Sep 24

Sep 24 'Marvel Zombies' miniseries review: Excessive gore & excessive mirth

Just in time for spooky season, Marvel Comic's dark and bloodsoaked horror anthology gets its own miniseries with 'Marvel Zombies' (streaming on Disney+ starting Sept. 24).

In short: In an alternate Marvel universe overrun by zombies, a small band of surviving superheroes discover the key to bringing an end to the zombie plague.

This is a spoiler-free review of this limited Marvel miniseries. None of the cameos or plot will be revealed.

From the jump, 'Zombies' throws the audience right into the zombie wasteland. No prologue or explainer - just a small band of heroes including 'Ms. Marvel' Kamala Khan just trying to scavenge enough to survive in a post-apocalyptic Manhattan. This miniseries is effectively a follow-up to an episode of the 'What If...?' animated series, wherein each episode featured various alternate timelines in the Marvel multiverse. The animated 'What If' series itself was based on one of the most popular Marvel Comics storylines. And this horror comic series did not skimp on the gore and uber violence.

Well good news for fans of the iconic 'Marvel Zombies' anthology series: this miniseries is every bit as relentlessly gruesome as its namesake comic book series. A bloodless 'Marvel Zombies' adaptation would literally defeat the entire purpose of even bothering with a 'Marvel Zombies' story. This TV miniseries does retain the spirit of the original comics vibe and is consistent with the first 'What If' episode's tone and tenor.

Unfortunately, this 'Zombies' series suffers from inconsistent tonal swings - as did the aforementioned 'What If' episode. Sometimes the series is full-on horror nightmare, wholly committed to graphic violence. Sometimes it revels in heroic swells of inspired characters stepping up to save the day. And in its worst moments, 'Marvel Zombies' just devolves into pure bathos. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has long been critiqued for excessive quip that undermines dramatic moments - and 'Marvel Zombies' is one of the worst offenders of tension-obliterating humor that undercuts the story's drama.

Final verdict: 'Marvel Zombies' has fun reveling in a world overrun by the dead, but a plot that should be pretty straightforward gets muddled unnecessarily. For a story wherein friends and family - characters fans have gotten to know and love throughout the years - are brutally dispatched ... treated as disposable characters whose deaths are undermined by silly banter and one-liners.