Hogan Reviews

After the fun but very tame and green-blood-filled Zombies episode of “What If…?” I wasn’t super-excited about a whole series spun off from it, but you know what? It was really fun actually, mostly because they went for the higher TV rating / Age rating and therefore upped the gore (with red blood!) and even some casual swearing but still kept things light and comic-booky. It’s an odd mix, but one that really worked, so let’s take a look at what I assume is “Season 1” given it ends on a cliffhanger…

The “What If…?” episode ended on the cliffhanger of a Zombie Thanos with the Infinity Gauntlet but that doesn’t get resolved until Episode 3, instead we shift focus to the trio of Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) and Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld), who are popping into a zombie infested New York for supplies and see a SHIELD jet crash land. Upon inspecting the wreck they find a dead SHIELD agent and with Riri’s device find a piece of tech inside his now-zombie body. Once retrieved they see that it’s a transmitter that if allowed to transmit in space would signal the Nova Corps. to arrive and potentially save them. While Riri is more interested in staying where its safe Kamala and Kate manage to convince her to take a road trip across to Ohio where a SHIELD base is located, but on the way they run into trouble in the form of the Eternal Ikaris having a never-ending battle with the zombie Carol Danvers / Captain Marvel. Due to the havoc they’re causing their car ends up overturning and after a horde of zombies arrive Kamala is saved by the sacrifices of the other two. She is pulled from running back to help them by “Blade Knight” (Todd Williams, so no Mahershala Ali finally doing the role here, though his likeness is used…), a version of Blade that has become Khonshu’s new vessel and taken on the mantel of Moon Knight, which is a fun idea (and apparently born from the Blade film having fallen through and there being no established MCU Blade to draw from…) The two make it to the SHIELD base but they find the a trio of Red Room agents Alexei “Red Guardian” Shostakov (David Harbour), Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) and Melina Vostokoff (Kari Wahlgren, so not… whoever played her in the film) there instead.

Yikes, zombie Abomination, now there’s a worrying combo!

While the two groups have a chat and agree to help them reach space a large army of zombies under the mental influence of a partially-self-aware-but-still-crazy zombie Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) arrives and storms the building, including the top half of zombie Captain America, zombie Okoye, zombie Hawkeye (who mysteriously could still fire arrows even before becoming possessed…), zombie Ghost (as in the character, I don’t know what a zombie ghost would be…?) and zombie Abomination. Alexei squashes zombie Cap and Blade slices zombie Ghost into bits but Melina is killed assuring everyone’s escape. The second episode (yes all of that happened within half an hour!) opens with Shang-Chi (Simu Liu), Katy Chen (Awkwafina), and Officer Jimmy Woo (Randall Park) trying to flee San Franciso during the initial outbreak, having to not only deal with regular zombies but giant zombies who have been affected by Pym Particles from the nearby Pym labs, which was a fun (and terrifying!) idea. During their escape Shang-Chi’s dad arrives only to see his son get bit, so he transfers his magic rings to his son, which stops his Shang’s infection but then costs him his life. Fast forward to the “present” and this trio and other survivors are riding across a desert in Mad Max style vehicles fighting off even more Mad Max-like Skrull raiders on the way to an apparent safe-haven on the water.

They arrive and meet up with Kamala, Blade and co and they’re all given permission to board the repurposed Raft prison ran by Helmut Zemo (Rama Vallury, so not Daniel Brühl) and travel underwater towards their destination of New Asgard. Sadly though the zombie army of Namor begins attack the ship so the heroes are used as sacrificial pawns to appease them, but it doesn’t work as zombie Namor himself breaks through causing all hell to break loose. Helmut and his second-in-command of John Walker (Wyatt Russell) head to an escape pod but are soon followed by everyone else, leading to both Walker and Yelena to die in the process of the pod being ejected, much to the despair of Alexei. They reach New Asgard and after Blade Knight convinces Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) to let them in by using Khonshu to speak to them God-to-God but the fun feast turns out to be a ruse as the Scarlet Witch had replaced to food with zombie meat in order to create an Asgardian zombie army. Alexei, Woo and Zemo are among those killed as all hell once again breaks loose, but thanks to the intervention of an injured but still mortal Thor (Greg Furman, who does a good Chris Hemsworth at least!) everyone manages to get to a spaceship and head into space to call for help, only to find out that the Nova Corp. were already there as they’d quarantined the planet and won’t let anyone past to potentially spread the disease…

It’s a shame how “Blade Knight” from this spin-off universe has had more lines than Blade from the actual MCU…

I’ll also mention here the cliffhanger resolution from the top of Episode 3, where Spider-Man (Hudson Thames, so no… any number of actors including Tom Holland here), the floating head of Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) and Black Panther arrive and fight zombie Thanos, eventually leading to Panther tackling him into the Vibranium core of Wakanda, destroying him and the infinity stones and creating an apocalyptic discharge of “Infinity Energy” that was then contained by Hulk, creating “Infinity Hulk”. Spider-Man and Lang were saved by the mages of Kamar-Taj, who thanks to their isolated nature are free of the zombie virus. That being said, they’re aware of the threat Scarlet Witch poses, claiming she is planning on creating an army strong enough to take on Infinity Hulk and steal the power for herself. It all sets up the final episode, which is probably my only real complaint as the whole “must get to outer space to contact the Nova Corp” is hand-waved by the ending above and then we immediately pivot to stopping Wanda destroying Infinity Hulk for the finale. Ah well. It was still a fun two hours, with plenty of unique ideas for what a superhero zombie plague would be like if it were more traditional (the comic Zombies had the zombie heroes retain their knowledge and speech but just be consumed by uncontrollable hunger, so a different kind of horror…)

Overall Thoughts:

Some of the MCU’s most enjoyable new characters, voiced by their actual actors/actresses to boot!

Marvel Zombies was a really fun two hours in front of the telly, ticking a lot of classic zombie apocalypse clichés but also throwing in some bizarre and crazy scenarios based on the problems that would arise with the MCU version of Earth having the issue compared to a more regular outbreak. Not sure what they’d do for a second season, but I’m here for it one way or another.

Kamala and co.’s ship is shot down by the Nova Corp but before crashing they’re saved by the mages of Kamar-Taj, who then enlist them to stop Wanda and save Infinity Hulk as her undead army of zombies, zombie heroes, giant zombies and Asgardian zombies would be too much for even him. Hulk does hold off a good number of them for a while but soon everyone appears to lend a hand, leading to a big showdown. Our heroes have to deal with more craziness, like miniature zombie Ant man and Wasp and eventually zombie Thor which results in pretty much everyone’s death until Kamala appears before Wanda, who enlists her help in containing the Infinity energy and “save everyone”.

The zombie Scarlet Witch does what I believe is called “aura farming”.

Against her better nature Kamala grabs Wanda’s hand to help and wakes up in her bed with everything back to normal. She heads out and hangs out with Riri and Kate, everything seeming perfect until suddenly a version of Riri fighting off zombies “flashes” in front of her a few times, trying to tell her that what she’s seeing isn’t real and to snap out of it…