Marvel Zombies Review: A Jolt of Blood For the MCU in 4 Episodes
Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
Marvel Zombies is all about the walking dead, but made more terrifying because most of the avengers are super-Zombies now! So it’s up to a few survivors to find a way to save the planet from completely turning into a land of the un-dead. Which is no easy task, given that the best of American heroes are rotting killing machines.
First off, you need to have watched the zombie episode from ‘What If…’ season one before streaming ‘Marvel Zombies’, since that serves as a prequel to the mini-series. Also, that zombie chapter is pure fun! While watching this series, I kept thinking that maybe the animation in the 2021 series was better. So I even went to back to watch just the zombie edition again, and yes, the coloring, and grading does look slightly better. Shouldn’t they have leveled up the artistry a little bit?
So while the animation and coloring aren’t the strongest, ‘Marvel Zombies’ delivers a fast-paced, post-apocalyptic ride across four blood-soaked episodes. Kamala Khan a.k.a. Ms. Marvel (voiced by Iman Vellani) plays the primary protagonist of this min-series, leading an overambitious mission to save the planet from complete zombification.
Kamala is eventually joined by a few surviving heroes from the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) who haven’t yet turned into flesh-eating monsters. If you’ve seen the trailer, you already know that Shang-Chi, Yelena Belova, Katy Chen, Blade Knight are some of the familiar MCU faces that shoot or slice the un-dead into wholly dead meat.
The primary antagonist of-course is the ‘Queen of the Dead’, the ever-intimidating Scarlet Witch, a scarily powerful Goddess-like super-zombie who was already introduced in ‘What If…’. And unlike the zombies of Robert Kirkman’s ‘The Walking Dead’ and older offerings, Marvel Zombies are faster, stronger, smarter, and super-powered in a bunch of different ways.
It would’ve been nice if the animated Ms. Marvel looked a little more like Iman Vellani, who was last seen playing the character in ‘The Marvels’. And honestly, after Spider-Man’s turn in What If…, Kamala Khan’s fangirl energy isn’t the most gripping choice to anchor a zombie-splattered horror mini-series. But well, there are other exciting characters who strengthen the ‘save the world’ premise.
Zombie-Scarlett Witch on the other hand makes an epic villain, she is spooky, mean, manipulative, hellishly sneaky and intent on turning the whole world into her domain of the dead. The season finale of ‘Mavel Zombies’ pits her with a worthy non-zombie rival, and the background music intensifies the impact of climactic battle.
Whether it’s a blood-soaked road trip, a spine-chilling underwater detour, or an over-the-top dash into space, ‘Marvel Zombies’ knows how to keep the chaos rolling. Aside from a few sluggish emotional beats that don’t quite land, it’s a bloody fun watch for anyone who loves action-horror and, of course, zombies. The creators go all-in on grisly deaths and relentless carnage, but had the animation been sharper, this mini-series could have scored full marks.
Oh wait… the best part about ‘Marvel Zombies‘? There is some possibility that fans could get a Season 2, and I’d absolutely be there for it. Although, it’s a pretty good standalone season. In fact, it makes one wish the DC franchise would take a page out of Marvel’s book and give fans an animated adaptation of the ‘DCeased‘ comic, which is bloody fantastic and offers its own twist on the apocalypse premise.
Rating: 7.5 on 10. Watch ‘Marvel Zombies’ on Jio Hotstar.
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