Long, long ago, in “the before times” (the early aughts), there was a resurgence in the zombie genre in films that exploded into a cultural phenomenon that gave us works like Max Brooks’ The Zombie Survival Guide and Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead. From this came Marvel’s Marvel Zombies, a darkly humorous five-issue mini-series that looked at the trend through a What If…?-like premise: “How would the Marvel universe fare with brain-eating supe rhumans made of rotting flesh?” The concept was pretty popular and has been revisited multiple times (as “nostalgia” comes every 4-5 years now) and no reality-hopping 149-part crossover event is complete without running into some of these spandex-clad cannibals.
Thus, it should come as no surprise that the first season of What If…? gives us a version of the zombie universe. The episode was largely predicted to either be a blast or a bust by some fans and, really, it does a pretty good job of keeping with the spirit of the MCU, the tone of What If…?, and the tropes of the zombie apocalypse genre. There’s horror, humor, and (perhaps most importantly) hope throughout.
The story starts right at the cold open to what would have been Avengers: Infinity War. Bruce Banner has crash-landed back on Earth and Thanos’ forces are about to invade in search of the Infinity Stones. When the Hulk refuses to come out and play, Banner is saved from the aliens by the arrival of Iron Man, Dr. Strange, and Wong. Since they’re backlit throughout, Banner doesn’t figure anything amiss until his allies start… eating… Thanos’ Blackguard. When they turn on him, Dr. Strange’s Cloak of Levitation holds them off until rescue comes from a small group of survivors that includes: Spider-Man, Bucky, Okoye, Hope Van Dyne, Happy Hogan, Sharon Carter, and… Scott Lang’s pal, Kurt. (The group and the world they live in get extrapolated in a short video diary scene by Spider-Man that has become ubiquitous in survival movies from Cloverfield to Netflix’s The Last Kids on Earth.)
Having lost so much, they jump on the chance to go on the offensive and make a dangerous trek to Camp Lehigh in New Jersey. One by one, we see the fates of The Avengers we once knew and, one by one, the group of survivors gets smaller by way of the faintest of mistakes, mere chance, and noble sacrifice. When they finally arrive at Camp Lehigh, they make a number of shocking discoveries. The signal they had been tracking was the fleshless (and thus immune to zombification) Vision and his Mind Stone.
Vision’s been holed up and preparing for some vague, eventual opportunity to transmit his zombie repelling signal and hasn’t been doing it alone. He’s been accompanied by Scott Lang, T’Challa, and Scarlet Witch… none of whom are fully intact or all that aware of each other. Tragedy strikes and those left are forced to flee in a QuinJet. They’re about to make it to Wakanda with the Mind Stone and the hope of transmitting the signal with Wakanda’s advanced technology when the audience is reminded of why Ebony Maw and The Blackguard were in New York to begin with.
MVP of this episode goes to the animators. The voice work seemed a bit flat at times and the story concept is cliché at this point but the work on the micro-expressions that the characters display and the Aladdin rug vibes we get off the fluid and personality-filled Cloak of Levitation make it seem less like a deus ex machina and more like a part of the team.
We’re seeing a recurring theme in What If…?. Of the 14,000605 realities that Stephen Strange saw in Infinity War, the loss and destruction that followed The Avengers and the world (see The Falcon and the Winter Soldier for more on that) really has been the “best of all possible worlds.” On the bright side, so much original casting has been available for the voice work.
When this episode contains MCU godfather Jon Favreau and the late Chadwick Boseman, it speaks to fans and says that Disney is doing everything they can to give us the fullest experience possible. With four episodes left to the first season and hints that the final one will tie the What If…? multiverse into the MCU proper, the zombies may have been a haunted house pit stop before the roller coaster begins.
