S01.E05: What If…Zombies!?

[formerlyfreedom]

Quote

When The Avengers are infected with a zombie plague, surviving heroes search for a cure.

Dropping Wednesday, September 8, 2021.

[phalange]

Moral of the story: find yourself a guy who loves you so much he'll lure unsuspecting humans to a fake sanctuary to feed you if you turn into a zombie witch. 

I like the idea of superheroes keeping their powers after being turned into zombies. That adds a whole extra terrifying dimension to a zombie apocalypse.

When Kurt started talking about Baba Yaga when they got inside the fence I knew Wanda was going to be a zombie. Marvel seriously can't let Wanda and Vision be happy in any iteration of the multiverse, can they? Give them a break, goddamn. Vision ripping the mind stone out of his own head and then Zombie!Wanda finding him was really depressing. I do wish we got a bit more of the Hulk vs. Zombie!Wanda fight. 

How the hell did Thanos have all but one of the Infinity Stones and still get turned into a zombie? In any case, T'Challa, Peter, and Scott are headed straight to Thanos with the mind stone, so this version of Earth is especially screwed. Zombies and the Snapture? Talk about a bad time. 

[cambridgeguy]

I'm not sure they struck the right tone with this one.  Peter talks about keeping up a good front, but everyone seemed way too flippant about the whole thing most of the time, especially when they were actively searching for a cure. 

I also wonder how much outrage there will be over all of the female survivors getting killed/zombified while the important guys (sorry, Happy and Kurt) either lived to joke for another episode or were left with ambiguous fates.  And of course Sharon getting the most gruesome fate.

Edited September 8, 2021 by cambridgeguy

[Anduin]

Was Kurt supposed to be familiar? I know Kurt Wagner of course, but he's German. And just for a second, I was excited. But this one is Russian, and I don't know him.

Not a great ep for the women. Every single one got zombified or otherwise killed. Yeah, some got a good ending. But still. I'd happily trade Spidey for Okoye. But the whole world is doomed. Maybe it's best not to wait. It just feels weird.

[AnimeMania]

That was stupid, if you turn everybody back into humans, does their injuries sustained while Zombies not matter. How are they keeping a head in a jar alive, it was stupid, but funny in Futurama, but implausible here. You have the tech to keep severed heads alive but not to transmit the mind stone frequency.

Thanos had his arm ripped off and yet he can still wear the infinity gauntlet, maybe he found some Super Glue.

[arc]

Good writing but the dialogue was super clunky. Was that an intentional homage to 80s B movies or something?

So in ep 2, Cull Obsidian got exploded from the inside, in ep 3, Hulk did (by (a version of) Ant-Man, albeit with some kind of device rather than Ant-Man himself expanding), and now in ep 5 zombie Sharon Carter was blown up by the Wasp expanding. Did I miss any from eps 1 and 4? The writers must have loved that Endgame fan theory.

2 minutes ago, cambridgeguy said:

I'm not sure they struck the right tone with this one.  Peter talks about keeping up a good front, but everyone seemed way too flippant about the whole thing most of the time, especially when they were actively searching for a cure. 

It's a weird thing. The actual Marvel Zombies comics tend to be about as nihilistic as the Walking Dead comics. (Robert Kirkman created and wrote both.) So I'm certainly glad this episode wasn't as much of a downer as the comics, but I agree, they really whipsawed the tone between jokey and sad and it didn't really work. (See also the classic Futurama bit riffing on MASH though.)

1 minute ago, Anduin said:

Was Kurt supposed to be familiar?

He's one of the X-cons, the ex-con security company Scott Lang co-founded. He appeared in both Ant-Man movies. 

Just now, AnimeMania said:

How are they keeping a head in a jar alive, it was stupid, but funny in Futurama, but implausible here. You have the tech to keep severed heads alive but not to transmit the mind stone frequency.

In the Marvel Zombies comic, a zombie Janet Van Dyne was alive as a head in a jar. But she hadn't become de-zombified, so the zombification process was keeping her moving. In the comics, the zombies, esp superhuman ones, maintain more of their original personalities and smarts. Bodiless zombie Janet had mostly turned back to fighting for the humans.... I think at some point the humans even gave her a robot body.

