I must admit, for a long time, I have loved horror movies and superhero comics. I have read the original Marvel Zombies miniseries shortly after it came out, and I remember liking it, though I only partially remember the miniseries. So, I was interested when I heard that Marvel Zombies is getting a TV-MA animated adaptation.
The Zombie universe first appeared in season 1 of What If, where some superheroes have to survive a zombie apocalypse after Janet Van Dyne was infected by a zombie plague when she was stuck in the Quantum Realm and rapidly infected others. In this series, we follow Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan), who finds a device that would allow her to contact the Nova Corps, which she hopes would result in the Nova Corps curing the zombie plague. She needs to leave Earth’s atmosphere to activate the device, which drives the plot for most of the season.
This season is interesting because it’s essentially an R-rated horror story, with some interesting superhero action in it. The adult rating is not due to sex or even swearing (though there is some swearing), but due to violence. Zombies get torn apart, and characters die violently. Another interesting aspect is because this is an alternate universe, almost any character can die. Kate Bishop and Riri Williams are Kamala Khan’s friends and fellow survivors, but they are killed in the first episode. Khan quickly acquires new allies to help her in her quest, but several characters die in the process. As a horror fan, I enjoyed seeing this type of content in this series.
Another interesting thing about this season is seeing zombie versions of heroes like Thor, Hawkeye, Captain America and Hank Pym attack Khan and her allies. These zombies are dangerous because they retain their skills and powers as zombies. The main villain is Scarlet Witch (Wanda Maximoff), whose powers allowed her to retain her intelligence, and she quickly takes control of the zombie horde and renames herself the Red Queen, aka the Queen of the Dead. At first, the Red Queen seems like an evil and treacherous conqueror; she uses poisoned food to turn most of the Asgardians into new zombie minions. But by the final episode, she seems more ambiguous, with her seemingly wanting to acquire new power to reset the world and end the zombie plague.
I think this series has decent animation and voice acting (many of the MCU live-action actors reprise their roles here), but I don’t think either was amazing. I think the What If CGI animation style is fine, but it’s not my favorite. What is interesting is the various plot twists and the characters. Kamala Khan is a great main protagonist, and her allies like Spider-Man, Scott Lang (who is just a head), Red Guardian (who seems like a father figure to Khan), Valkyrie, Shang-Chi, Katy Chen and a version of Blade acting as a host for the Egyptian god Khonshu, are all pretty fun.
The twists come fast when Baron Zemo acts as a broker willing to ferry people to new Asgard, but he intends to feed several of his passengers to the zombies to prevent them from attacking him. However, the biggest twist is the ending. After Khan and her allies leave the Earth’s atmosphere, they find the Nova Corps are already encircling the Earth, enforcing a quarantine of the planet. The Nova Corps will destroy any spaceship that leaves the Earth and has no desire to cure the plague.
The heroes originally defeated a zombie version of Thanos while he possessed the Infinity Gauntlet, releasing the power of the Infinity gems. The power of the gems endangered the world until the Hulk was able to control and contain this power. The Red Queen and her zombie horde kill most of the heroes, and the Red Queen defeats the Hulk and takes his power. However, the Red Queen needs Khan’s power to reset the world, and Khan agrees, wanting to feel like her efforts were not in vain.
The Red Queen seems to succeed and resets the world, with Khan waking up, and everything seems to be back to normal. Her friends and family are back, and the zombies are gone. However, while Khan is enjoying boba tea with Kate Bishop and Riri Williams, she sees flashes of the zombie world, implying the world has not been reset, and Khan is stuck in a dream world. That is an interesting, ambiguous ending. If this series gets a second season, perhaps we will get a clear answer about what is going on. However, if this series doesn’t get another season, this would be an interesting way to end this story. Ultimately, I think this season is an imperfect, but fun, mash-up of horror and superhero action.
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