In Marvel Zombies: Resurrection, Spider-Man has been hiding a secret about how Franklin Richards survived a zombie bite and lost his powers.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Marvel Zombies: Resurrection #4 by Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Leonard Kirk, Rachelle Rosenberg & VC’s Travis Lanham, on sale now.
The biggest unsolved mystery throughout all of the new Marvel Zombies: Resurrection has revolved around Franklin Richards, and namely how he stopped aging and lost his powers. Early hints suggested that Franklin, one of the most powerful mutants in the world, had done something to change himself and possibly the world.
However, Marvel Zombies: Resurrection #4 revealed that something even more shocking happened. Spider-Man made a move that saved Franklin’s life and fundamentally changed the young mutant forever by turning him into a Phalanx.
At the end of the last issue, Sue Storm bit Franklin, dooming him to become a zombie. However, he lived and then changed, no longer aging, abut no one knew why. Peter wouldn’t say what happened, and not even Franklin knew. It has now been revealed that after Franklin was bitten, Spider-Man took him for help and went straight to Doctor Strange. He found survivors, including Strange, Winter Soldier, Forge, Miles Morales, Electro, Moonstone, Viv Vision, and Warlock. That is where the idea for the cure came from and what led to the events of the first issue.
When Spider-Man showed up, Winter Soldier wanted to kill Frankin, but Peter stood up for him and asked Doctor Strenge to save him. Although Strange couldn’t help him on his own, Warlock said that he could with the Sorcerer Supreme’s help. Their intervention not only saved Franklin’s life but helped lead to the destruction of the Galactus Hive.
As Spider-Man and his allies faced the Galactus Hive, they found themselves to be completely outnumbered. When Sue Storm bit Franklin again in a second attempt to turn her son, she recoiled in horror when she discovered that he was a Phalanx. Using Doctor Strange’s magic, Warlock created Franklin a new body from techno-organic matter and transferred Franklin’s consciousness into it. It is the same thing the X-Men are doing with the Resurrection Protocol on Krakoa, but with a Phalanx body instead of a natural cloned body. Although he lost his mutant powers, Franklin was cloned and resurrected, explaining the book’s subtitle.