[Ailianna]

I thought it was oddly compelling but still a stupid premise. I really expected a Hulk zombie at the end, since he can be scratched, and that's apparently all it takes.

And frankly I couldn't believe Bucky got quippy, especially with that line, over killing Steve. I get he said Cap and not Steve, but that moment should have hurt and it didn't. There was no pathos to Bucky killing his best friend after all Steve did to save him.

[Spartan Girl]

1 hour ago, cambridgeguy said:

I also wonder how much outrage there will be over all of the female survivors getting killed/zombified while the important guys (sorry, Happy and Kurt) either lived to joke for another episode or were left with ambiguous fates.  And of course Sharon getting the most gruesome fate.

I was just about to comment on that. I know it was supposed to be an “everyone’s screwed anyway” ending, but couldn’t they have had the female characters make it to the end?! Okoye, Hope, and Sharon would have been an awesome trio!

Also it doesn’t seem fair that Sharon got a chance to be awesome with the Iron Man gauntlet only to be turned by zombie Cap. Ugh. Not gonna say a word about that because I don’t want to start another debate. But I hate that her death was a punchline while Hope got the big heroic sacrifice. I mean…fine you had to have a thick skin when all your friends turn into zombies, but yeah, the quipping didn’t feel right.

Man, it doesn’t get darker than Vision feeding Zombie Wanda. Those two cannot catch a break either.

So this is the second episode where Hank destroys the Avengers, although this time it wasn’t on purpose.

Edited September 8, 2021 by Spartan Girl

[Cobalt Stargazer]

Bucky killed Steve. Bucky. Killed. Steve. That is all I have to say about that.
 

13 minutes ago, Spartan Girl said:

Man, it doesn’t get darker than Vision feeding Zombie Wanda. Those two cannot catch a break either.

"You've woken her."

Me: "Oh, holy shit, Wanda."

Her turning him over after he yanked the Mind Stone had me a little emotional, that even zombiefied she retained enough Self to know who he'd been to her when she was alive. He couldn't bring himself to kill her, and he may have even hoped he could help cure her. I guess that's what the 'theoretically' was about, that it worked for Scott but not for Wanda. Damn it, Marvel, leave them alone!

Who was voicing Spidey here? Not Tom Holland, and it wasn't even a soundalike.

[xaxat]

That's three straight episodes where fridging  played a major motivating role.

Not a good trend.

[Cobalt Stargazer]

Somebody on my MCU group said that Hank Pym should be pruned in at least one timeline, that he keeps causing trouble.

Also, that wherever someone played by Danai Gurira goes, there will eventually be zombies.

[tv echo]

Zombie Avengers! This episode was only about 20 minutes long, but it was a packed episode... 

Another What If...? tale that's caused by the Pym family. A zombie virus in the Quantum Realm? Really?

Animated Bruce Banner does not look like Mark Ruffalo at all. Animated Scott Lang does not look like Paul Rudd at all. In fact, a lot of the animated characters were not recognizable as their real life counterparts.

The Spider-Man sound-alike actually sounded like Tom Holland in parts of his dialogue.

This animated Sharon Carter was much more interesting than the live action Sharon Carter. Too bad she died.

Always love a bearded Bucky.  His fighting Zombie Steve was great. However, I would expect more sadness and less glibness over killing his bff and taking his Captain America shield.

Hope Van Dyne getting infected and then sacrificing herself was unexpectedly heartbreaking.

Yay to another T'Challa/Black Panther appearance!

Um, if Vision can pull the Mind Stone out of his head by himself, then why didn't he do that in Infinity War instead of making Wanda destroy it?

Hulk versus Scarlet Witch showdown! 

I usually don't like zombie stories, and I hate stories where the heroes almost all die. However, I was kinda expecting everyone either to die or to turn into zombies, so the fact that some survived was a pleasant surprise - though, as others have noted, it would've been better if the few survivors had included at least one woman.

Returning talent: Mark Ruffalo, Chadwick Boseman, Paul Bettany, Sebastian Stan, Evangeline Lilly, Paul Rudd, Jon Favreau, Danai Gurira, Emily VanCamp, David Dastmalchian and Tom Vaughan-Lawlor.

Sound-alikes: Josh Keaton (as Steve Rogers/Captain America) and Hudson Thames (as Peter Parker/Spider-Man).

