Marvel Zombies Review – An Chaotic Series That Absolutely Delivers On Its Premise

Marvel’s newest TV show Marvel Zombies has just dropped, and honestly it did not disappoint. I went into this expecting a badass zombie apocalypse story involving our beloved MCU characters, and that is exactly what I got. Marvel Zombies absolutely delivers with its premise, and allows for really creative and unique storytelling that we really couldn’t have gotten in any other project. There are so many hype action sequences and aura farming moments, all tied together by likeable characters and grounded stakes. It didn’t really blow me away, nor did it try to do anything revolutionary within the zombie genre, but it was a good enough project to keep me entertained for 2 hours. I would give this a solid 8/10, and I believe this is genuinely one of the best, most unique, and most fun projects that Marvel has put out on Disney+. 

The thing that makes Marvel Zombies really different from other MCU projects is its TV-MA rating, which director Brian Andrews made full use of. The series absolutely does not shy away from the blood and gore of the horror genre, and manages to create a constant sense of sadness and dread, which is a really refreshing pivot from the MCU’s regular action-comedy style of storytelling. Despite the presence of the occasional bit of joking or cheesy dialog, you manage to feel the weight of the story all throughout the show’s runtime from the perspective of the main character, Kamala Khan. In a sense, the audience is exploring this world through Kamala: she begins the show with a naive sense of blind optimism, feeling hopeful that the world can be saved and returned to its original state. But as the series progresses, she slowly loses her innocence. She first loses the safety of hiding with Kate and Riri, then her hopes for salvation from the Nova Corps, and finally she loses the last shot she has at saving her world when Infinity Hulk has his powers absorbed. As we see all these characters dying and all these dreams for a better tomorrow lost, like Kamala, we too begin to lose hope. This is fantastic storytelling, and allows the weight of the story to stay with the audience. Another thing this show does incredibly well is utilizing the MCU’s diverse cast of characters and wide variety of plot points in an unique way that fits within the show’s storyline. For example, characters like Valkyrie, Red Guardian, Baron Zemo, and Jimmy Woo are basically given main character status, while macguffins like the Red Room’s mind control technology and Valkyrie’s ship are repurposed to play important roles in driving the plot forward. This show also does a much better job than the What If? episode at making this world feel lived in, with the worldbuilding and relationships between characters actually being delved into rather than just being glossed over. Additionally, this show does a great job at establishing a cast of main characters that the audience actually cares about, which makes it so much more devastating when they are ripped apart one by one (seriously, I did not expect to feel an ounce of emotion when Death Dealer died, but that final shot of the shattered mask hit me in the feels). While the What If? episode just made the deaths of major Avengers into a simple spectacle, every death in Marvel Zombies hits hard and feels earned. The amount of aura in this show is absolutely insane; each action sequence is beautifully animated, and the amount of blood and guts only makes it so much better. Characters like Blade Moon Knight and Shang Chi are constantly aura farming (which is always cool to see), but this does not take away from the threat of the zombies by reducing them to simple cannon fodder. The antagonists in the series are genuinely threatening, with zombie Scions like Okoye and Namor leaving lasting impressions and Zombie Wanda being a constant looming presence. 

However, this show isn’t without its faults, and there are plenty of valid criticisms to give. Firstly, this show does a number of characters dirty, with both Zombie Thor and Infinity Hulk being ridiculously watered-down in an attempt to emphasize the threat level of Wanda. During episode 4 I genuinely believed we would see something close to World-Breaker Hulk with how he was being set up as this focal point of the conflict, but even with the power of all six Infinity Stones he still gets overpowered by Thor and a few zombies. We barely got to see what Infinity Hulk to do with this much power, and it just seems like he didn’t really put up much of a fight. Thor was also criminally underutilized in the show, as he is only used as a way to demonstrate Wanda’s power. Speaking of Wanda, she also isn’t exactly the best antagonist. Her plan is incredibly convoluted, and the show raises more questions than answers (What is Wanda’s goal? Why does she need Kamala?). She is also reduced to mostly a background presence in earlier episodes, being seen only through the occasional dream sequence, and doesn’t really do much until she infiltrates New Asgard. The ending of the show also feels a bit cheap, acting as blatant sequel-bait rather than closing out the story in a conclusive, satisfying way. It just becomes another “It was a simulation all along” type situation, and it isn’t really clear where the story can go from here now that basically everyone is either dead or a zombie. Speaking of deaths, some of them definitely didn’t have the emotional impact that the creative team was going for (mostly earlier deaths like Kate, Melina, etc). Some deaths were also just straight-up disrespectful, like the aforementioned handling of Hulk and Thor, as well as Blade (who just got vaporized), Shang Chi and Katie (they had the combined power of five of the Ten Rings yet somehow lost to a few moving pieces of zombie flesh), and the Mandarin (he could have easily just given Shang Chi one Ring to keep him alive while he used the other nine?). 

Overall, I still really loved this series, and it feels like such a massive departure from the standard MCU formula that manages to build upon the setup of the What If? episode to create a heartfelt zombie apocalypse story that utilizes various MCU characters and plot devices in pretty cool ways. This series is such a fun, chaotic experience, and I highly recommend checking it out.