MIDNIGHT REVIEWS Marvel Zombies TV Review

Brains… this show needs brains!

Matthew D. Smith also has a podcast he co-hosts with Leslie Wai. You can find it here.

Marvel Zombies

Episodes viewed: 4/4

Series created by: Zeb Wells

Featuring: Iman Vellani, Todd Williams, Simu Liu

Synopsis: The Marvel Universe™ has been overtaken by zombies. Kamala Khan (Vellani) finds herself at the forefront of the battle to stop them, aided by various heroes from across the lands.

Review: There’s been an argument for a while now, emphasised over the last decade certainly, that pop culture has become infantilised. It’s even gotten to the point where actors, writers, directors of these made-for-adults children’s stories are coming out and saying it, yet find themselves taking part, cogs in the machine hoping simply to get by without too much notice.

It’s 2025 and we find ourselves with Marvel Zombies. So what’s the story? Based partly on the comic book series of the same name and the What If…? animated series, we find Kamala Khan and co. running from zombies, trying to keep safe a device that can save everyone, but only if they can get it into space. The setup is classic Marvel. For decades, the comic books have almost exclusively focused on the weird and wacky. We’ve had talking planets, talking plants and a secret agent in space. But there’s another question, leaving What If…? for just a moment, that we need to ask: Who is this show for?

There are tons of blood and gore for adults, but the story and dialogue are so simplistic, so cookie cutter, that it seems made for kids. Is this what pop culture is supposed to be now? Complexity traded in for flashes of light, bright colours and Katy Chen (Awkwafina) finding new ways to say, “Well that just happened?”

This show, dispensing with the faux-ignorance, is meant to be for adults. Marvel stated they were aiming for a higher age rating, and that’s what they achieved. So why does Marvel Zombies treat audiences like a toddler?

“We’re here.”

Well yes, of course we’re here, Blade Knight (Williams). Of course we’re here. We’re clearly here, because the show cut from you starting your journey, to you approaching a dark, foreboding building surrounded by zombies. Obviously you are here. Why does this, and other basics of storytelling, need explaining? You need telling, Marvel Zombies thinks, because you are my audience, and my audience was kicked in the head by a horse.

The regurgitated flesh of stories gone by.

It’s incredible that we still get stories that assume audiences are dumb, and of course become dumb themselves in stooping to this imaginary intelligence level.

When George A. Romero released Dawn of the Dead, zombies represented the dangers of mass consumerism. When Night of the Living Dead was released a decade earlier, it was partly a commentary on racism. It’s fifty years later, and what do the undead in Marvel Zombies represent? They represent a problem to be overcome.

To get into why Marvel Zombies is nothing more than the regurgitated flesh of stories gone by, reformed like so much sausage, we need to take a step back and examine not just the show, but storytelling in general.

The argument is not about tone (as much as the patented Marvel one-liners still exist). It’s not even about the big guy (Disney, Marvel, whatever you want to call the conglomerate) versus the little guy. It’s about what and who vs why.

It’s telling that of the interviews and other publicity I’ve seen (an admittedly small sample), focus tends to be on buzzwords (drama! Excitement! Explosions!), who’s showing up or what’s going to happen next. It’s all bright and glitzy, and it all means nothing. Bryan Andrews, sometimes credited as co-creator of Marvel Zombies, said in an interview (in-house, via the Marvel website) that this show is full of quote-unquote ‘emotion.’ Which emotion, he didn’t specify, but sometimes specifics can be quote-unquote ‘hard.’

A limping, degenerate husk.

Now what and who vs why seems like a one-sided fight. Two on one doesn’t seem fair, right? But the why is so much more powerful. And it’s the one thing Marvel seem to keep forgetting.

It’s not about what happens, or who shows up. It might seem that way. It might seem that way to a company that deals in intellectual properties and calls it ‘imagination’, and it might seem that way to audiences that are told over and over again. But it isn’t. It really isn’t. In fact, the small amount of imagination on show is often undercut. A zombie made large by Pym-particles? Okay, that’s something. What’s going to happen there? Oh. The problem is solved almost immediately, by characters unseen and unheard. Oh.

To take the example that everyone always goes to (because it’s a perfect example), let’s look at The Godfather trilogy. It’s not an interesting story because Sonny Corleone gets shot and it looks really cool, or because there are gangsters in suits. It’s an interesting story because the characters are pulled into this imperfect world, this world of family and business and honour and violence all mixed together in this impossible swirling cipher. The first movie in particular is so enthralling because we see Michael Corleone start out as someone who doesn’t really want in on the business. Yet he’s inexorably pulled in until he finds himself as head of the Corleone crime family, arranging assassinations to take place on the same day as his godson’s baptism. Why, and how, we reach this point is the interesting question.

Marvel Zombies, in comparison, is so much crash bang wallop. At no point is the why or the how confronted, instead we are tugged along on the choo-choo train from point A to point B to point C until we reach where we need to reach. There isn’t even the crutch of likeable characters to lean on. Marvel Zombies takes a look at other stories and decides to try and ape them, forgetting anything like deep connection or empathy, deciding instead that it ought to rely on recognisable masks and symbols. A limping, degenerate husk, a shell, with barely a sign of intelligence beyond consumption of all things.

Matthew D. Smith likes to overshare his views on movies and TV shows whenever and wherever he can. Indulge him, and follow him on Twitter or listen to the podcast he co-hosts with Leslie Wai.