Edited September 8, 2021 by tv echo

[Racj82]

4 hours ago, cambridgeguy said:

I'm not sure they struck the right tone with this one.  Peter talks about keeping up a good front, but everyone seemed way too flippant about the whole thing most of the time, especially when they were actively searching for a cure. 

I also wonder how much outrage there will be over all of the female survivors getting killed/zombified while the important guys (sorry, Happy and Kurt) either lived to joke for another episode or were left with ambiguous fates.  And of course Sharon getting the most gruesome fate.

It would be great if one day women characters could just be treated as...characters. Not every piece of entertainment had to be viewed through the prism of but what is going on with the women and people of color in this? A lot of people didn't make it. Period. 

I also realize how different I am from others. I'm watching a animated cartoon about super-powered zombies. How is there a surviving head in a jar and stuff like that are just not something I care about. I'm just having a good time.

I also don't mind the fun and quippy nature. It was all natural to the characters involved. Peter and Scott quip. Kurt is a comedic character. Every other piece of comedy stemmed from the situation. No problems for me on that front.

[thuganomics85]

I'm really started to think that Wanda and Vision's relationship isn't a healthy one, guys!  I get doing what you can to help the ones you love, but tricking innocents into being food for you zombie girlfriend is right up there with the whole "turning a town into your own personal playground for your somewhat dead boyfriend" on the bad idea scale.  They can never get a happy ending, huh?

I'm guessing it was an availability issue or technically being under contract with Sony that prevented Tom Holland from reprising Peter, because I have to imagine he would have been totally down for it.  The other actor did a good job though.

The universe might be better off if Hank got put in timeout, considering how many times he apparently messes things up.

Scott in a Futurama style glass jar was something I didn't expect!

It is believable that a lot of the humors would still use humor and quips as a coping mechanism, but it was a little strange how many times the episode bounced around from being dark and emotional to suddenly goofy.  In particular, everyone seemed indifferent about killing their former friends, even if the entire mission was hopefully finding an actual cure.

The Cloak of Levitation might have been the true MVP here!

[Kirbyrun]

1 hour ago, tv echo said:

Um, if Vision can pull the Mind Stone out of his head by himself, then why didn't he do that in Infinity War instead of making Wanda destroy it?

Because then there would have been a Mind Stone laying on the ground for Thanos to pick up. They needed to eradicate the thing.

[Racj82]

32 minutes ago, thuganomics85 said:

It is believable that a lot of the humors would still use humor and quips as a coping mechanism, but it was a little strange how many times the episode bounced around from being dark and emotional to suddenly goofy.  In particular, everyone seemed indifferent about killing their former friends, even if the entire mission was hopefully finding an actual cure.

They weren't actually full of humor in those moments. That's the thing. Peter was upset about Happy. They played Hope's death devoid of laughs. Bucky and Sharon used lines that were now tinged with sorrow like the the Blam moment. So on and so on. The only one that could possibly be taken as a laugh was Sharon but Hope was in shock. She wasn't actually joking.

This show could you a bit of extra time to let the emotional beats sit for a minute. I'm not saying an hour bit there is more time they could use. Twilight Zone use to have that same problem sometimes. But, when they went an hour that was worse for the most part. A good 45 with some of these scenarios might help.

[arc]

5 hours ago, Cobalt Stargazer said:

Who was voicing Spidey here? Not Tom Holland, and it wasn't even a soundalike.

The animated version was also a good bit taller than Tom Holland.

3 hours ago, tv echo said:

However, I would expect more sadness and less glibness over killing his bff and taking his Captain America shield.

I was surprised as heck that Bucky had installed a magnetic shield holder on the back of his costume.

[vb68]

The best part of this episode for me was seeing the ragtag group of heroes interact with each other who have little or no scenes together in the movies. I really enjoyed that aspect. Okoye taking charge and ordering Peter, Banner, et al to get on the train was everything.

"What's the problem. I thought you were an Uber driver?"

"I'm a chauffeur. There's a big difference!"   

Edited September 8, 2021 by vb68

[paigow]

In this universe, Pierce never blew Camp Lehigh off the map... which means Zola is still "alive" to save humanity...

