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Earth-2149 is one of the many alternate versions of Earth in the Marvel Comics multiverse. Regarded as one of the most bleak of alternate realities, this world was ravaged by the Hunger Gospel, an unnatural viral contagion that spreads across dimensions and turns those it infects into gruesome undead monsters that constantly crave living flesh.
History[]
Before the Hunger Gospel came, Earth-2149 was similar to the mainstream Marvel reality of Earth-616. It was a world with a thriving population of superhumans, both good and evil. Heroes and villains fought one another on a regular basis, often with the fate of the world hanging in the balance. All that changed one day when a mysterious light flashed in the sky, followed by the fall of what appeared to be a man. The heroes known as the Avengers investigated to find a hero from another universe called the Sentry, but he had been turned into a violent, zombie-like creature that attacked and killed each of the heroes present.
Colonel America and the other slain heroes soon reanimated as zombies themselves. While they retained their intelligence and their powers, their minds had been twisted by an insatiable hunger for living flesh and they began attacking and consuming everyone in sight. Other heroes and also villains were infected as well, going on to consume more and more people. The virus seemed to favour metahumans, using them as vectors to propagate while completely devouring normal, un-powered individuals. Some of the zombies tried to resist the hunger, but found that their willpower was overwhelmed. They no longer held the same regard for friends and loved ones, seeing them only as food.
Despite efforts made by S.H.I.E.L.D. and the world's military powers, the super-zombies could not be contained or halted. They rampaged across the Earth, consuming virtually the entire human race within a matter of days. While a small number of humans had managed to survive beyond that point and remain hidden, the zombies would not be denied new meat. Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four would develop a means of travelling to different dimensions and lured an alternate version of himself to Earth-2149. With the help of the local version of Magneto, Reed (Earth-1610) escaped back to his own world, but the zombie Fantastic Four would follow. Magneto would destroy Reed's dimensional teleporter, angering the other super-zombies who attacked and devoured him.
Not long after Magneto's death, the dead Earth would be visited by the Silver Surfer, who heralded the coming of Galactus. The zombies cared nothing for the Surfer's words and attacked him, devouring him as well. The zombies that fed on the Surfer each gained a portion of the Power Cosmic, becoming even more powerful than before. When Galactus arrived, the zombies attacked him, but the Devourer of Worlds would not be felled so easily. Using a modified machine from Richards' abandoned lab, Iron Man and the other Cosmic-powered zombies channeled their energy into the device which magnified their power, enough so that they were able to knock out Galactus. The entire zombie population of New York came out to feed upon Galactus, but the undead heroes and villains began fighting over the right to feed on the giant. The ensuing battle turned out to be utterly one-sided as the zombies that had fed on the Silver Surfer used their new powers to make short work of the villains. With all of the zombified villains slain, the heroes fed upon Galactus, each gaining some of his power in the process.
After consuming Galactus, the new Zombie Galacti left Earth in search of new worlds so that they could devour their populations. Meanwhile, a group of survivors who had been taking refuge on Magneto's former base Asteroid M returned to the planet's surface, now devoid of zombies. With the undead seemingly gone, the survivors had a chance to repopulate and build civilization anew.
Forty years after departing Earth, the Zombie Galacti had consumed just about all life in the universe. Hank Pym decided that the group ought to return to Earth so that they could rebuild Reed Richards' dimensional teleporter and invade other realities. When the Zombie Galacti returned, they found that T'Challa - Black Panther - had established the society of New Wakanda in their absence consisting of normal humans, the mutant descendants of the Acolytes and even two of the former Avengers - Wasp and Hawkeye - who had been reduced to undead heads attached to robot bodies. The Hulk wanted to eat the New Wakandans right away, but Pym suggested keeping them alive as breeding stock so that they could produce new humans for the zombies to eat. Spider-Man objected to this plan, but Pym told the others to kill him. Wolverine tried to do it but Luke Cage stopped him, then Wasp, Hawkeye and T'Challa helped them fight the "bad" zombies while the group of humans hid.
A forcefield was activated and separated the good zombies and humans from the bad ones, causing the Hulk to lose consciousness and revert into Bruce Banner, cutting Cage in half and trapping Gladiator inside resulting in his death. Having no remaining way to prey on the survivors, the "bad" zombies decided to return their attention to the dimensional transporter at the Baxter Building.
After arriving at the Baxter Building, Pym and his cohorts discovered that the machine was actually in the survivor's camp, so they returned to New Wakanda, where Wasp, Spider-Man, Hawkeye, Cage and Black Panther offered to give up the machine if the "bad" zombies left them, and the humans, alone. Deception and another battle ensued. Banner regained consciousness and tried to eat Reynolds in a security room from which he was watching the battle, which also contained the lever that activated/deactivated the forcefield. In his panic, he accidentally disabled the forcefield, so the "bad" zombies concluded that they would not only steal the machine, but eat the humans as well. However, at this point, Pym and the others realized that they no longer felt hungry. Banner turned into Hulk and started eating again. All the various zombies tried to stop him, but Iron Man, Phoenix, Firelord and Hawkeye were killed.
Reynolds offered to let the Hulk eat him if he would spare the others, having lost his lover the Wasp in the previous battle with Ant-Man. After eating Reynolds, Hulk changed back into Banner and let himself be killed by the remaining zombies, before he could become the Hulk again. Weeks later, Malcolm Cortez decided he liked his lifestyle and didn't want the zombies around, so he tricked them, sending all of the remaining zombies to Earth-91126.
The zombies traveled to Earth-91126 where they infected that reality and ultimately lead to the Watcher of that reality sending the Sentry back to Earth-2149, starting the infection on this reality and causing a perpetual time loop.