Marvel's King in Black storyline sees many of its most recognizable characters contending with a symbiote apocalypse. While Marvel has flirted with the idea of several heroes being temporarily bonded to the iconic toothy symbiotes in the past, King in Black envisions a terrifying horror angle to these transformations that seems reminiscent of another popular comic: Garth Ennis' Crossed.

In Crossed, Garth Ennis - the creator of comics such as The Boys and Preacher - reveals his own take on the zombie apocalypse. Much like the film 28 Days Later, his zombies are living creatures infected with a disease, and much like the film, the infection is spread through bodily fluids such as blood and saliva. However, unlike the films, the infected are not mindless rage machines. Instead, the Crossed - named for the laceration which appears on the face of the infected - retain their intelligence, and are driven to carry out their most violent and base impulses. This means the Crossed can still use vehicles and weapons, and can even lay traps to claim more victims.

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The parallels were most clearly seen in Daredevil #26, written by Chip Zdarsky and illustrated by Mike Hawthorne and Marco Checchetto. When Alice's mother is infected by a symbiote, she pursues her troubled daughter through the streets of NYC while battling Elektra, who has recently taken the mantle of Daredevil. To make the situation even more horrifying, Alice's mother still has her personality mostly intact... she calls for her daughter to join her in the black as a means to reunite their troubled family. This makes sense in the wider Marvel Universe, as the symbiotes have been shown to feed on the darker urges of its host, much like when the unwitting Peter Parker first discovered his black costume.

The Crossed in Ennis' eponymous comic act much in the same way, and succeed through infecting many characters with their biological madness. While the symbiotes are loyal to their god Knull, the Crossed are loyal only to their own twisted desires, making them even more unpredictable and dangerous. While King in Black will be resolved in a few monthsthe scope of Crossed extends through multiple comics, spin-offs and even a webcomic, charting the course of the infection from the first outbreak through the dismantling of human society and finally the slow decline of the Crossed over a hundred years later. It also should be noted that, like most of Ennisworks, the comic is not for the faint of heart and definitely aimed at mature readers.

Ultimately, Crossed is a natural extension of King in Black for anyone brave enough to seek it out. Like most of Ennis' works, Crossed finds embers of humanity and even hope in the rubble of the apocalypse, though many of these stories often end with horrifying, if not downright tragic, consequences. The unpredictability of Crossed makes it one of the most engrossing post-apocalyptic sagas to date, and a good follow-up to anyone looking for more horror comics after King in Black concludes.

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