On 9/8/2021 at 5:33 AM, cambridgeguy said:

while the important guys (sorry, Happy and Kurt) either lived to joke for another episode or were left with ambiguous fates. 

They will inevitably lose the stone to Thanos and die

[Captain Carrot]

I'm a little confused by something. I that that Thanos was in New York. (I'm assuming he got infected after getting the time stone from Dr. Strange's body. They said the infection was via saliva, so maybe someone's saliva got in his mouth). To me the implication was that he would be cured along with everyone else, then get the mind stone and get rid of half the universe.

However, I saw a lot of comments on the AV Club stating that he was waiting for them in Wakanda. Did I miss something?

[Kirbyrun]

24 minutes ago, Captain Carrot said:

I'm a little confused by something. I that that Thanos was in New York. (I'm assuming he got infected after getting the time stone from Dr. Strange's body. They said the infection was via saliva, so maybe someone's saliva got in his mouth). To me the implication was that he would be cured along with everyone else, then get the mind stone and get rid of half the universe.

However, I saw a lot of comments on the AV Club stating that he was waiting for them in Wakanda. Did I miss something?

They showed Thanos standing behind the force field o' hexagons that is a hallmark of Wakandan tech, the same force field used in Infinity War. So that's why I assumed he was in Wakanda.

[rwlevin]

Is it just me or is the watcher more corporeal in each episode? Like in the beginning, he was a shadow, then an outline, then in black and white and it now seems he was in color this past episode. 

 

Small nitpick: you can't directly get from grand central to anywhere in jersey. You need to go to Penn.

[Zuleikha]

How/why did zombie Thanos get to Wakanda? That doesn't make sense. If zombified Thanos had enough of old Thanos to want to collect the Infinity Stones, he would have followed to Lehigh. He wouldn't be able to anticipate they went to Wakanda.

I get Vision not being able to save Wanda because of her powers. I don't get Vision seeing the only thing he can do is feed her bits of Black Panther and nothing else. Wouldn't it make more sense to try and lure some random people to keep her calm and then try and capture/cure the superpowered Avengers? 

I agree the show needs to figure out what tone it wants to have. The Dr. Strange episode was fine, but both the what if all the Avengers died and this one seemed afraid to really commit to their premise. It ended up more whiplashy than effective. I also want to see a story carried through all the way to its end instead of having these final scenes imply a twist. 

[Sakura12]

Zombies with super powers is terrifying, especially since they apparently had enough of their mind to remember how to use them. 

So I guess we'd be screwed if either Vision lost Wanda or Wanda lost Vision. They both would be willing to sacrifice everyone to keep the other around. At least their love story is more believable then Strange and Christine. However I suppose keeping Wanda locked up and feeding her is safer then letting her have free reign, the world would've probably been more destroyed with a zombie with her powers walking around. 

I liked seeing the heroes interact that haven't really interacted before or never met before. But this one wasn't that interesting to me. Maybe I'm over zombies. 

Also T'Challa saying "death is not the end. They are still with us as long as we do not forgot them" really hit me in the feels.

[Guest]

The choices made here were just bizarre. When Hope, Sharon and Okoye showed up I was hoping we would get a situation where the sidekicks got a chance to shine. Strong women sacrificing themselves was a massive disappointment. Although that’s still better than Sharon’s ending.

How the hell was Sharon’s regret over killing Happy more impactful than Bucky killing Cap? Also, how does any showrunner not take a step back and look at how their female and BIPOC characters are handled in 2021. Is it fridging should be one of the first questions they ask themselves when they kill a character. 

At this point only actually shocking episode they could do would be “What if… everyone was happy?”

Edited September 9, 2021 by Guest

[Cthulhudrew]

8 minutes ago, Dani said:

At the only actually shocking episode they could do would be “What if… everyone was happy?”

Better yet - "What if... everyone was Happy?"

And all characters are voiced by Jon Favreau.

Edited September 9, 2021 by Cthulhudrew

[Racj82]

2 hours ago, Cthulhudrew said:

Better yet - "What if... everyone was Happy?"

And all characters are voiced by Jon Favreau.

Even better - "Why if...everyone was Happy?"

[paigow]

Bucky should have grabbed the Falcon jet pack...

