would be it.

Otherwise, you'd be looking at a setting that if it does have supers, has them in a pretty limited capacity, without global means of operation, and thus, a lot of the zombie risings can occur before the supers (or wizards or whatever) can stop them before it all spreads.

Bearing in mind that even in Brook's book, zombies managed to somehow amass significant numbers/rise in numerous enough places, that even the world's militaries weren't prepared for it, despite the fact a properly prepped army, even in pre-gun powder days, were capable of defeating a sizeable horde, so it's debatable a full-scale outbreak could even occur in our own universe.

This is depending, of course, on if the zombie virus can or cannot effect supers, and to what degree. Part of the threat in Ex-Heroes were zombie supers walking around, although even those were most directly a threat when controlled by a super zombie that could directly puppet other zombies.

[Twickster]

Realistically, as well as Max layed out a plausible doomsday scenario with the zom's, I'm thinking that the best they could do would be a mostly street-level supers setting, and that's only if they got their numbers up significantly at first without people somehow noticing.

Plausible being the arguable term. Despite some mass casualties (maybe even a few million), Max Brooks/WWZ zombies are absolutely no threat to overall civilization in the real world at all, and a scenario where they are confers monumental stupidity/PIS to said civilization at the level of a fictional/omnipotent writer's "just say so".

[Sharkerbob]

Plausible being the arguable term. Despite some mass casualties (maybe even a few million), Max Brooks/WWZ zombies are absolutely no threat to overall civilization in the real world at all, and a scenario where they are confers monumental stupidity/PIS to said civilization at the level of a fictional/omnipotent writer's "just say so".

No denying, the book absolutely had a lot of narrative conceit going on, but he at least made an attempt to reasonably explain how a global outbreak could occur without resorting to "space radiation" or "alien virus sprayed into the atmosphere" or whatever. It's just a world where the officials are corrupt or incompetent or malicious enough in multiple areas of the world to allow it to build to critical. I still don't quite buy that a virus requiring zombie-to-victim-contact propagation for slow zombies would get that far even in our own world.

At least the movie zombies had the benefits of being fantastically agile runner types, and the viral conversion occurring within seconds.

[Twickster]

At least the movie zombies had the benefits of being fantastically agile runner types, and the viral conversion occurring within seconds.

Yeah, the movie version is bad. Very, very bad. At least overrun continents bad (it may possibly be even civilization ending, if there was a way for it to get through long-haul flights, which is unlikely given how fast it spread).

The book version? Not so much.

[Twickster]

Just an example of how monumentally not a threat to civilization the book WWZ zombies are (and conversely, how riddled with PIS the plot is), the pivotal Battle of Yonkers would have been won by nothing more than several armored and sealed steamrollers.

[The Dog]

Just an example of how monumentally not a threat to civilization the book WWZ zombies are (and conversely, how riddled with PIS the plot is), the pivotal Battle of Yonkers would have been won by nothing more than several armored and sealed steamrollers.

Pretty much the problem with the traditional slow-moving zombie apocalypse. You can't really show how the apocalypse happened, because they're slow, easily-tricked, and the need to bite/claw someone to spread the virus makes it hard for it to properly spread.

[MichaelC]

Yeah, it's kind of a necessary conceit, because zombies are really only designed to be a threat to your typical horror movie protagonists. That is to say, a group of very normal people with little or no combat ability or resources. You can't make a creature who is both a beatable threat to Rick Grimes AND capable of beating A-10 warthogs. If you made the zombies capable of, say, leaping into the air high enough to catch the A-10's and strong enough to rip through their armor, then those zombies would kill the Rick Grimes of the world in less than a second.

So somethings gotta give, and the thing that gives is whatever serves the story. So, we just have to accept that somehow, someway, the zombies beat the army with the flying tanks, and now Rick Grimes and his small group of friends has to find a way to beat them.

[Guy1]

Just an example of how monumentally not a threat to civilization the book WWZ zombies are (and conversely, how riddled with PIS the plot is), the pivotal Battle of Yonkers would have been won by nothing more than several armored and sealed steamrollers.

Not gonna lie, that would be funny to see.

[Sharkerbob]

Yeah, it's kind of a necessary conceit, because zombies are really only designed to be a threat to your typical horror movie protagonists. That is to say, a group of very normal people with little or no combat ability or resources. You can't make a creature who is both a beatable threat to Rick Grimes AND capable of beating A-10 warthogs. If you made the zombies capable of, say, leaping into the air high enough to catch the A-10's and strong enough to rip through their armor, then those zombies would kill the Rick Grimes of the world in less than a second.

So somethings gotta give, and the thing that gives is whatever serves the story. So, we just have to accept that somehow, someway, the zombies beat the army with the flying tanks, and now Rick Grimes and his small group of friends has to find a way to beat them.

Mixing in super-zombies, alla Left 4 Dead or Resident Evil, might be the better compromise on the idea, even with slower zombies. The slow ones amass in an area while the big hulk zombie that takes a couple rocket launcher shots to take down keeps everyone occupied until the swarm has the chance to overrun.

Course, all this assumes the general area of infection doesn't get quarantined and bombed into oblivion. In a lot of these zombie movies, the biggest conceit is probably just how fast it spreads, or that somehow simultaneous outbreaks occur in every major city. At that point, "space radiation" may as well just be the origin. :V

[Sharkerbob]

Just an example of how monumentally not a threat to civilization the book WWZ zombies are (and conversely, how riddled with PIS the plot is), the pivotal Battle of Yonkers would have been won by nothing more than several armored and sealed steamrollers.

Reminds me of how in the book, there's the section about the deep divers that get in essentially scuba mechs, and they get swarmed underwater. And they're totally safe from the dozens of zombies trying to claw at them, unable to penetrate the suit, so they just have to lay there until their crew comes and digs them out from under the horde.