Powet Alphabet: Z is for Zombrex

Since the alphabet is the building block of our language, the Powet Alphabet is the building block of what makes us geeks.

In most cases of zombie media, once you’re bitten by a zombie (either of the viral type or otherwise), you’re pretty much screwed. Zombie plagues break out because generally, there are no vaccines or cures once you’re infected, and infection sets on rather quickly and zombification causes carriers to spread the plague like wildfire. Usually, if you don’t die immediately due to sever wounds, you’re left to degenerate over a period of time until the infection finally kills you and you become the walking dead, if another person doesn’t do you a mercy and take you down before you turn.

The introduction of Zombrex in the Dead Rising series changed that.

Zombrex is a “zombification suppressant” first developed in the first Dead Rising game by Isabela Keyes and Frank West to fight of West’s infection using the Queen wasps that developed from the larva that caused the zombie plague. By the time of the second game, Dead Rising 2, “Zombrex” has become an over-the-counter drug distributed by the company Phenotran to the public for use after the Willamette incident became public knowledge. In “Case Zero” we find out it is only available in 12-hour prevention doses, which protagonist Chuck Greene uses on his newly infected daughter Katie, though by the time DR2 comes around, it’s available in 24-hour extended care doses. It’s typically administered by injection pen directly into the muscle tissue, much like a flu shot.

It’s in no way a cure for the zombie infection, however, and infectees must constantly buy new supplies every 24-hours, or eventually have the infection spread and turn them into the undead. This becomes an in-game controversy due to the high price of the drug and the known susceptibility to mass outbreaks of zombie infection, like the initial Willamette and eventually Las Vagas and Fortune City. It’s also not without risk, as overdoses can end up killing the user anyway, so carefully timing of doses must be adhered to. Usually there is only an hour window to administer the drug without overdosing or infection flare-ups occurring. Even then, regular doses can leave the user feeling ill, much like chemotherapy for cancer patients.

Zombrex plays a huge part in the Dead Rising series and puts and interesting spin on the concept of “zombie prevention”, while also possibly making a subtle statement on the worldwide dependency on pharmaceutical corporations and drugs as whole. Regardless, there are a lot of things that can’t cure zombification. For everything else, there’s Zombrex.