[swanpride]

Eh...I mean, I didn't really expect to like it, because I think that the notion of zombies are stupid anyway, but I thought that they would at least do something more interesting with it than a standard zombie plot. Also, yeah, this was waaaaay too flippand. I especially can't see Bucky making THIS particular crack after killing Steve for good. 

About the female characters...I have given up to complain about it. Like, they gave Hope not even a few seconds to talk about her guilt, but Peter a whole scene to talk about his optimism. I mean, I like Peter, but that is NOT a healthy coping mechanism in any way. 

Like I said before, the most dangerous thing which can apparently happening to the MCU is women dying before their time...we can now adding getting zombified. Considering that Rescuing Jane lead to the zombies, and Vision trying to keep Wanda alive kept it going....

[Cobalt Stargazer]

Y'know, the literal take-away from this is that at best no one cares that Happy and Kurt got munched and zombieifed, and at worst that it's seen as positive. I'm not trying to be provocative, but they did kill two white dudes. Four, really, since Zombie Wanda killed Bucky and probably Bruce. If you really want to dig deep, Vision keeping Wanda alive was the worst thing here, since that choice meant a lot of people died to feed her, but maybe we shouldn't examine it that closely.

[tv echo]

Let me clarify my previous comment...

If Vision had pulled the Mind Stone out of his head himself, he would have killed himself and then Wanda could've destroyed the loose stone. Instead, Wanda had to kill him (someone she loved) by destroying the Mind Stone while it was still in his head and while he was looking at her.

Edited September 9, 2021 by tv echo

[Zonk]

The zombie stuff was cool, but the story was a bit lame, wasn't it? With the other what ifs the story was the draw.

Why did the wasp become zombie chow instead of just turning small after she put our heroes in the safe zone? The zombies climbing her would have just clattered to the ground.

Why did Vision change his mind? There was nobody who convinced him, no actual argument, he just went from feeding zombie wanda people to helping the heroes.

Also how can zombie Thanos have a full infinity glove if Spider man is still holding the mind stone? Buh humbug!

On 9/8/2021 at 12:33 PM, cambridgeguy said:

I'm not sure they struck the right tone with this one.  Peter talks about keeping up a good front, but everyone seemed way too flippant about the whole thing most of the time, especially when they were actively searching for a cure. 

Also how they flippendly killed their zombified friends after they suspected there was a cure and not just a vaccine, a cure for people who were already zombiefied. Which even turned out to be true as we saw that ant mans head was unzombiefied and lived!

I guess the wasp still has a chance, but Sharon is goo, Cap is in two parts and Happy doesn't have a head, etc.

On 9/8/2021 at 4:20 PM, tv echo said:

Animated Bruce Banner does not look like Mark Ruffalo at all. Animated Scott Lang does not look like Paul Rudd at all. In fact, a lot of the animated characters were not recognizable as their real life counterparts.

Might be a case where they only got them as voice actors but didn't get the right to their likeness. Which is weird, I grant you, but there is no accounting for Hollywood agents and studios battling over contracts.

With Tom Holland they couldn't get either, likely due to contract disputes with Sony.

A few episodes ago I was surprised that they couldn't get Scarlet Johanson, not her voice and not her likeness, as this should have been produced long before she sued Disney. I guess there might have been something brewing in the background long before it became public.

Edited September 9, 2021 by Zonk

[Bruinsfan]

There were too many poorly thought out elements for me to enjoy this one.

How can people turn into blue-skinned visibly rotting zombies in seconds from a viral infection?

How can Wong and Dr. Strange use spells that require lots of training and intense concentration if they're dead and virtually mindless?

How can normal human zombies climb a hundred-foot-tall Hope and punch through protective glasses that must be five inches thick or more?

How can Iron Man get infected while still wearing his suit? Oh, right, Stark was always opening the helmet in combat situations so opponents could see his face while he snarked at them...

Edited September 9, 2021 by Bruinsfan

[Spartan Girl]

1 hour ago, Cobalt Stargazer said:

Y'know, the literal take-away from this is that at best no one cares that Happy and Kurt got munched and zombieifed, and at worst that it's seen as positive. I'm not trying to be provocative, but they did kill two white dudes. Four, really, since Zombie Wanda killed Bucky and probably Bruce. If you really want to dig deep, Vision keeping Wanda alive was the worst thing here, since that choice meant a lot of people died to feed her, but maybe we shouldn't examine it that closely.

