What If…? season 1, episode 5 review: What If… Zombies!?

Zombies ravage the world in the most recent episode of Marvel’s What If…?

Halloween surely came early this year with the latest What If…? episode as the Disney Plus series adapts Marvel Zombies.

The episode starts with a scene similar to the opening Avengers: Infinity War sequence, and it instantly went south. The episode was diving left and right with the origin of the virus in the Quantum Realm (more hints at Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania) and how Janet Van Dyne was exposed to the virus and gave it to Hank, which spread quickly across the globe.

But have no fear, the Avengers are here, right? Wrong. Our beloved band of heroes were no match for exposure, and were soon at the mercy of the virus – resulting in their zombie-like states.

Don’t worry, it gets worse… for them

This episode kept going from weird to weirder. During the battle to get out of New York, the episode’s heroes were faced with the zombie variants of their colleagues, who they quickly noticed were able retain their powers – or in Tony Stark’s case, retain the knowledge of how to use the Iron Man suit.

Our beloved heroes attempt to escape and get to Wakanda, but many of the Avengers on this makeshift team start sacrificing themselves one-by-one to the zombies in order to help the team advance one step closer in getting to a cure for the universe. After Hope Van Dyne’s brave sacrifice to help get her teammates to the other side of the patch of zombies, she falls back and is soon zombie-fied as well.

Once on the other side, the survivors meet Vision – who is hiding a very, very disturbing secret – he was holding T’Challa captive and feeding parts of the Black Panther to a zombie-ridden Wanda. Even typing this part still sends chills down my spine.

The future of the MCU (featuring capes)

I couldn’t get away with out mentioning the cape. In the battles over at New York, Doctor Strange’s cape found its way to Peter, and rested on his shoulders. This surely has to be some sort of foreshadowing to either Spider-Man: No Way Home or Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. 

This angle of Peter Parker is like one I have not seen before. This version of him was more mature? His mindset about loss and avenging those who he has lost is absolutely admirable. I think it really stood out to me when Hope confronted him about his upbeat mentality after all he’s been through, and we could use more of that these days. I think it really sets the tone for who Peter Parker is.

Final Takeaways from What If…? season 1, episode 5

The episode paid homage to some of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies. Peter Parker’s Zombie Apocalypse Survival video was similar to Captain America’s cameo, in Spider-Man: Homecoming, while Bucky’s showdown with zombified Captain America featured a nod to the now-famous “End of the Line” quote from Captain America: The First Avenger.

This entire episode was a bit on the darker side, and that’s coming from the previous episode surrounding Doctor Strange and his lack of a heart. It also hits pretty close to home considering everything going on in the world right now, with subtle nods to hand sanitizer and the teamwork that goes into finding a cure highlighting the will of humanity and the progress we’ve made as people. I think these subtle nods are where Marvel excels with storytelling.

What did you think of Marvel’s What If…? season 1, episode 5? Let us know in the comments below!