Marvel Zombies, Episode 2
This second episode is another fun, relatively self-contained one. I do like that most of the Marvel Zombies episodes do feel like standalone entries in like a zombie movie series. This one goes for the trope of a remote, dangerous military/scientific base that is supposed to be safe, but ends up being overrun by zombies.
But before that, we start off with another group of more neglected MCU characters, with Shang-Chi, his love interest Katy and Agent Jimmy Woo from Ant-Man ending up running around in San Francisco during ground zero. Because Pym Laboratories is there, we also get to see a bunch of giant zombies lumbering around, a nice nod to, again, the fact that this is taking place in a superhero universe. There is some rushing of moments, but as an origin story it does kind of make sense. In this version of the continuity, Wenwu / the Mandarin decides to make his move early, rescuing his son and ultimately dying in a sacrifice to save his son. This moment really did go a bit too fast and knowing what we do of Wenwu from the Shang-Chi movie this feels rather abrupt of a death... but it is an origin story for this depiction of Shang-Chi.
With the Ten Rings wrapped around his arm to prevent the zombie infection from spreading, Shang-Chi ends up doing a bit of a resistance. Smash cut to five years later, where they are in a Mad Max esque biker gang, with Wenwu's minion Death Dealer silently following them. Just for the sake of additional wacky-comic-book-hijinks, they fight Skrull bikers. Which... okay? Sure. Also, Katy gets partial custody of five of the ten rings. Again, sure. It's alternate-universe stuff, even in the comics these alternate universes tend to do things different for the sake of being different.
All of this is nice and rapidly-paced, though, which does hurt the setup a little. But ultimately Team Shang-Chi arrive in a location called the City on the Sea, which is one of those Walking Dead style safe havens. Shang-Chi's team has been gathering resources like cows to be let into the community, and this is around the time that Team Kamala from the first episode shows up. The two groups almost get into a fight over Shang-Chi's zombified arm, but the leader of the City on the Sea show up... and it's Baron Zemo, alongside his bodyguard John Walker. ('USAgent' Walker is probably the most OOC one in this show, because working for Zemo doesn't really fit either his Falcon-era or Thunderbolts-era personalities)
Baron Zemo doesn't like superheroes, but he'll let them into his City... which is actually a repurposed version of the Raft. It's actually a clever bit, I've seen some zombie movies (well, mostly the Resident Evil movie adaptations) where a water-based base is a safe haven from the land-locked zombies. There's a brief moment as the two teams finally have a chance to relax from all the zombie-running they have been doing, and they kind of get to know each other. Or, well, mostly it's just Shang-Chi that talks to Team Kamala, since Katy and Woo are comic relief and Death Dealer's entirely silent. There's a bit of a ship-tease between Yelena and Shang-Chi and whatnot, all moments that don't really matter in the long run but also makes these characters feel like an incarnation of their MCU characters instead of just a bunch of dead-people-walking. Team Kamala catch Shang-Chi up on their plan to get the plot device into space, and the next step is to reach New Asgard to get a spaceship. Shang-Chi is sympathetic but only wishes them luck.
Turns out, though, that an underwater base is really only useful in a 'normal' zombie apocalypse world, and not a 'superhero world' zombie apocalypse world. The zombie plague has reached the Atlanteans (or, well, Talokans in the MCU, I suppose) and these zombified underwater-people attempt to breach the Raft. The Raft itself was constructed to stop the strongest metahuman villains, so they are relatively safe other than the constant thumping on the walls. Baron Zemo confides in Walker that this is the main reason he allowed the heroes in, as insurance against the zombie Atlanteans.
Of course, there aren't just zombie fish-people, but zombie superhero fish-people. Okoye's presence as the main pursuer and minion of the Scarlet Witch is pretty neat as her horde reaches the harbour, and then Okoye awakens... Namor. Speaking of Scarlet Witch, her powers have grown far enough that it's infecting Kamala Khan's dreams, identifying her for some sinister reason. Blade ends up acting as a combination of an older mentor and someone who knows the more magical side of things to Kamala, which is neat.
Namor starts to attack, however, and the Raft goes into red-lights crisis lockdown mode. Baron Zemo's definition of 'insurance' doesn't actually mean having the superheroes there to fight Namor, however, but to... launch Team Kamala's cells out of the Raft as bait. That is... that is so hilariously impractical! I love it. It's so dumb. Shang-Chi's group is horrified at this and realize that Baron Zemo is evil. Namor zeroes in on Kamala and attacks her group, but Kamala's forcefield powers protect them and the battle ends up with them being pushed back into the Raft.
Namor and the Atlanteans start slaughtering everyone in the Raft, and the great usage of dark lighting combined with the blaring klaxons and red lights is pretty atmospheric for the carnage. A nice nod to the MCU as well as Namor is temporarily halted with the same Hulk containment unit from The Avengers. And just like that containment unit, it fails to do anything but delay Namor.
Baron Zemo runs around as the typical 'quisling in power' seen so much in these zombie stories, shutting down doors behind him and delaying our heroes. Yelena gets a bit of a spotlight here as she forces Zemo to tell her about the manual override for the life pods, and goes deeper into the Raft to activate it. Meanwhile, Namor's rampage slowly dwindles down the group of survivors, killing Shang-Chi's unique-model resistance members and John Walker. Ultimately, Kamala manages to take down Namor, shoving a forcefield fist into the fish-man's mouth and blowing it up.
However, as the survivors enter the lifepod, Red Guardian realizes that Yelena has not returned yet. Again, it's a rather simple moment when someone stays behind because they have already been infected. Pretty good animation particularly on Red Guardian's part as a grieving father mourning her daughter being left behind -- nowhere as good as the same character's performance in Thunderbolts when a similar scene happens, but it does act as a nice cap-off to the episode as Alexei grieves, and Yelena stoically pours a drink while waiting for the zombie horde to breach the doorway to her control room.
This episode is probably my favourite one in the season. It is admittedly me really liking the setting of a high-tech base being overrun, but the darker lighting and the blaring lights really do make best use of the otherwise not-my-favourite animation style. The Yelena/Alexei moment was done well, and I do like the showcases of Shang-Chi and Zemo's respective groups showing how other parts of the world have taken to the zombie apocalypse.
Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:
- In the Sacred Timeline...
- The events of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings would have happened post-Endgame, but I suppose it isn't too far of a stretch that Shang and Katy would be still (or already) working as hotel valets five years before that movie.
- It isn't too much of a stretch either to think that Wenwu and his Ten Rings organization would be keeping an eye on Shang-Chi.
- Jimmy Woo would chronologically be last seen in Ant-Man and the Wasp. The Shang-Chi and Ant-Man movies actually both take place partially in San Francisco, so it makes sense that they'd meet up.
- The events of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and the character development of Baron Zemo and John Walker/USAgent, would have happened after Endgame. Clearly things went a bit differently here, with Zemo somehow taking control of the Raft, but also setting up base near a bunch of shipping containers like he did in Falcon.
- Namor and the renamed Atlanteans would have only made contact with the surface world in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, but apparently the zombie plague reaches the depths of the oceans as well.
- The Skrull biker gang are trying to steal the cows that Shang-Chi's group is transporting. One of the more memed older Fantastic Four stories involves Reed Richards transforming a group of Skrulls into cows as punishment.
No comments:
Post a Comment