I know you were being sarcastic, but I did care that they got killed off too. I think most of us were just annoyed that the last ones standing (pre-Thanos, anyway) were literally two and a half men. 

[Zonk]

 

32 minutes ago, Zonk said:

Also how can zombie Thanos have a full infinity glove if Spider man is still holding the mind stone? Buh humbug!

I just rewatched and I guess I misunderstood. Zombie Thanos is in fact in Wakanda. It's not very clear but the zombies around him are in wakandan clothing.

I thought originally the implication was that Thanos would use the stones after he got turned back from a zombie and thus, kill half the people in the universe. But I guess the implication is that our heroes unwittingly delivered the mind stone to zombie Thanos in Wakanda and now zombie Thanos will use the stones to turn the whole universe into zombies?

Man these zombies have way too much cognitive function left. With this much mind left why would they ever turn on their former friends?

Also how did the zombies and zombie Thanos get through the force  field? It was still up afterall. And what was he doing there in the first place?

[Spartan Girl]

2 hours ago, tv echo said:

Let me clarify my previous comment...

If Vision had pulled the Mind Stone out of his head himself, he would have killed himself and then Wanda could've destroyed the loose stone. Instead, Wanda had to kill him (someone she loved) by destroying the Mind Stone while it was still in his head and while he was looking at her.

You're right. He could have done that.

So Wanda going through the added trauma of killing the one love she had left for nothing really was...for nothing. Just another example of the villifying/traumatizing/sidelining/fridging female characters.

Excuse me.

[cambridgeguy]

36 minutes ago, Spartan Girl said:

You're right. He could have done that.

So Wanda going through the added trauma of killing the one love she had left for nothing really was...for nothing. Just another example of the villifying/traumatizing/sidelining/fridging female characters.

Excuse me.

Are we sure about that?  By the end Vision was clearly weakened to the point of being unable to put up any kind of resistance when Thanos picked him up.  Where would he find the strength to yank the stone out?

So maybe it's not as simple as leaping to the conclusion that it was a cheap stunt designed to add some emotional pathos to the ending.

[arc]

12 hours ago, Zonk said:

Why did the wasp become zombie chow instead of just turning small after she put our heroes in the safe zone? The zombies climbing her would have just clattered to the ground.

She had been poisoned earlier when a cut on her skin got infected with zombie goo from zombie Sharon. (No, it doesn’t make a lot of sense when Cull Obsidian and Ebony Maw were turned in seconds while she had minutes to hours,but that time inconsistency is a zombie movie hallmark.)

12 hours ago, Zonk said:

Also how can zombie Thanos have a full infinity glove if Spider man is still holding the mind stone? Buh humbug!

It was missing the sixth stone in the back of the hand, wasn’t it? Looked like he had all five knuckle spots filled.

BTW, I really liked the quick riff on “Zombieland” that Peter tried early on.

Edited September 10, 2021 by arc

[benteen]

Looks like I owe Disney an apology.  I never thought they would go dark with this series and they have the last few weeks.

Really enjoyed this episode.  Despite how grim it was, the various team-ups were a lot of fun, especially bringing in the non-powered sidekicks (namely Kurt).  Some good interactions here too, particularly between Peter and Hulk.  The episode reminded me of my favorite issue of What if (from the second run of the comic book) "What if the Marvel Super Heroes Had Atlantis Attacks."  And hey, we FINALLY get an Uncle Ben reference!  

Complaints...I agree about the tonal shifts in this episode being a problem.  Maybe this was the compromise for making the story so grim.  Bruce sees friends like Tony become a zombie and die in front of him and it doesn't seem to bother him at all on a personal level.  Bucky kills a Zombie version of Steve and it doesn't seem to bother him...he seemed to joke about it.  Scott is in way too good a mood considering all that he's lost.  Happy is fun but Happy is making sound effects after the loss of Tony and while he's being dragged to certain death?  It doesn't look like the loss of everyone they know and love bothered the various members of the team all that much.  Also, Ruffalo's Bruce Banner looked too much like Hawkeye.  It was confusing.

Hank Pym messes things up again.  Classic Hank!

