While it’s a fun experiment drawing on comic history, reviews for Marvel Zombies on Disney Plus have put it very much near the bottom of all MCU shows. Tied for the third worst, in fact.
Yes, Marvel Zombies is technically an MCU show in the way that What If…? was an MCU show, one that just takes place in an alternate universe outside the “sacred timeline.” This is opposed to X-Men ’97, which is not pitched as an alternate MCU universe, and is wholly its own thing.
Right now, Marvel Zombies has positive scores from critics, not being an exceedingly rare Rotten-rated series in the MCU, but it’s not great. Here’s the full breakdown of MCU shows and their scores.
- Ms. Marvel – 98%
- Agents of SHIELD – 95%
- WandaVision – 92%
- Daredevil – 92%
- Hawkeye- 92%
- Eyes of Wakanda – 92%
- Loki – 87%
- Luke Cage – 87%
- Daredevil: Born Again – 87%
- Moon Knight – 86%
- Agent Carter – 87%
- What If…? – 85%
- The Falcon and the Winter Soldier – 84%
- Agatha All Along – 84%
- Jessica Jones – 83%
- She-Hulk – 80%
- The Defenders – 78%
- Ironheart – 77%
- Echo – 71%
- The Punisher – 64%
- Marvel Zombies – 64%
- Secret Invasion – 53%
- Iron Fist – 37%
I’m not sure, but I think at one point Inhumans (11%) was banished from being canon, but that may not have been official. Being tied with The Punisher may be fine because The Punisher was great, and I cannot believe it’s scored that low. What do critics know anyway? (I say as a critic).
Marvel Zombies is only four episodes long, but has an enormous list of MCU cast members who reprised their roles for their characters on the show, doing their voicework. That includes: Iman Vellani (Ms. Marvel), Dominique Thorne (Ironheart), Hailee Steinfeld (Kate Bishop), Florence Pugh (Yelena), David Harbor (Red Guardian), Wyatt Russell (John Walker), Paul Rudd (Ant-Man), Tessa Thompson (Valkyrie), Simu Liu (Shang-Chi) and even Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff, an actress and character that fans are desperate to see return in live action, but Olsen has given every indication she’s moving on, and we know of no planned projects that will feature her. But she showed up for Zombies!
This aligns with What If…?, which also got a lot of actors to reprise their characters through voicework. How? Well, this isn’t exactly a ton of work for most cast members. This is a four episode series of 30 minute episodes and some of these characters don’t have more than a handful of lines as a result. I’m wondering if the Thunderbolts crew just recorded all this after filming one day when they were all together.
Anyway, it might be fun. Ratings aren’t great, but it’s not much of a commitment. Give it a shot.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.