I know many Goblinoid and Pacesetter fans are zombie fans. Please explain to me the endless appeal that fuels not only Rotworld but all the books, comics, movies, TV shows, games, etc., currently devoted to them. Now, I've watched plenty of movies featuring Haitian style zombies: White Zombie, I Walked with a Zombie, The Ghost Breakers. The supposed vampires in The Last Man on Earth are more like zombies than Dracula wannabes, and even Things to Come presented listless wandering plague victims. Invisible Invaders (1959) beat George Romero to the punch by almost a decade with aliens inhabiting human corpses in order to wreak havoc. What makes Romero style brain-munchers so exciting that you can base whole TV series and role-playing campaigns around them?
Shambling, flesh-eating hordes? How are zombies an improvement over Triffids, Fiends Without Faces, daughters of Caltiki, extraterrestrial Critters, or even Lord of the Rings' orcs? And all of them multiply as rapidly as, well, the mutant bunnies from Night of the Lepus.
The fear of becoming one of Them? Traditional vampires and werewolves do that, too, as well as countless alien invaders from the Pod People to the Borg. And they've got more smarts and personality, as well as the knowledge of their previous lives.
There are too many of 'em! We can't shoot them all? But the same is true of many robotic armies presented on page and screen, from Ming drones in Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe to the Trade Federation droids of Phantom Menace. Flesh or steel, they're just as relentless and numerous.
The Star Trek episode Miri (1966) beat Night of the Living Dead to the screen by two years and presented similar themes. Great episode, but I can't image a whole TV show set on that plague devastated planet. Even 1979's Buck Rogers in the 25th Century dropped the "cannibal mutants outside the city limits" trope after the pilot episode (although I think they should have followed up on it).
Discuss.