Edited September 9, 2021 by benteen

[swanpride]

Frankly, I am just tired of all this darkness...what I really would like to see a version where Civil war never happened. 

And again, I feel that so far the stories have been lacking creativity. The Peggy story was basically a rehash of The first avenger. The T'Challa one was kind of the most off the wall, but the way the relationship between Nebula and Thanos got portrayed really spoiled it for me. The Avengers one (so far my favourite btw, but there really isn't much competition) was a good beginning to an interesting What if, but basically stopped at the point when it became really interesting. The Dr. Strange one was a tired rehash of the fridging trope with a really predictable ending. And the Zombie one was basically a rehash of every Zombie movie out there. And none of them really explored the characters in question further. They all reaffirmed more what we already knew about them instead of exploring how they changed under different circumstances (or in the case of Dr. Strange they made the OCC from the beginning). 

[tennisgurl]

This week on What If...Its Zombieland meets Marvel zombies starring the most random assortment of characters ever! I think my favorite aspect of the episode was the wide variety of characters all working together, most of whom have never interacted before, which was a ton of fun. The thing that has always been one of the MCU's greatest strengths is their strong character work, so that you can put any character with any other character and it will be entertaining because every character, even the minor ones, are so well drawn and memorable. 

I enjoy a good zombie story and this had a lot of things that I enjoy about the genre. The gory kills, the dwindling party, the dark humor, and making the zombies semi-sentient and still able to use their powers and weapons adds for a more unique and scary zombie threat. So I liked a lot about this episode, but I think the tonal shifts ended up hurting my investment in the episode. I think they were going for a Zombieland style of gallows humor mixed with zombie fighting action, but that can be hard when you know the characters so well and have gotten as invested in them as I have. Like, I get that Buck is presumably pretty hardened by all of this by now (and his life in general being a parade of awful) but I cant imagine him being so nonchalant about killing Steve, even a zombified only kind of sentient version of him. I realize that with Peter making his goofy video and Scott saying how he is making jokes to better deal with everything, which are admittedly in character for both of them, it just makes the whole thing feel a bit too silly for a scenario in which just about every character we know and love is presumably dead, including Scotts daughter we can assume. Then we would get to the drama again, like most everything with Vision. Normally the MCU does a really admirable job of mixing comedy and drama, but the tone was so all over the place with this one that it got exhausting.  

I was happy to finally get a verbal reference to Uncle Ben at least. And I like Hope as a mentor type for Peter, I in general really liked the ragtag nature of the group who formed to try and save the day and how they played off each other. The voice acting was also solid from everyone, both the actors reprising their on screen roles and the newbies. 

Wanda and Vision really are a perfect couple, they both handle losing in other way in extremely destructive ways. At least Wanda took Westview hostage partially by accident, Vision was luring people in and feeding them to zombie Wanda because he couldn't kill her, that's messed up. Of course it might have been for the greater good, zombie Wanda with her powers is a HUGE threat. "You've woken her..." Of course then he sacrifices himself and even as a zombie Wanda is heartbroken, because those two can never catch a break, no matter the universe. 

Speaking of never catching a break, Hank better watch himself or the TVA is going to be panging on his door in every universe with pruning sheers, just in case. At least this time he doomed the world by accident. 

Even with the weird tonal issues, Scott in his Futurama jar did make me laugh. "High fives! I wont be offended!"

[arc]

21 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

Of course it might have been for the greater good, zombie Wanda with her powers is a HUGE threat.

Eh, Wasp showed that a swarm of corpse-devouring ants can reduce zombies to fully dead skeletons. (I guess the ants don’t become zombiefied?????) Wanda probably was killable; Vision just couldn’t bring himself to do it.

[Zuleikha]

3 hours ago, arc said:

Eh, Wasp showed that a swarm of corpse-devouring ants can reduce zombies to fully dead skeletons. (I guess the ants don’t become zombiefied?????) Wanda probably was killable; Vision just couldn’t bring himself to do it.

I totally forgot about the corpse-devouring ants or wasps or whatever that Wasp used so effectively at the beginning. Now I'm wondering why she didn't keep those around. They seemed the most effective way to deal with superheroes.

