George A. Romero’s project for Marvel has been in the works for a while (see "George A. Romero to Write Zombie Comic for Marvel"), but now Romero and Marvel have finally announced the name, plot and timeframe for the anticipated miniseries via USA Today--Empire of the Dead with premiere in January.
 
Art for the 15-issue miniseries will be by Alex Maleev (best known for his frequent collaborations with Brian Michael Bendis on Sam and Twitch, Daredevil, Spider-Woman, Moon Knight, Scarlet).  The story itself is based on a 300-page screenplay set in his hometown of New York City, a few years into the zombie apocalypse.  The reason Romero turned it into a comic?  "I could never afford to shoot there," he joked.
 
The father of the zombie genre has had his undead creatures evolve since the days of the original Night of the Living Dead (remember Bub in Day of the Dead and Big Daddy in Land of the Dead?), and that’s one of the big questions this 15-issue miniseries will explore: Could zombies and human coexist if the undead showed signs of intelligence?
 
Marvel editor in chief (and admitted zombiphile), Axel Alonso, said it’s huge for Marvel to be putting out an original zombie story from Romero.  "World War Z, The Walking Dead--everything grows out of a genre he single-handedly created," he said.  "He's been mining this landscape for decades now, and he always finds a way to look at it through a different lens and say something new about the world against the backdrop of a zombie apocalypse."