In Marvel Zombies, the Avengers may be dead — but hope is alive.
Premiering September 24 on Disney+, the first TV-MA series from Marvel Animation follows a desperate and disparate group of heroes — including Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian (David Harbour), Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), Shang-Chi (Simu Liu), Katy Chen (Awkwafina), Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld), Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), and Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne), among others — as they navigate a dystopian landscape, risking life and limb to save the world.
While the four-part event series expands the dystopian world first seen in Marvel Studios’ What If…? (2021–2024) it is not a direct continuation of the cliffhanger from the Season 1 episode that inspired this new series.
“The first season of What If…? hadn’t even dropped, but based on the internal feedback to the zombies episode, we were already having conversations about it becoming its own, bigger thing at some point,” said Marvel Zombies director, writer, and executive producer Bryan Andrews, who also directed and executive produced What If…?. “It just sounded fun.”
Part of the fun was that Brad Winderbaum, Head of Marvel Television and Marvel Animation, empowered Andrews and writer Zeb Wells to make the series as adult-oriented in its action as the story necessitated. And while this unflinching adventure marks a first for Marvel Animation, it’s anything but a first for the Marvel brand.
“If you look at the comics — the breadth of genres and tones, the types of story and characters — some are for kids, some are extremely mature. It’s all right there on the page,” Winderbaum said. “Marvel has never been about just one thing, but the characters follow certain archetypes. Tony Stark will always be Tony Stark. Peter Parker will always be Peter Parker. The fun comes when different artists and filmmakers play with different scenarios and tell different types of stories — from the most innocent to the most mature.”
A Series of No-Brainers
Without TV-14 restrictions in place, Andrews and Wells let their imaginations run wild, zombifying established heroes like Captain Marvel and Hawkeye. In doing so, new and supporting characters, like Khonshu and Rintrah, were given the chance to step up.
Among the surviving heroes is Kamala Khan, aka Ms. Marvel, who makes a pivotal discovery that could be the key to saving humanity. But with the dangerously powerful Wanda Maximoff/The Red Queen (Elizabeth Olsen) commanding an army of the dead, Kamala needs all the help she can get.
“When we were developing this, Kamala was relatively new to the MCU,” Andrews said. “Based on the timeline of What If…? and Avengers: Infinity War, she was in a perfect spot. She’s young enough, naïve enough, and she hasn’t quite gotten a hold of all of her powers just yet, so we realized she could be a good foil in the zombie universe. How will she deal with all this? Will she maintain her hope, or will she lose it all? That makes her interesting.”
From Kamala and Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Hudson Thames) to Blade Knight (Todd Williams) and Namor, Marvel Zombies marks the first time some characters from the comics ever interact onscreen. “The beauty of Marvel is seeing these characters collide and the strange alchemy that occurs when they find themselves in the same situation,” Winderbaum said. “You let the characters lead the way, because they are such different people that they make sparks.”
For that reason — among countless others — Marvel Zombies has broad appeal.
“It stands alone as an epic adventure set inside a greater lore,” Winderbaum said. “You don’t need to know the lore to enjoy it; you’ll get what you need from just watching this one story, which makes it inviting. You can come to it completely blind… and still get it.”
