“Marvel Zombies” has just released all four episodes at once on Disney+ and is technically part of phase 6 of the MCU, but as the mention of zombies in the name would imply, there’s lots of blood and gore. The series expands on a Marvel universe we’ve already seen in “What If…?” season 1 episode 5, titled: “What If… Zombies?!”, where an alternate version of Janet van Dyne is infected with a quantum virus that happens to turn her into a zombie. The timeline coincides with the events of MCU’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp”, which is just before the arrival of Thanos in ‘Infinity War’… which eventually comes into play in the ‘Zombies’ series.
The series so far has had mixed reviews but will likely be adored by hardcore fans as it incorporates many major and minor characters from the MCU, but in much stranger scenarios than we’re accustomed to seeing them in. It’s arguable that ‘Zombies’ has handled the multiverse better than most of the films or series in Phases 4 – 6 as there has been a lot of solo stories told, but. Not a lot of cohesion, “Thunderbolts*” aside obviously. Warning, beyond this point there are heavy spoilers for “Marvel Zombies” on Disney+.
The timeline coincides with the events of MCU’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp”, which is just before the arrival of Thanos in ‘Infinity War’… which eventually comes into play in the ‘Zombies’ series.”
The series stars 5 years after the events that caused the apocalypse from “What If…?” That was mentioned previously. Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld), RiRi Williams (Dominique Thorne) and Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) along with a decapitated Iron Man with a teddy bear head, controlled by the AI of F.R.I.D.A.Y. (Kerry Condon) are all survivors in an apocalyptic NYC just trying to get by. AMC’s version of the big apple in ‘The Walking Dead:Dead City” is a better depiction of Manhattan, but the story doesn’t stay in New York for long. The series does an amazing job of bringing different characters together and is reminiscent of the “What If…?” Comic books from the 80’s and 90’s, neither series was afraid to kill someone off as soon as you become invested in them. the first episode sets up a mission for the trio of MCU heroines and starts to build up a team of misfit heroes. The premiere also introduces the clear villain – a zombified Scarlett Witch aka the Red Queen or Queen of the Dead (Elizabeth Olsen), but we’ll cover her more later.
The three junior heroes finds a mysterious quantum device inside of a corpse and through ‘science’, they deduce they can find out more about the object at an old S.H.I.E.L.D. base in Ohio. After a little bit of persuading, Kamala convinces RiRi and Kate to follow this lead and the girls get ready for a road trip. The relationship between the three of the newer phase characters does help make the MCU seem vast and their are some great lighter hearted moments on their trip… until they run into a zombified Captain Marvel. It’s lucky for the group that Danvers happens to be fighting Ikaris, who does not care if anyone else gets hurt. While trying to escape, Kate gets obliterated and RiRi is bitten and tells F.R.I.D.A.Y. To get Ms. Marvel out of there. This moment is surprisingly emotionally powerful, as Kamala reels from the loss of Kate and wants to go back and help RiRi in her fight. RiRi injects something that can maybe stop the zombie bite, but she is seemingly overrun by the herd of undead.
Khan was knocked out while running away from the fight which sadly we never find out who won. We’re assuming Ikaris, but maybe they both killed each other? When Kamala wakes up, she is greeted by Blade Knight (Todd Williams), the half-vampire character Blade, combined with the powers of Moon Knight. Kamala’s friend died for the device, so she is determined to get to Ohio and Blade Knight becomes an instance ride or die. The next big surprise Kamala and BK get are when they reach the shield base, which is surrounded by a herd of zombies in a kind of blank, stasis mode. We find out that the zombies are under the control of the people running the facility and they are some more familiar faces. Melina (Kari Wahlgren), Yelena (Florence Pugh) and Red Guardian (David Harbour) are controlling the base and have a method to control the zombies. Guardian and Yelena give us some great moments fo light hearted comedy before the. Real threat gets there, the scion of the Red Queen, a zombified Okoye, who sacrificed herself heroically at the end of the “What If…?” episode. Here is where the series shows off it’s first big battle, which include the top half of Captain America rummaging through the vents looking for Red Guardian, who wants to have a glorious battle with him. Guardian’s ridiculous ego always makes for entertaining moments, but things go form bad to worse quickly when a zombified Abomination runs through everyone. Melina sacrifices herself so that most of the group can get away, a trend that’s we’ll see again and again as Kamala guards her tiny quantum device.
Episode 2 brings back some other faces we might recognize – Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) and Katy (Awkwafina), who we fist see during the onset of the zombie apocalypse. Pam particles have run amok after the virus originated in the lab, which ends up creating human kaijus and zombie kaijus amongst other wrongly sized species. The intro has a real “World War Z” vibe to it as Shang-Chi and Katy race around the city at ground zero to survive, dodging kaijus, zombies and random bedlam while people die all around them. They do inadvertently run up into agent Jimmy Woo (Randall Park), who is still doing magic tricks. The opening scene is a great way of showcasing the beginning of the apocalypse and adding more depths to this side universe. Just when things look hopeless, Shang-Chi’s estranged father Wenwu (Feodor Chin) shows up along with his top lieutenant Death Dealer to rescue his son. Shang-Chi refuses to leave his friends and ends up getting bitten. To his credit, Wenwu sacrifices himself to save his son. Shang-Chi gets the rings prematurely and a zombified arm to go with it. After the intro, the series flashes forward five years to team Shang-Chi with a whole team of people in a convoy of cars that feel inspired by a ‘Mad Max’ movie or “Fist of the North Star”. Agent Woo seems comfortable hanging with the silent Death Dealer while Shang-Chi and Katy now share the ten rings as weapons.
