Marvel Zombies

"Oh, fine. Let's go save the world."

It's not October yet, but Spooky Season is still upon us. Which means zombies.

This review is spoiler free!

Marvel Zombies is a sequel to "What If... Zombies?!" and takes place five years after the events of that episode. It's less of a direct follow up (although we do get some of that) and more of an exploration of a world in which almost all of the Earth's superheroes have turned into superpowered zombies.

All four episodes feel like bloodier episodes of What If...?, with all of the good and the bad that that implies. The animation is absolutely gorgeous. Just gorgeous. The backgrounds in particular were stunning. The movement and combat felt fluid. The representation of powers was cool. It's consistently beautiful across all four episodes, too! I cannot heap enough praise on to the artists and animators who worked on this. Amazing job.

The voice actors also all stepped up and did a great job. The end of Episode 2 made me cry, which caught me completely off guard. The beginning of Episode 3 was very moving and an excellent way to utilize a particular character. I'll avoid saying anything more than that due to spoilers.

Above all, though, there's just a lot of fun inherent in taking characters that we know and love and dropping them into ridiculous situations with different people. Shang-Chi and Katy fighting a Skrull Mad Max biker gang while singing Journey's "Lights?" Fun. Using the Raft as an underwater city to avoid zombies? Fun. Going on a road trip in a car lovingly called the Uhura? Fun. Khonshu getting offended when Valkyrie doesn't immediately recognize him? Fun!

Khonshu is here, but not Moon Knight. Instead, we have Blade Knight. He's awesome. I like Blade in general, so it was great seeing him kill a bunch of zombies. Is it a little weird that this is his semi-official introduction as an MCU character? Maybe. Blade was supposed to be out by now and not trapped in production hell. I'm still glad that we got him, although it does speak to one of the issues with the show.

It's an issue that the MCU has dealt with for years now: homework. Can you watch this without knowing who anyone is? Sure. But it's a much better experience if you actually know who you're looking at. That assumed knowledge is doing a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to character dynamics and emotional weight. Characters aren't really introduced, either. I only realized that Walker was in an episode because it popped up on the subtitles. It's not a major problem, but it's there.

Characters are also introduced and disposed of very quickly. There's no plot armor here. While on one hand, it's nice to actually have some stakes, seeing a character for 90 seconds before they get obliterated kind of sucks. Interesting plot ideas and settings are handled in much the same way. I would have happily watched another three episodes if it meant that we got to spend more time at each location. Everything just felt rushed.

As a general heads up, this is much bloodier than your standard Marvel fare. We're rated TV-MA for a reason. By the end, bodies are shot, stabbed, smushed, smashed, exploded, bisected, decapitated, dismembered, disintegrated... you get the idea. You will see blood and bones and caved in skulls. I thought it was awesome. I'm incredibly happy that they were allowed to do that instead of being restricted into something more family-friendly. Your mileage may vary.

Random Thoughts

Many of the animators who worked on the series appear in the background as zombies.

I need to specifically highlight Shang-Chi, voiced by Simu Liu. He brought such a great energy and brightness to everything. Why haven't we gotten a second movie with him yet?

While T'Challa does make an appearance, he doesn't speak as Marvel has decided not to recast the role after Chadwick Boseman's death.

While originally planned as a movie, this became a TV series so that they could use Spider-man.

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An Honest Fangirl loves video games, horror movies, and superheroes, and occasionally manages to put words together in a coherent and pleasing manner.