In Bryan Andrews’ Marvel Zombies Season 1, a familiar sea of heroes and villains find themselves on opposite ends of a war as a virus ravages every creature in its path, turning them into zombies. As the war rages on, some like Shang-Chi and Blade Knight (a combination of Blade and Moon Knight) keep fighting the good fight, while others like the Fantastic Four and X-Men are left out entirely.
In an interview with Variety, Andrews substantiated his need to introduce these two superhero teams in Season 2 and innovate beyond his Season 1 vision in Zombies, claiming:
I’m hoping, if there’s a second season around, there are already a few ideas of, like, can we get extra crazy? So who knows, but it would be amazing, and it gives us just more opportunities for more zombies and crazy heroes to go down swinging.
From the imaginative world of What If…?, Marvel Zombies is the franchise’s first definitive zombie project. With the former already pushing the limits of what can be possible in the infinite multiverses of the Marvel universe, Andrews now plans to go even further in his delightfully violent zombie saga.
How Infinity War Helped Create Marvel’s First TV-MA Series
In the aftermath of Infinity War, the biggest tragedy in the history of the MCU, fans were left reeling from PTSD, heartbreak, and utterly terrified of what was coming next. But not Bryan Andrews. He saw the tragedy of Infinity War as an opportunity for a doorway to something greater and never attempted before.
One of the reasons to even do “What If…?” [was] so that we could do an episode that was zombies. We found a place in time, right around [the events of] “Infinity War,” because it provided a number of heroes that were out and about. Kevin [Feige] loved it, so it was like we should be doing a bigger thing and explore this world a little bit more.
Once that was settled, there was hardly any going back. With Feige himself being a fan of zombies, he backed Andrews’ vision, who went full-tilt into the gore and graphic arc that usually comes with the genre. Soon, Andrews was no longer operating within the TV-14 range but got his series bumped to TV-MA.
When the decision was to do it straight-up and make it a bigger story, well, it’s gotta be TV-MA. Brad, Kevin and the rest were like, “Oh, hells yeah.” They were thinking the same thing. You don’t want to have to keep pulling punches. You want to be able to go for it, really create something within that genre and do it justice.
Consequently, Marvel Zombies has blood, guts, action, and violence galore. Heroes like the Scarlet Witch and villains like Thanos are mercilessly sacrificed to the virus, while young and naïve do-gooders like Kamala Khan (Ms. Marvel), Riri Williams (Ironheart), and Kate Bishop (Hawkeye) unite on-screen for the first time as the Young Avengers.
How Can Marvel Zombies Season 2 Redeem Fantastic Four and X-Men?
Inspired by Robert Kirkman and Sean Phillips’ comics, Marvel Zombies began envisioning its storyline way back in 2018. At the time, Marvel hardly had any blueprint laid out for either the Fantastic Four or the X-Men, given that the IPs were still part of 20th Century Fox. When Disney acquired Fox in 2019, Feige and his team started formulating a distant plan to airdrop them into the MCU.
Understandably, without their mainstream debut in the MCU, no cinematic storyline to go on, or even to use as a foundation for the arc of these superhero groups, Bryan Andrews was at a disadvantage when it came to the two groups.
Now that the Fantastic Four are here with their characters established squarely within the MCU, the actors delivering their own tone to the story arcs, and the X-Men preparing to make their debut in Doomsday, Andrews can finally flesh out the characters with more ease in Season 2 and decide which direction to take their stories in.
Moreover, it will also be helpful for the fans to relate to the heroes more, given that the MCU has now delivered a heartwarming and poignant story on the Fantastic Four, with more to come from the X-Men in the coming years. This will certainly be better than the premature and gratuitous fan service we would have seen in Zombies Season 1.
Below is a list of all the Fantastic Four and X-Men characters set to arrive in Avengers: Doomsday:
It wouldn’t be entirely terrible to have Storm, in her goddess avatar, making a fly-by to scare Doom straight and act as a counterpart to Thor. Who else from the X-Men catalog do you want to see making an appearance in Doomsday? Drop your ideas in the comments below.
Marvel Zombies Season 1 is now streaming on Disney+.
