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The latest episode of What If…? is the simply named ‘What If… Zombies!?’ which is a direct reference to the Marvel Zombies comics and storylines, even if this isn’t a direct adaptation, of course. Here the episode offers a divergence in a simple sort of way, that while in the quantum, Janet Van Dyne was infected by a ‘quantum virus’ which could really be anything at all. And thus, zombies.
Although these zombies actually seem to have the skills and maybe memories (of a sort) of their hosts, even if they also have an insatiable hunger for humans. This particular outbreak is incredibly quick, which is one of those ‘would it really work this way?’ as opposed to being easily or not easily handled.
But that’s not the point, this is all about three things: classic zombie nonsense in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, setting up a uniquely creepy ending, and a very, um, ‘homage’ style of humor that’s reminiscent of such movies as Zombieland and Sean of the Dead. I mean when we see a bunch of introductory, tongue-in-cheek ‘this character’ freeze frame shots and then especially with the Watcher explicitly mentioned remembering the ‘rules’. I wonder if they realized how close it is to directly copying Zombieland in some ways.
Of course, the rest of the episode doesn’t really follow that sort of thing, it’s about trying to save the world and thus trying to find the next place. Most of the voices were the actors as per usual, except for Peter Parker, who was played by Hudson Thames instead — and we actually got a fun inclusion of the side character Kurt (David Dastmalchain) from the Ant-Man movies.
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It’s pretty interesting how the episode immediately gets into a lot of comedic moments despite all of the horror elements — honestly I prefer that, I find serious zombie tales to be rather dull and uninspired. Additionally, the PG-13 cartoon violence is a bit preferable to the hypergore of modern zombie tales, and I liked the take with the zombies not simply being mindless.
Some of the comedy did feel a little forced, especially some of the constant dad jokes by Scott Lang, but there were some legitimate chortles, like Happy deriding New Jersey or Hope throwing a zombie at the Quadjet as the gang was escaping. The action was also pretty fun, letting us see essentially how our heroes might fight against each other if they were actually trying to kill each other — they did build up to Hulk versus Wanda pretty effectively.
And it was nice to see Capey survive this time, and I knew that the Peter wearing the Dr. Strange cape was a reference to something I haven’t seen — it was made too clear and was noted as cool by Hope. It was interesting to see one of the other final T’Challa/Chadwick Boseman performances in a very different sort of way, still giving him the chance to give us some much needed words of wisdom.
Overall, the episode was pretty fun, and the reveal at the end with Zombie Thanos was delightful, even if it felt a bit lighter than I expected for a zombie apocalypse story. Last week’s Dr. Strange tale was far darker and more affecting, but I like at least how they’re changing things up and trying different things.
New episodes of What If…? stream Wednesdays on Disney Plus.
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