Origin

Zoe came from a long, powerful magic bloodline, which included voodoo queen, Marie Laveau. Magic came easy to the women in her family but not for her. Ashamed, Zoe sought out a dealer of dark magic, Gaslamp, who peddled magic like drugs. Zoe got hooked and kept coming back for more until she died. When her parents found her body, they brought her to Marie Laveau's tomb, where it was said wishes could be granted. They made a wish to bring Zoe back, and it came true. Zoe was now a member of the undead and needed a charm from her mom to look like a normal child.

After this, she was enrolled at Strange Academy.

Creation

Zoe debuted in Strange Academy #1 by Skottie Young and Humberto Ramos.

Major Story Arcs

Gaslamp

To lift Calvin Morse’s spirits after his magic jacket turned out to be Mister Misery, the gang decide to take him on a haunted walking tour of a graveyard in New Orleans. There, Zoe Laveau explains her origins and her family lineage, including a pusher of dark magic, named Gaslamp, that she once used to try and enhance her own magic. Calvin, who is now without magic, reaches out to Gaslamp so that he could be magical once again. Unfortunately, Calvin had no way of paying for Gaslamp's magic so Gaslamp turned Calvin into a dealer at the Strange Academy instead. Doctor Voodoo found him out almost immediately and expelled him.

Once Emily Bright heard this, it was the last straw. She led a student walkout, which Zoe joined in. Emily eventually led them to the Dark Dimension, where she thought they could make their new headquarters. As she behaved more and more erratically, some of the other students started regretting their decision to follow her. Zoe ultimately led a group of those students back to the academy where they were welcomed back in open arms.

When Zoe learned that Calvin was never sent home and instead stayed in New Orleans to work with Gaslamp, she led a group of students to save him. She removed her charm revealing her zombified form so she could bait Gaslamp by asking for more help. This gave the others the chance to find Calvin, who had fallen more in to debt and was being tortured to produce more drug magic.

Finals

Their attempt to save Calvin from Gaslamp's clutches caused a massive explosion of magical energy. While the local magic-users scolded Doctor Voodoo for letting the students run wild, Zoe and her fellow students threw a carnival fundraiser to pay for the damages.

Some time after, as the school got back to normal, Iric returned, having rejected Emily's ways when she made a deal with Dormammu. He tried to convince the students to leave, but Zoe and the others decided to protect the school. When Emily and her forces show up, Zoe is forced to fight her ex-girlfriend, Dessy, who had sided with Emily during the student walkout. The fight was finished when Doyle embraced his true nature and absorbed the Dormammu power from Emily, causing her to retreat. He began feeling the power corrupting him and demanded his fellow students and faculty run away. Instead, Hoggoth appears and saps him of his power, returning him to normal.

While the rest of the school attending a memorial for Iric, who was killed by Emily, and the opening of the school for a new school year, Zoe was by Dessy's bedside as she recuperated from Emily's dark influence.

Midnight Suns

Zoe Laveau was looking forward to the guest lecture from Blade, when she was overcome with a vision of an apocalypse that she had a hand in creating. When it was over, she panicked upon learning that the entire faculty and student body also experienced the vision, and many were treating her like a monster. While Doctor Voodoo attempted to calm her down she was targeted by vapor minions. Agatha Harkness was able to whisk her away to safety while a newly assembled Midnight Suns stayed behind to defend the academy.

In an old safe house of Agatha's, she described to Zoe a mistake that her coven made when summoning Valtorr and wants Zoe's help in fixing it. This mistake led to Agatha leaving a member of her coven behind in Valtorr's clutches. Unknown to Agatha, this coven member, now going by Korrosion, had slain Valtorr and was now manipulating the prophecy to get vengeance.

With help from a magic mirror, Zoe and Agatha connected to the Spirit Rider, Kushala, trapped in Valtorr's realm. She connected them to Midnight Suns from other realities fighting Korrosion. With the help of Zoe and a variant Nico Minoru, Agatha used the ancestors of her former coven members to create the apocalyptic vision that started everything. This created an anchor in the present for the Midnight Suns to jump to from Valtorr's realm and protect Zoe and Agatha from the vapor goons. This gave Agatha the opportunity to create a magical dagger and stab Korrosion, causing them both to disappear. With the danger seemingly gone, Kushala and her other teammates returned Zoe to the Strange Academy.

Blood Hunt

When the vampire cult, The Structure, flooded the sky with darkforce energy in a bid for world domination, Voodoo recalled all the students back to campus, where he put up a protection spell. A scrappy group of students, including Zoe, overheard him talking to the astral form of Doctor Strange. He needed Voodoo to go to Madripoor, where Strange had sensed the Darkhold, an ancient book that includes the Montessi Formula, which would eradicate all vampires. Voodoo refused, but the eavesdropping students decided to take matters into their own hands When they teleport themselves to Madripoor, they find a young boy, the Darkhold made flesh.

Darkhold was already considering the Montessi Formula, however, the newly enrolled Pia revealed her vampiric nature when she attacked him. She was afraid of being destroyed with the formula. Her fellow students were shocked at first, but they ultimately agreed with her concern. They thought they could negotiate with Darkhold, since he genuinely wanted to save the world. Unfortunately, when their former professor, Agatha Harkness, showed up to take guardianship of Darkhold, he teleported away with Pia as his prisoner.

The students were forced to fight through hordes of vampires looking for Pia and Darkhold. When they finally caught up with them, Pia was defending Darkhold from Agatha and the doubles she had conjured. They joined the fight, eventually defeating Agatha and inviting Darkhold to join their school.

Doom Academy

After the Blood Hunt, Doctor Doom had usurped the role of the Sorcerer Supreme and set out to take over the world. In his new role, he had the Strange Academy shutdown and invited the students to join his own magic school, The Doom Academy. Only a few students took him up on the offer including Zoe. Administrators Doctor Voodoo and Zelma Stanton also took new jobs there. The students were worried about their new accommodations, but the school proved more welcoming and safe for magic users, especially those that didn't pass for humans.

Zoe never settled in and became interested in a story of Greta Montimore, a student who went missing in the library. She was lured to a magic book that doubled as a portal. It sucked her in where she was forced to survive with Greta, who was initially hesitant of Zoe's zombie nature. On the outside, Zoe's friends were working to get her out with help from Scoop, from the school paper, and Marta, Zoe's dormmate. They were able to pull both Zoe and eventually Greta from the book, but Greta's many protection spells connected her to the monsters and allowed them to escape as well.

The students were easily overwhelmed, so Zoe and Doyle hatched a plan to imprison the villains in a different dimension similar to the book. Doyle opened a portal to the Dark Dimension, and Zoe commanded the dead from that dimension to drag the villains in. This got the attention of Doctor Doom, who was impressed by the students but disappointed in Zelma Stanton and Doctor Voodoo for losing track of them in the first place.

Powers

Magic: Zoe is a low level magic user.

• Magic Charm: Zoe has a charm necklace that hides her true form as a zombie.

Undead: Zoe is officially an undead corpse.

• Necromancy: Zoe is capable of raising the dead under her command.

Variants

Doyle's Time Hop

When Doyle travels to an alternate future, he sees a showdown of adult Strange Academy students over a prophecy where either himself of Emily Bright would destroy the world while the other opposes them. Zoe had sided with Emily on the heroic side. She was no longer using her charm to hide her zombie appearance.