Marvel asks the question we've been waiting for: 'What If... Zombies?'

NOTE: Spoilers for the Marvel Cinematic and Disney+ universe up through episode 5 of “What If…”

Superheroes and zombies. Do I even need to bother with a sales pitch?

The latest installment of Marvel’s newest series asks my favorite question yet: “What if… Zombies?”

This story concept has already gotten its own run in Marvel’s comics, but here it’s continuing the grim trend of “What If…” episodes where either lots of our favorite heroes die, or everybody dies (well, everyone except for Dark Dr. Strange).

In this universe, Janet Van Dyne contracts a “quantum virus” during her decades stuck in the quantum realm. So when Hank Pym comes to rescue her, he and his daughter Hope unwittingly kick off a zombie apocalypse. Hope escapes, but their first victim is poor Ant Man. From there, it’s only a matter of time before the infection spreads and the Avengers try to fix things, only to be overrun and zombie-fied themselves.

And once they’ve been turned, the whole world is in trouble due to a very interesting quirk about Marvel’s zombies: They retain at least some of their brain function and physical strength. Zombie Iron Man can use the weapons in his suit, and Zombie Dr. Strange and Wong can still do magic.

This alternate-universe scenario is also happening in the middle of the “Infinity War” storyline, and begins with Bruce Banner falling to Earth to warn everyone about Thanos. As he discovers the zombie apocalypse, he falls in with this episodes’ rag-tag superhero squad of Spiderman, Hope Van Dyne, Sharon Carter, Bucky Barnes, Happy Hogan, Okoye, “Ant-Man” henchman Kurt and not Dr. Strange, only his magical Cloak of Levitation.

The group dynamic here is pretty interesting. Spidey is the biggest name, but he’s also one of the youngest in the group, which is more or less being led by Hope in a bid to undo what she and her father have done.

They follow a distress signal to a military base in New Jersey – losing Hope to the zombie hordes along the way – where they find Vision, who says he’s been working on a cure for zombie-ism using the Mind Stone. It apparently broadcasts a frequency the zombies do not like at all.

Unfortunately, Vision has also been trying to keep Zombie Scarlet Witch calm by using the distress signal to lure people to the base for her to eat. The latest person on the menu is T’Challa, who’s already lost his leg as Wanda’s lunch. The group rescues him, Vision atones for his sins by yanking the Mind Stone out of his forehead to give to the Diet Avengers, and Banner decides to use the Hulk as cover for their escape.

Here’s where my first issue with this episode’s logic arises. If zombies retain most of their personality and power, and are just hungry for human flesh, then Zombie Wanda should be a nearly unstoppable human eating machine. But she doesn’t eat anyone. She just tosses Bucky, and dukes it out with the Hulk as the team escapes.

Thankfully, my logic issues were easily forgotten by something I never knew I needed so much: Ant Man’s head in a jar, being flown around by Dr. Strange’s cape. More specifically, Paul Rudd riffing and making constant cracks while being flown around by Dr. Strange’s cape. He was the first person the Vision was able to cure. When I saw Paul Rudd’s name in the credits, then saw him immediately turned into a zombie in the first five minutes, I knew there had to be more. The end of the episode finds our remaining heroes headed to Wakanda, which Okoye says is “the last safe haven on the planet” thanks to their force field. But as we cut to Wakanda, we see why this is likely to be a two-parter episode: Zombie Thanos is outside the force field with five of the six Infinity Stones.

Leaving aside why Zombie Thanos would be in Wakanda at this point in this story – speaking of logic black holes – this once again brings me back to how Marvel’s zombies operate.

If they retain most of their personality, but they just also crave human flesh, what would be Zombie Thanos’ motivation with the Stones? Does he still want to erase half of all life in the universe? That would leave a lot less food for him and his fellow zombies. For several episodes now, our narrator The Watcher has gotten closer and closer to breaking his one rule and getting involved with any of these multi-verse situations. And I feel like he’s going to have to get involved pretty soon.

My best guess is that Zombie Thanos will do something with the Infinity Stones that starts bringing zombies into other universes, which is a storyline that also took place in the comic version. We’ve seen a trailer with several of these “What If…” characters standing in the classic “Circle of Avengers” pose. And while Marvel has shown that they’re not above putting footage in a trailer that isn’t in the actual product (looking at you all-Avengers-attack scene from the “Infinity War” trailer), my bet is that The Watcher will have to nudge these folks together to solve some kind of massive multi-versal problem.

Could that problem involve zombies? One can only hope.

New “What If…” episodes air Wednesdays on Disney+.