Marvel Zombies review – does the What If spinoff deliver?
Marvel Zombies Ep. 2
Episode 2 opens with a very chaotic sequence in San Francisco as somehow Pym Particles have been unleashed causing giant humans and giant zombies to run around completely disoriented. This is a fantastic opening and really conveys the insanity of the early days of the outbreak.
Shang Chi (Simu Liu) and Katy (Awkwafina) are in the middle of this madness, but they get some help from Jimmy Woo (Randall Park). Still, one SHIELD agent against a slew of zombies isn’t great odds. It’s Wenwu, Death Dealer and The Ten Rings who arrive to save the day. Shang Chi gets distracted and gets bitten on his right arm.
Wenwu sends all 10 rings onto Shang-Chi’s arm to stop the infection. Keep that point in mind. For some reason, Wenwu decides to just give up and not continue fighting the zombies despite armed helicopters and loyal soldiers all over. Clearly, the act of the sacrifice was supposed to be meaningful, but it just came off as silly here.
Five years later, Shang-Chi, Katy, Jimmy, Death Dealer and a few other stragglers are riding around with precious cargo before they get ambushed by a Skrull biker gang. There’s a few jokes here, but maybe the Skrulls are just trying to free some of their pals who are said cargo albeit trapped in the form of cows? Fun potential Easter Egg there.
Not so fun is Katy having half the rings to do exactly what Shang Chi does. Shang Chi really felt like he was fighting for screen time in his one and only live-action appearance, so it was immensely disappointing that he is already at the sharing his abilities phase of his superhero career in the MCU. Also, if splitting the rings was an option, why didn’t Wenwu just put half the rings on his son and avoid becoming a zombie meal?
After dispatching of the Skrulls, they head to the City of the Sea where they run into Kamala, Blade Knight, Yelena and Red Guardian. Baron Zemo runs the port with his right-hand man, John Walker (Wyatt Russell). The two crews quickly befriend each other, with Yelena thrilled to hear that Shang-Chi and Katy are just friends.
Zemo’s luxury cruise is going to take them to New Asgard, which does have a spaceship. Boo to not having a massive waterslide though Baron. Zombies underwater (why?) somehow sense the humans in the ship that should be moving faster than them at the bottom of the ocean. They are zombies after all.
Scarlet witch’s army burns the City by the Sea port and Okoye awakens Zombie Namor. Again, much like Captain Marvel — who is possibly infecting him? Shuri?
Kamala has another nightmare about Wanda, but she needed to be worried about Zemo, who ejects them to appease the undersea zombies. Zemo is too smart to make that kind of bizarre decision and MCU Zemo hasn’t been written as a moron. A bad dancer? Sure, but not an idiot. Better to have disposable superheroes at his side than casually throwing them overboard.
Namor crashes through Zemo’s ship, but Zemo has a Hulk containment cell for him. Namor has battled Hulk underwater unaided, but on dry land, he usually needs help. I mention this because a Hulk containment cell should be good enough to keep Namor captive for as long as needed.
Naturally, Namor breaks free and goes after Kamala and the transponder. In this close quarters battle, Namor wipes out Shang-Chi’s redshirts and John Walker. The action is intense though Namor is fighting far more like a vampire than a zombie. He tries to bite her hand, but she puts one of her gem encasements around it. With the help of Shang-Chi (and Katy), Kamala is able to embiggen her hand and pop Namor’s head. Well, that’s effective.
Zemo’s escape pod needs to be operated manually so Yelena makes the sacrifice play to allow the others to get away. Red Guardian always has such a drastic tonal switch when something is happening to his family. This is a surprisingly dramatic scene and really well done. So far with two episodes, Marvel Zombies hasn’t been afraid to kill off some Multiverse Saga fixtures for the sake of moving the story forward. Hopefully this no plot armor approach continues for the second half.
Rating: 8 out of 10