Marvel Zombies review – does the What If spinoff deliver?

Marvel Zombies Ep. 3

Back to the start of the zombie outbreak where Spider-Man, Ant-Man’s head with the Cloak of Levitation and Black Panther arrive in Wakanda only to see Thanos with one gem shy of a complete Infinity Gauntlet.

Thor arrives to help but again fails to go for the head. Dude, it’s a literal zombie! Bye bye Rocket and Groot. After some distraction from Spider-Man, Black Panther battles Thanos to the Wakandan Vibranium Core. This is a nice, heroic way to write off Black Panther in this reality.

Spider-Man and Scott get brought to Kamar Taj where Rintrah, Sara and the London Master are preparing for a final battle with the Queen of the Dead. But first, let’s go back to the boat crew.

Blade Knight takes them to New Asgard where Valkyrie isn’t keen on letting them in until Khonshu appears. The Marvel Zombie writers, Zeb Wells and director Bryan Andrews, really want the show to be a little of everything, but a horror core series with dismemberments and a slew of blood can’t also effectively double as a comedy. Especially when it’s so forced like this series. 

The Asgardians are getting drunk while a morose Thor sits on the throne. Valkyrie explains he’s broken, which raises questions as to how he got all the food. That was provided by the Queen of Sokovia — Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen). She needed a new army, which is weird considering nothing happened to the one being led by Okoye, so she tricked the Asgardians and gave them rotten food to turn them into zombies.

Zombie physiology seems tricky, but it definitely seemed a little abrupt for the Asgardians to immediately fall prey to becoming zombies.

Zemo quips “I deeply regret meeting all of you” before getting impaled by a zombie. This could work for a Deadpool visual gag, but it is silly for no good reason here. Why wouldn’t Zemo, who was already shown to be a diabolical survivalist at any costs resort to making quips instead of doing whatever it took to stay alive? An Asgardian kills Death Dealer and then more maul Jimmy.

Alexi did eat with the Asgardians, so we’re supposed to assume that the super serum kept a human from becoming a zombie longer than aliens gods? Sure, Jan.

Now we’re down to Shang-Chi, Katy, Blade Knight, Ms. Marvel and Valkyrie. One of these characters is not like the other. Why not just have Colleen Wing in here instead of Katy? And is Awkwafina’s involvement in the MCU significantly bringing more eyeballs to anything in Phase 4? Sure seems like we would have Shang-Chi 2 if that were the case.

Thor awakens long enough to battle Scarlett Witch and the zombies. Kamala urges him to hurry up and catch up with them as he’s the last Avenger. “No, little one, you’re the last Avenger now.”

Finally free to reach outer space, the survivors celebrate getting the job done with Shang-Chi telling Kamala “No Kamala you did it.” Kamala isn’t some lame character who needs to be constantly propped up when it’s been abundantly clear that this was a team effort all the way.

Right after sending the call to the Nova Corps, they find them already just outside of Earth’s orbit. They’d condemned Earth as it’s been quarantined. If they don’t turn around ASAP they’re going to be destroyed. Better laser fire than a bite?

This was an interesting twist, but episode 3 veered too far into comedy. Along with some questionable character decisions this was not an encouraging episode after a solid first half.

Rating: 6 out of 10