After dealing with a random biker Skrull gang (?), Shang-Chi and his friends are bringing a tribute of cattle to Baron Zeno (Rama Vallury), who’s second in command is surprisingly the U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell). Zeno has his own submarine and is making expel vie for coveted spots at his sanctuary. This is where team Shang-Chi meets Kamala Khan and company and find out about their plan to get to a spaceship form New Asgard to use the quantum device to call in the Nova Corps to save the planet. The plan doesn’t seem flushed out, but the characters just want to hope… Who can’t relate to that? The scariest thing about this episode is the zombified Atlanteans which of course means a zombie Namor. Undead Namor is obviously controlled by the Red Queen and completely terrifying. Zero predictably tries to sacrifice the heroes and they suffer losses beating Namor but Khan does manage to get the upper hand and continue on her mission. The episode ends with Yelena sacrificing herself while a devastated Red Guardian grieves. The common theme of sacrifice amongst zombie series is nothing new, but with characters who have deep backstories that come from other universes is a great way to get viewers invested in a series that has to kill off it’s heroes on the regular.
Episode 3 finally catches us up to the main heroes from the original “What If…? episode where a zombified Thanos meets the already exhausted team. Without giving away the entire plot, Black Panther ends up saricing himself so Thanos and his Infinity. Gauntlet are destroyed .The remaining team of Spider-Man and Scott Lang with the cape are rescued by the sorcerers at Kamar-Taj where we see more blasts from the past. At every turn, ‘Zombies’ looks to bring in underused characters from phases 4 – 6 and we are there for it. It may be a little too coincidental, but it’s so much fun to see the characters together that we can ignore the odds. After the recap, the story shifts back to Team Kamala, who makes it to New Asgard and almost get sent packing by Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson). Blade Knight’s spiritual benefactor, the Egyptian God Khonshu (F. Murray Abraham) comes out to swing his weight around and Valkyrie recognize him right away and let’s them in. These little touches are part of what make the show great. The Asgardians have a huge feats and there’s a shocking turn when Valkyrie introduces the group to Wanda Maximoff, who is no longer zombified. Kamala is not buying what she’s selling and takes a lot of cajoling before she let’s her guard down. It’s not that surprising when Wanda reveals she is using her reality altering powers and she has just fed zombie bodies to the Asgardians… and the Red Guardian. Wanda also reveals that what she really wants is Kamala, not her device, which is a surprise. Kamala manages to escape after more sacrifice, including a disgraced Thor who reawakened and goes nuclear. Thor calls Kamala an Avenger in a heartfelt moment before he sacrifice himself fighting Wanda while Kamala and her battered team escape on the Asgardian spaceship. The team finally activates the Nova Corp. beacon to find out that the Nova Corp. have quarantined the entire planet of Earth and will destroy the ship if the group doesn’t go back home. The episode ends on a cliffhanger of the ship possibly getting ready to be shot down.
The fourth and final episode starts with the Nova Corp. chasing Kamala and her crew on the Asgardian spaceship. Their ship doesn’t make it and the team ends up in a free fall over Earth before the sorcerers of Kamar-Taj save them. It’s here they meet Spider-Man and Scott Lang and find out what happened when the infinity stones were destroyed – they created an Infinity Hulk! The Infinity Hulk is next on the Red Queen’s list and she unleashed her army on the team once again. Infinity Hulk is impressive and one-shots zombie Abomination (or A-Zom-ination) right off jump. The fight that ensues is epic and feels like a misfit ‘Endgame’. Zombie Thor shows up and is immensely powerful, but Infinity Hulk loves once again that Hulk is the strongest there is. In Hulk’s moment of relief after doming Thor, Wanda grabs him and starts to suck away his essence. Kamala hits Wanda with all she has and it does nothing,. Shang-Chi and everyone else in the team are dying around her as the horde closes in. Wanda again entices Kamala to join her and tells her that the Red Queen will fix everything. Kamala who doesn’t want all of the deaths to be for nothing, finally gives in. After a crazy explosion, Kamala wakes up p at home and everything seems fine.
As Kamala sees her no alive friend RiRi and Kate, the three go out for boba and life couldn’t seem better. Just when you thought a reset button was pressed, Kamala sees flashes of the zombie apocalypse through hr current reality. It’s obvious now that Scarlet Witch is using her reality altering powers, but to what end? An alive RiRi from episode 1 is trying to get through to Kamala and give her a message and the traumatized hero is speechless. It was expected that Wanda wasn’t truthful with Kamala, but it creates the question: Why go through this for Kamala? If she has already given her power up, what does Wanda still need? What is Wanda’s agenda? This is a massive cliffhanger and one that we will hopefully get an answer to.
Bryan Andrews who Directed the project and wrote the story it is hopeful for a season 2. In an interview with Variety, Andrews talked about the potential for a future in the ‘Zombie’ universe. Andrew was pretty excited and said: “Maybe next time around, if everyone loves it enough and yells online enough to demand more, maybe they’ll give us more time.” When asked if there was enough material for a second season, the Writer/Director went on to say: “So much material It’s crazy… You guys have no idea the insanity that’s just waiting around the corner if we get a chance…” We do wish the season would have been longer and we could have gotten more time but the team behind ‘Zombie’ really cooked when they were in the kitchen.
What do you think? Even if RiRi and Kamala can get free, how can Wanda be stopped? If all the zombies are dead, who would be left to live? Is RiRi’s association with magic the only answer? What crazy places could ‘Zombies’ take us for season 2? Why does the Scarlett Witch needs Kamala’s powers and why does she need her still alive? Could Wanda create a “House of M’ storyline somehow and switch universes? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
