After a relatively quiet 2024 with a small handful of projects, 2025 has seen Marvel release nearly 10 shows and films. Its penultimate project for the year is Marvel Zombies, based on the recurring comics metaseries first created by Robert Kirkman, Greg Land, Sean Phillips, and Mark Millar in 2005.
Spinning out of the zombie-focused episode of Marvel’s What If…?, the series is set in an alternate version of the MCU where the world’s gone to hell after being ravaged by the undead. Most of the original Avengers are dead, and a growing legion of them are under the thrall of a zombified Wanda Maximoff. The pilot assumes you’ve seen that initial episode (or any other zombie media in the last 20+ years) to get a general idea of how things work in this world, while the following two episodes open with the initial outbreak from a civilian perspective and the Avengers’ attempts to stop it from getting too far.
Mainly, though, our central character is Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), who treks with other heroes like Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld), Shang-Chi (Simu Liu), and Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) on a path to find otherworldly help in fixing the world once and for all. The core cast Marvel Zombies semi-stumbles into consists of the new blood that’s been gradually introduced throughout the Multiverse Saga. It creates an interesting contrast as they’re more directly confronted with saving the world their predecessors could not, but the show isn’t interested in exploring that, or really doing anything with its cast. They all basically arrive pre-loaded with the same personality and traits since we last saw them in the movies or shows, which reduces the impact of the post-apocalypse they’re forced into saving.
Even Blade Knight, a version of the Daywalker possessed by Khonshu, ultimately feels like a Marvel Rivals skin that just happens to look like current Blade-to-be Mahershala Ali. As cool as he looks, he doesn’t get any particular characterization that couldn’t be found elsewhere, as if the show is afraid of stepping on the toes of either his eventual (and still currently hypothetical) movie or whatever Marvel’s plans are for Moon Knight. He’s got plenty of aura, but that’s really all there is to him and frankly, essentially every character on the show, be they living or dead.
As a result, if there’s someone you already had mixed or negative feelings about, you’re basically watching them do their exact same thing again with little deviation. Most MCU actors are reprising their live-action roles for animation, similar to What If…?, which can feel jarring since the writing and their performances feel specifically tuned to two separate mediums. Among the live-action transfers, Liu and Pugh recover from this strangeness faster than their costars, while the soundalikes do a solid job of matching the actor they’re meant to portray. Of everyone in the cast, Todd Williams’ Blade and Kenna Ramsey’s Okoye make the most out of their thin material, doing enough to almost make their respective characters feel like real people.
The best thing Marvel Zombies has going for it are its visuals. When it’s silent and gets out of its own way, the animation proves to be a highlight as superheroes cleave through the increasing, unending horde. Animation’s a great place for Shang-Chi and his friend Katy (Awkwafina), who each use a set of the Ten Rings, and Kamala’s hardlight power set is the best it’s ever looked. That and the occasional shot to underline the incoming terror or introduce a zombified version of a Marvel superhero are pulled off just well enough to make you forgive how offputting the show can look otherwise, particularly when it comes to facial expressions.
If only it felt like this really had anything else going for it. Whatever fun there is in watching MCU characters die—some ends are grim and tragic, others funny for the sheer “that’s how you kill them?!” levels of mean, or make you wonder why they’re really even here—is eroded by a weak script and uncertainty over whether this should’ve been a movie or a show.
At four 30-minute episodes, Marvel Zombies is digestible enough, but lacks a spark that’s been found in most of the studio’s prior offerings this year. It’s not quite a disaster, but if another story in this universe is to be told, it should try to be more than a bloody distraction.
All four episodes of Marvel Zombies premiere September 24 on Disney+.
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