Marvel Zombies, Episode 3
This episode goes on another, different trope common in zombie apocalypse fiction, which I like a bit less than the previous two entries... but it's still a pretty solid one.
We do start off with a continuity nod to the ending of the What If? episode that spawned this mini-series. Which... would be very confusing to a lot of newcomers here, especially those that didn't realize that one specific episode of one season of an anthology series led to this miniseries. It's this kind of super-continuity-loop that makes comic books so inaccessible, people!
But yeah. We start off with an epilogue of the team consisting of Spider-Man, Black Panther and Ant-Man's head arriving on Wakanda to see it overrun with zombified Thanos. With the passing of Chadwick Boseman being less recent, they decided to animate Black Panther's last stand against Thanos... although the character is silent throughout the whole fight. Seeing that this happens within the events of Avengers: Infinity War, the arrival of Thor, Groot and Rocket Raccoon is also shown -- although Thanos swiftly kills the two Guardians, maims Thor, and Black Panther ends up having to do a heroic sacrifice to drop Thanos into an energy reactor. This creates a giant cloud that the episode will later reveal to be the cause of lack of communications between Earth and any space allies.
Spider-Man and Ant-Man's head survive this and are rescued by the cast of Dr. Strange: Multiverse of Madness, with the rest of the magical cast granting them asylum. Spider-Man's recap is interrupted as the magicians note that Wanda Maximoff, the Queen of the Dead, is moving her zombie horde and that conflict is imminent. Which is a setup for the 'main' plot of this zombie survival show.
We then cut to the main cast, Team Kamala, as they rise up from the escape pod. Red Guardian mourns the death of his daughter from last episode, but Kamala manages to talk Red Guardian from doing anything drastic in his grief. It's all inspiring and everything, though arguably Red Guardian's exit later on this episode does nullify this moment somewhat. I do appreciate them trying to inject some pathos with these alternate-universe characters, though.
The main trope here is finding a civilization settlement, Walking Dead style, that has embraced the zombie madness or are infected by it. Things seem to be fine for a while as our group arrives in New Asgard. The community has closed itself off from the rest of the world, and Valkyrie bars the way in until Khonshu appears out of Blade/Moon Knight's body and begins a conversation. It... it really raises some questions about the nature of gods and whatnot that Ragnarok and especially Love and Thunder turned into kind of a joke, but technically it does make sense that Khonshu would know the Asgardians. And it's a nice continuation of the gag that no one there 'gets' the whole Khonshu gimmick.
The Asgardians are in a massive feast, but King Thor is morose and brooding in his throne. Red Guardian joins the Asgardians for the feast, mourning Yelena; while Kamala, Shang-Chi and the others discuss matters with Valkyrie. Valkyrie is reluctant to lend them a spaceship, going on an uncharacteristic 'Asgard needs no others' spiel. The tension builds up a bit, however, as Valkyrie notes that the feast given to them was supplied by the 'Queen of Sokovia'... Wanda Maximoff.
Realizing what's going on, with Kamala having shared her creepy Wanda vision-dreams with the rest of the group, they begin to get ready for hostilities. Wanda, like her 'scion' Okoye, notes that her powers had allowed her to retain her human mind even after zombification, and again starts talking about how they can save the world... but needs the power that Kamala is hoarding. All this false niceties is built up nicely between Valkyrie and Scarlet Witch...
And then the illusion fades away as the Asgardians are revealed to have been feasting on zombie flesh. Apparently Valkyrie wasn't working under Wanda and was genuinely duped into a false treaty, but it's too late as all the other finger-eating Asgardians get infected with the virus. And one by one, Baron Zemo, Jimmy Woo and Death Dealer fall to the zombies. Jimmy has a bit of a running gag throughout all these episodes about him being the loud happy 'friend' to the silent, quiet and voiceless Death Dealer which... I didn't really find all that funny. It was a nice attempt, I guess?
Red Guardian retreats with the rest of the group, and there was a bit where he was trying to hide the fact that he ate zombie flesh, but ultimately confesses to Kamala about his fuckery and stays behind to very briefly hold the line. I felt like this moment could have been done a bit better, or could have been given to another character -- it felt like an odd whiplash for Alexei to go from having half the episode be about mourning his dead daughter, and the second half just dying like a punk to a mistake. And even if the point was to be cruel, I felt that the proverbial knife could've been twisted a lot deeper.
Wanda uses her magic powers to hold on to Valkyrie's spaceship as the group tries to get in, but suddenly the silent, traumatized King Thor stirs and begins to attack. This was a pretty cool moment, and probably one of the better mini-character-arcs in this elseworld as it builds up on Thor's failure in the prologue. And a different kind of failure to the depression he experienced in the Endgame timeskip. Thor urges the survivors to escape, leaving Kamala with one last inspiring speech about how she's an Avenger now.
With Thor holding off Scarlet Witch, our heroes make it away into orbit, beyond the cloud of 'infinity energy' that has suffused the atmosphere. Kamala activates the transmitter, trying to reach out to the Nova Corps -- the 'space police' from Guardians of the Galaxy that might be able to help them. Shang-Chi gives Kamala a bit of an inspiring speech about how they are giving Earth and humanity a shot. The Nova Corps appear, a bit too fast... and as communications is established, the excellent twist is revealed: Nova Corps knows that Earth is zombified, and is quarantining Earth to make sure the zombie plague is contained there.
That's a great cliffhanger, and I felt like it's a great twist that makes sense for the universe. This episode feels like it has probably the most continuity with the original What If one-shot, but also with the greater MCU as a whole. I wasn't the biggest fan of some aspects of it like Asgardia's portrayal or Red Guardian's death; and if we're being honest I kind of wished that if we lost characters that it would be a bit more meaningful (Jimmy, Death Dealer and Zemo went out with little fanfare) but overall I did enjoy this episode a fair bit.
Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:
- In the Sacred Timeline...
- The opening scene of this episode features the epic entrance of Rocket Raccoon, Groot and Thor wielding Stormbreaker near the climax of Avengers: Infinity War. However, it ends a lot more poorly for our heroes this time around. Just like his sacred timeline counterpart, Thor's first hit on Thanos with the Stormbreaker did not go for the head.
- Spider-Man and Ant-Man have been rescued by the supporting cast of Kamar-Taj, specifically the group of characters from Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, including Rintrah the minotaur and Sara Wolfe.
- New Asgard in the sacred timeline would have been established between Infinity War and Endgame, but the cause of Thor's malaise and the tone that New Asgard has is wildly different.
- While not implicitly stated, the Asgardians knew of other god pantheons in Thor: Love and Thunder. The gathering of the gods seen in that movie does feature some Egyptian gods, so it stands to reason that Khonshu and the Asgardians would at least be somewhat familiar with each other.
- In What If... Zombies?
- The opening scene of this episode takes place immediately after the final scene of the original What If... Zombies? episode, with Spider-Man, Black Panther and the head of Ant-Man facing off against a zombified Thanos in Wakanda; and showing the aftermath of that fight.
- It perhaps bears repeating, but Dr. Strange and Wong have both perished and turned into zombies in What If... Zombies?, explaining their absence here.
- Zemo is the character with the strongest reaction to the idea that Sokovia has a queen -- since Zemo himself is Sokovian, and would know.
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