Zuvembie!!!

What is a Zuvembie, you ask?

I’ll get to that a bit later…

Voodoo Moon.

This made for TV movie has been airing on both the Chiller Network and SciFi constantly lately.

You know it was bound to be horrible. But, I’ve made a point of sitting back and watching anything remotely voodoo oriented, because you never know when a crappy movie might have something we can incorporate.

This film does have some nice cemetery shots all over. But, otherwise becomes that flashy “voodoo” one comes to expect from a hollywood film. Well, it really depicts a hollywoodized form of Santeria more than voudoun, but, the layman wouldn’t know the difference.

The sole saving grace in the film comes by the fact it’s one of the few, especially in modern times, that portrays Zuvembie.

What is a Zuvembie?

Well, now, that is a tale…

As a child, one of our favorite activities was visiting the comic book store. My older brother was an avid collector, and he hit all the big titles of the day. X-Men, Wolverine, Spider-Man. Etc.

Typically, the store only had one copy of a particular issue, so it was counter-productive for me to try and get any of those. So, I initially would read GI Joe, and various oddball miniseries. Well, GI Joe got REALLY WIERD about 20 issues in, and I started looking at other things.

With my older brother reading all the big names, and my younger one picking up the “b list” of Daredevil and Ghost Rider, I was wondering in some of the oldies when I stumbled on Moon Knight. Specifically, Issue 29.

From An UnOrthOdOx Halloween

It was, simply, the most intriguing cover I had ever seen. And, it featured a hero fighting off a werewolf!

THIS was the kind of thing I LOVED at the time. So, many more Moon Knight comics were sought out. And, many times, he would be fighting off horror-inspired foes. Including Voudoun.

From An UnOrthOdOx Halloween

Well, being smarter than the typical hollywood fare, Marvel knew enough to know that true zombies are not the mindless living dead made by some silly virus or radiation that all hollywood movies tend to portray, but rather the dead being brought back to life by a Bokor.

However, Marvel had a slight problem. The word “zombie” was forbidden from use in Comics by the Comics Code Authority. Quite frankly, the whole TOPIC was technically forbidden. Along with werewolfs, ghouls, cannibalism, vampires, and torture.

And, as Moon Knight tread on that edge, flapping in the face of the CCA, probing it, pushing it’s limits, and sometimes even outright BREAKING it. (you’ll notice issue 29 does not carry the CCA seal of approval, because it has a werewolf!)

A relative unknown, able to get away with such things so Marvel knew how far they could push their A-list heroes, the word “Zombie” still drew the axe down.

Thus, they created Zuvembie: Differentiated from the typical zombie by the fact Zuvembie are under the control of a Bokor.