'What If… Zombies!?'

You know me by now, I’m the first to admit that I’m a bit rubbish at remembering when my favourite shows are on and that’s why my ‘TV posts’ rarely appear on the same day as the show is broadcast. That’s just the way it goes, so long as I watch it in the end then it's all good.

That wasn't the case this week though. The second I knew that we were getting 'Marvel Zombies' (in some form) then it was like the date just crept into the back of my head and stayed there until this morning when it burst through to the front of my head and demanded all the attention. What? I love zombies and I really enjoyed reading Kirkman's 'Marvel Zombies' back in the day (might even be time for a re-read now).

For obvious reasons (Ahem! Disney...), we were never going to get the full 'Marvel Zombies' experience as a 'What If...?' episode but what we get here is close enough and a lot of fun. And we get some bonus Chadwick Boseman too (I don't know why my eyes were all watery...)

As always, the title is the biggest spoiler but there may be a few more to come if you haven't seen 'What If… Zombies!?' If you want to come back later that's fine, for everyone else... Lets go.

A journey into the Quantum Realm has brought back more than Hope Van Dyne's mother. All of a sudden, the world is staring down the wrong end of a zombie apocalypse, made worse by the fact that the world's mightiest heroes have just joined the ranks of the living dead. There may be some hope left in a rag-tag bunch of heroes, and hangers on, but will what they find at Camp Lehigh prove too much for even them? Probably...

After the bleak depression of last week's episode, it was refreshing to just dive into an episode that was so much fun. Don't come to it expecting any gore (you do get some tastefully done dust clouds though that cover up the worst of the eating) but you are guaranteed loads of fun so that's alright isn't it? Of course it is. There is some horror though and again, it's done really well with the Vision trying to do the 'human thing' but misreading it to horrifying affect.

'What If… Zombies!?' is the basic premise of 'Marvel Zombies' crowbarred into established events around the time of the MCU's 'Avengers: Infinity War'. It works really well and that's the whole joy of the 'What If..?' series, watching something we already know (in this case, Banner returning to Earth) suddenly just tear off down another path altogether. It certainly does the business here, seamlessly in fact.

We don't get to see an awful lot of zombie 'heroes' using their powers, I guess because the MCU is still only filling up gradually and there aren't that many heroes in it, relatively speaking. What we do see though is worth it, I won't say much more than that as the appearance of a certain zombie 'hero' is cool and has to be seen. We get plenty of zombie action though and that's really the main thing. What the episode is really about, at it's heart, is the concept of the Avengers being an idea that goes beyond the main team and into anyone who wants to take up the fight. Even someone like Kurt can be an Avenger and I love how the fight has gone beyond it just being 'Superheroes vs Super Zombies', in the comic, to 'Superzombies vs anyone who takes a stand'. Makes you feel like you could do it too.

I also really enjoyed seeing Peter Parker find himself in the middle of all this. All those films he watches really make a difference here and his 'So You're in a Zombie Apocalypse' style video should be required viewing in the event of the real thing. He also provides some of the more touching moments in the story as his knowledge is repeatedly and people pay the ultimate price for doing so. He's learning a lot of lessons the hard way and I wouldn't put it past him to give the 'end of story bad guy' a run for his money as a result of all of this.

'What If… Zombies!?' was just what I needed to start the day off, a massive dose of fun with my breakfast bacon sandwich. I'm pretty sure that I'll watch it at least one more time before the day is out... ;o)

You can read my other 'What If...?' reviews over Here.