Marvel Zombies: Full Series Review

Note: This is simply a spoiler-free reappraisal of each 4 episodes of Marvel Zombies, which debuted connected Disney+ connected September 24, 2025.

Marvel’s What If…? whitethorn person tally its people aft 3 seasons, but the bid does present person a full-fledged spinoff successful the signifier of Marvel Zombies. Building connected the Season 1 occurrence that introduced a mentation of the MCU overrun by a zombie plague, this animated bid delivers each the blood, goop, and gore viewers would expect from the premise. But much importantly, it gives MCU fans thing they’ve been utterly denied during the MCU’s Multiverse Saga.

Marvel Zombies picks up much oregon little wherever the archetypal “What If… Zombies?!” near disconnected successful 2021. It’s been 5 years since civilization collapsed nether the value of the endless undead hordes. Now, lone a smattering of heroes similar Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani), Ironheart (Dominique Thorne), Hawkeye (Hailee Steinfeld), Shang-Chi (Simu Liu), and Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) past to transportation the torch for humanity. Fortunately for them, a caller anticipation emerges that mightiness conscionable assistance these survivors reclaim their world. Though not if the Queen of the Dead, Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff, has thing to accidental astir it.

The effect is simply a reasonably textbook but entertaining endurance fearfulness adventure. Marvel Zombies doesn’t bash thing terribly groundbreaking with the zombie concept. If anything, it plays things a small safer than the ostensible root material, Robert Kirkman and Sean Phillips’ Marvel Zombies comics. Those books are notable for making their zombies the protagonists, exploring the progressively hopeless plight of a zombified squad of Avengers arsenic they question retired caller nutrient sources successful a satellite wherever unrecorded humans are a blistery commodity. Those zombies retained their intelligence, making for a reasonably caller (and often amazingly silly) read.

There’s nary of that here. The aforementioned Queen of the Dead is the lone villain who inactive possesses a quality intelligence, truthful the bid tends to much intimately travel the zombie movie playbook. The archetypal 3 episodes each trust connected the aforesaid basal look - our heroes fly to a acquainted MCU location, lone for the undead to get and spoil their plans. Only successful the finale does the bid shingle up that look and effort thing different. Though granted, it does truthful successful a beauteous epic and show-stopping way. In presumption of scale, Episode 4 is Avengers: Endgame-worthy, marked by a genuinely epic conflict series that makes the astir of this grotesque, zombi-fied universe.

But much than the zombies themselves, Marvel Zombies has 2 main elements moving successful its favor. One is that it allows america to bask a mentation of the MCU wherever the toys tin beryllium and often are breached and tossed asunder. The crippled armor is stripped distant here, leaving a satellite wherever unusual alliances are forged and adjacent A-list Avengers tin conscionable a grisly end. Creators Bryan Andrews and Zeb Wells intelligibly had a batch of amusive reasoning done however the onset of a zombie plague successful the MCU would play retired implicit the agelong term. Half an hr was ne'er capable clip for “What If... Zombies?!” to decently excavation into the concept, truthful it’s bully to spot it being fixed acold much country to respire now.

The different constituent gets backmost to the thought that this bid offers thing the larger Multiverse Saga has utterly failed to do. It’s nary concealed that Marvel has truly struggled to rebuild the MCU’s momentum post-Endgame. Just look astatine the sluggish container bureau numbers for 2025’s movie slate. If you tin boil this cinematic universe’s problems down to immoderate 1 thing, it’s that Marvel has focused excessively overmuch connected introducing caller characters and storylines and not astir capable connected weaving them unneurotic into a larger whole. The information that determination isn’t an Avengers-style team-up movie successful betwixt Endgame and Doomsday (and no, Thunderbolts doesn’t count) is arsenic overmuch a testament to this flaw arsenic anything. At immoderate point, Marvel has to halt introducing caller toys and really play with the ones it has.

That mislaid imaginable is yet realized successful Marvel Zombies. Granted, this isn’t the halfway MCU, but the characters and their personalities are chopped from the aforesaid cloth. If the formed mentioned supra didn’t marque it obvious, Marvel Zombies focuses heavy connected the Phase 4 and 5 unit implicit the classical Avengers favorites. That allows the bid to excavation into these newer characters and play them disconnected of 1 different successful a precise satisfying way.

Early on, the bid has a batch of amusive with the Kamala/Kate/Riri team-up, realizing immoderate of the committedness near dangling from The Marvel’s Young Avengers tease. Meanwhile, characters similar Shang-Chi, Katie (Awkwafina), and Jimmy Woo (Randall Park) go Mad Max-style raiders successful a post-apocalyptic wasteland. That’s to accidental thing of Blade (Todd Williams), a quality Marvel conscionable can’t look to get disconnected the crushed successful the MCU. Here, the iconic vampire huntsman has been reimagined arsenic “Blade Knight,” the caller avatar of Moon Knight’s Khonshu (F. Murray Abraham), which proves to beryllium a terrifically entertaining combination. It’s conscionable a shame that Mahershala Ali is 1 of the fewer live-action actors not to reprise their relation here, making it look much and much apt that his vocal cameo successful Eternals is each we’ll ever get from his Blade.

Even arsenic the crippled progresses and the assemblage number starts to heap up, the bid is large astatine gathering up the relationships betwixt these characters. Particularly effectual is the increasing enslaved betwixt Kamala and Red Guardian (David Harbour), with the second processing a fatherly affection for his younger ally. All of this helps the large affectional beats and quality deaths deed that overmuch harder. Again - wherefore don’t we spot much of this benignant of happening successful the regular MCU? Why does it autumn connected a zombie amusement to bash what the Multiverse Saga movies won’t?

All of this culminates successful a peculiarly satisfying last episode. As mentioned, the scope of the finale is truly thing else. If the show’s What If…?-inspired animation benignant doesn’t ever bash justness to the characters during the quieter moments (the faces deficiency item and the zombies often look arsenic though their wounds are painted on), it truly shines and develops a bombastic anime prime erstwhile the enactment starts to flow. The finale besides excels astatine gathering tension, raising the stakes until an full universe’s destiny hangs successful the balance. That transitions into an ending that, portion it whitethorn beryllium divisive, feels existent to the bleak, hopeless quality of this universe. For each that the archetypal 3 episodes are formulaic successful presumption of plot, it’s worthy sticking astir to the extremity of this ride.