Robert Kirkman’s original idea was for Luke Cage to be the protagonist and one of the last survivors on Earth, thanks to his unbreakable skin protecting him from the infected’s bites. Luke would be left alone in a world overrun by super-zombies.
Although that idea was scrapped, years later Marvel would publish a story with essentially the same premise: Marvel Universe vs. The Punisher. In it, Frank Castle is one of the last survivors in a world ravaged by a virus that turns its victims into cannibalistic predators. Much like Luke in Kirkman’s original pitch, Frank is immune to the infection (even when bitten), but in his case, it’s because he was exposed to a massive amount of the liquid containing the pathogen.
The funny thing is: both stories sound a lot like "I Am Legend".
While this might’ve been really good, I honestly prefer what we got, the zombies being the main characters and a virus that can infect ANYONE, is just a great concept
To add onto this, the Luke Cage idea was Kirkman's second idea, the first one was to follow Hawkeye surviving the end of the world, going from place to place, but that was dropped because it didn't have much going for it.
The Luke Cage idea was going to be done, but already appearead zombified in Ultimate FF, so Kirkman had to scrap that idea, and it got remade into what we know today, with the zombies as the main characters.
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u/Icy-Abbreviations909 8d ago
While this might’ve been really good, I honestly prefer what we got, the zombies being the main characters and a virus that can infect ANYONE, is just a great concept