[paigow]

Vision should have killed all the other zombies including Wasp before ripping the stone out of his head

[johntfs]

8 hours ago, swanpride said:

Frankly, I am just tired of all this darkness...what I really would like to see a version where Civil war never happened. 

 

One of the big points of "What If?" is "What if shit went really, really wrong in this story you remember?"  So, yeah, it's going to be dark more often than not.  Besides, this episode is set up for a "happy" ending.  Thanos will murder Peter, T'Challa and Cape Scott, get the Mind Stone and snap everyone except himself cure of the zombie curse so he'll have plenty of people to eat.

[bmoore4026]

On 9/8/2021 at 6:48 PM, Sakura12 said:

Also T'Challa saying "death is not the end. They are still with us as long as we do not forgot them" really hit me in the feels.

So poignant.

[wmdekooning]

On 9/8/2021 at 10:20 AM, tv echo said:

Animated Bruce Banner does not look like Mark Ruffalo at all

He looked more like Bobby Canavale to me.

It wasn’t perfect, maybe some of the characterization, motivations, and emotional beats were off, but darned if it wasn’t one of the funniest episodes to date in my mind…

[Racj82]

Man. Chadwick knew he didn't have much longer with us. I can tell he wanted positive beats for T'Challa to go out on. 

I feel like comic book properties more than most things are just examined too closely for me. I'm just having fun with this stuff.

Somehow this show is too dark while there is also complaining about too much humor at the same time. Like...there is no winning here.

While the heroes will lose here and there, they generally come out on top. So, we basically get the happy endings ALL THE TIME. This show is fun way to explore more. Have fun with concepts. Unleash a little bit.

There have been dark moments throughout all the episodes but the only one I truly felt was dark was the one for Dr. Strange. That left you with no hope. None of the other ones did that. There was still hope. Even if things will get worse before they get better.

Also, this is like Marvel's Twilight Zone to me. Which I love. What comes with that though, are the last minute gut punches that made that show so great. And then we just leave the story there. What will happen next is not known. 

This is just one universe. I love a lot of these characters but not all of their lives will be for the best. 

I don't care about all the fact that the women didn't make it out of this. Most of the characters didn't. I view all of them as characters in situations like this.

Something that did stick out to me is that the women in the MCU generally don't get drive the humor. People like Suri, Mantis and Natasha get some. But they are mostly stoic/mature badasses. That's not bad but I'm waiting for some more fun or quirky female heroes.

Edited September 13, 2021 by Racj82

[swanpride]

Let's put it this way: If you want to go dark, GO DARK!!! Don't warn the audience that the heroes are doomed, don't pepper in unfitting jokes, keep with the tone of the story you are telling. But also: There is no need to go Dark for the sake of going dark. It would be nicer if they would mix it up a little bit. Even the "T'Challa as Star Lord" story had a dark twist in the end. 

Also, it is about more than who made it out of the Zombie apocalypse. This was Hope's big mistake, but somehow they made the moment of her talking about the fact all about Peter. The writers seem to be unable to write any plot regarding a female character without side-lining her. Sharon for example only did for the shock effect of having Steve kill her (and I am not even sure if that wasn't in reality throwing a bone to those who have hated on Sharon for that stupid kiss). 

[Guest]

5 hours ago, swanpride said:

Let's put it this way: If you want to go dark, GO DARK!!! Don't warn the audience that the heroes are doomed, don't pepper in unfitting jokes, keep with the tone of the story you are telling. But also: There is no need to go Dark for the sake of going dark. It would be nicer if they would mix it up a little bit. Even the "T'Challa as Star Lord" story had a dark twist in the end. 

Also, it is about more than who made it out of the Zombie apocalypse. This was Hope's big mistake, but somehow they made the moment of her talking about the fact all about Peter. The writers seem to be unable to write any plot regarding a female character without side-lining her. Sharon for example only did for the shock effect of having Steve kill her (and I am not even sure if that wasn't in reality throwing a bone to those who have hated on Sharon for that stupid kiss). 

Exactly this. I don’t have a problem with dark but they’re not really going dark. They are going bleak. Vision sacrificing people to save Wanda is dark but they hold back from fully showing the horror of that. In many ways Wanda holding people trapped in their own minds and Gamora finding a cavern of Ego’s children is darker than what this show is doing.