David Farnor | On 26, Oct 2025

It’s been four years since Marvel asked “What If… Zombies?” in its animated anthology series about imagined alternative multiverse timelines. Now, it’s answering that question in more depth a four-part miniseries set in the same alternative timeline. After all, who doesn’t want to want to know who’d win in a fight between Marvel heroes and zombies? Especially when, well, all the Avengers have already been infected.

We pick things up five years after a virus has zombified pretty much the whole world. That means there isn’t much hope for the remaining humans – but, on the plus side, the remaining humans are mostly young Marvel characters. That means the series works on two levels: first, as a fun slice of unlikely horror set within the MCU, and second, as a trial run for an Avengers: The Next Generation adventure.

Our heroes? Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne), Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld), Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) and Shang-Chi (Simu Liu). They’re a fun combination precisely because they’re relatively new MCU characters, so there’s still a lot of layers to peel back on each – and putting them into rare combinations and partnerships is an entertaining way to both mine them for heart and humour.

It helps that the voice cast are returning, along with live-action favourites such as Awkwafina as Katy Chen, Randall Park as Jimmy Woo and Wyatt Russell as John Walker. Some are trying to save the world, others are just hustling to survive on whatever scraps they can get. At its heart, Vellani is the secret glue to the whole ensemble, holding it all together with wit and charisma.

Our heroes are up against some fierce foes, including a zombie Steve Rogers and a chillingly callous – and still clinically accurate – zombie Clint Barton. There’s fun in seeing Elizabeth Olsen go full villain as Wanda Maximoff, who’s inevitably risen up as the Queen of the Dead. There’s equal fun in seeing Kari Wahlgren take on the role of Melina Vostokoff, a Black Widow veteran who’s worked out how to brainwash zombies using technology to have her own army of undead allies.

It’s those kind of twists and flourishes that make Marvel Zombies work as a horror outing in its own right, and writers Bryan Andrews and Zeb Wells conjure up a nice mix of gory demises and full-on action. The set pieces, when they come, are satisfying for both Marvel and zombie fans alike, whether it’s a showdown between Red Guardian and zombie Captain America or the fearsome power of a zombie Namor in action. It immediately becomes clear than nobody is safe from being bumped off, which adds the kind of stakes that have been missing from live-action Marvel outings in recent memory.

The biggest treat, though, is the chance to see Blade finally get some proper screentime. Todd Williams takes on the vocal roles here with gravitas and suave aplomb, and his fighting moves are formidable and thrilling – leaving you wishing that Marvel would get its act together and deliver on the tease of a standalone Blade movie. If that’s the legacy that Marvel Zombies leaves behind, it’s a worthwhile one, but right up to the playfully dark ending, this is a remix of the MCU formula that is surprisingly daring, different and never less than diverting. All that in under two hours? Marvel’s filmmaking arm could learn a thing or two.

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