At the recent San Diego Comic-Con, amongst the ocean of the new content that we will get in the future, Marvel came out strong and announced TV projects like Spiderman: Freshman Year, X-Men ’97, season 2 of What If…?, I Am Groot and Marvel Zombies. Even though all of these shows got Marvel fans really excited, a lot of fans started focusing on the latter and its connection to MCU. In this article, we will discuss will the Marvel Zombies show be MCU canon or not.
The show will take place in the same universe as episode five of the first season of What If…?, where we first saw zombies in action. More precisely, Marvel Zombies will happen in the alternate universe Earth-2149, where the infection starts and our superheroes need to save themselves from the zombie infection. This means, that since the Multiverse became a thing in MCU, especially after season 1 of Loki, Marvel Zombies will be canon in the MCU and closely connected to what we saw in What If…? with much more gore.
We will discuss further what was said at the San Diego Comic-Con, what new characters can we expect, and in which universe the Marvel Zombies TV show will take place. Also, we will mention what will the rating of the show be on Disney+ since Marvel Zombies in the comics are quite graphic. We will warn you of spoilers from the Marvel Zombies comics. If you are interested, stick with us until the end of the article.
Will Marvel Zombies Show Be MCU Canon or Not?
According to Marvel representatives who presented fans with Marvel future projects, Marvel Zombies will be connected to episode five of the first season of What If…? and continue its run in the form of the animated TV show.
This means that Marvel Zombies will be in the same universe that appeared in What If…? and offer us already seen zombified superheroes and villains like Wanda, Hawkeye, Captain Marvel, Captain America, and more, and introduce to new zombified characters like Ikaris and Abomination.
Marvel representatives also announced new Marvel superheroes who survived the zombie infection that will include Jimmy Woo, Kamala Khan, Kate Bishop, Yelena Belova, Shang Chi, Red Guardian, and more. More Black Widows will appear in the show besides Yelena, which was shown on the concept art displayed on the Marvel panel, and Skrulls that look like a Fallout version of raiders.
This is very exciting since we will see new characters and villains of Marvel Zombies and maybe get some unexpected surprises – who knows, there is enough time until the show airs to discuss it. All in all, the Marvel Zombies will air on the 24th of June in 2024, and the show will take place in the same universe as the What If…? show and storyline of comics of the same name which takes place on Earth-2149.
Multiverse has been officially activated in the first season of Loki, shown in Spider-Man: No Way Home, and fully confirmed in Multiverse of Madness, and Marvel Zombies will be part of that story as well.
What Do We Know About Marvel Zombies? (MCU & Comics)
In the comics, Zombies first appeared in the alternated dimension Earth-2149, which did not have that many differences from the main Marvel reality, Earth-616.
One day, a mysterious force came from the sky and infected the Avengers and Fantastic Four with almost all of their superheroes. Later in the story, Silver Surfer comes to Earth and warns the zombies of his Master’s arrival – Galactus. Silver Surfer gets devoured by former superheroes, now zombies and they gain his power. Galactus comes to destroy the Earth and gets attacked by zombies which he repels easily.
However, with the help of Silver Surfers’ powers and combining theirs, zombie superheroes manage to injure Galactus. After Red Skull manages to kill zombified Colonel America, devours Galactus, and after gaining his powers, cosmic-powered zombified superheroes and Red Skull combine their powers with Galactus’s and become a collective known as Galacti.
Meanwhile, Black Panther with the help of the Acolytes, and the Wasp, restored with a cybernetic body, flee the Earth and come back five years later. They realize that the Earth is depopulated, however, at the same time, another planet and its population are fearful of incoming Galactus. The alien race is not prepared for it and Zombie Galacti lands on the planet and starts devouring everyone.
Marvel Zombies was first announced by Kevin Feige during the Marvel Studios Phase Four Presentation that happened at the end of 2020. It was also revealed that the zombies will appear in the TV animated show What If …?, more precisely, a zombie-themed episode happened in season one, episode 5 of the show.
Even though fans were happy that Marvel studios are expanding the universe we never saw in the MCU before, at the same time, some fans were not satisfied with the way the zombies were portrayed. Zombies in the What If…? series did not speak and there wasn’t that much gore. The fans criticized Disney+ and their unwillingness to not increase the rating of their Marvel shows and mostly decrease the explicit content of the original content of the comics to cater to the children.
However, we did get really good news from San Diego.
What Rating Will Marvel Zombies Have?
As we already mentioned, the biggest concern over Disney+ shows was the show ratings. Marvel has been “a victim” of its own actions because of the inability to actually replicate the true realities that Marvel comics convey – brutality, insane powers, and gore. Marvel Zombies comic books are really gorry and brutal and the panel, where zombified superheroes are biting off the flesh of Galactus, is quite disturbing.
Thankfully, the vanilla Zombies that we saw in What If…? are no more since the Marvel representatives announced that the Marvel Zombies will be the first adult animated TV show on Disney+ ever. The official rating of the show will be TV-MA. This is encouraging news since it will depict the real feel of the original comics and the atrocities that Zombies bestowed on the Earth-2149.
Moreover, we cannot wait if the showrunners will go the route of the comics and show Zombie Galacti attacking other planets in the universe, that will be really cool.
