Marvel Studios returned to the San Diego Comic-Con this year for the first time since 2019 & brought with them a slew of new photos for fans to drool over. Prior to taking over the Hall H panel on Saturday night, Marvel held a panel on Friday, July 22 to reveal all of their forthcoming animated projects, including the long-awaited Marvel Zombies series for Disney+. With Brad Winderbaum and Ryan Meinerding helming the Ballroom 20 panel in advance of Marvel’s Hall H presentation on Friday morning and into the afternoon, convention-goers were given an exclusive first look at a number of animated projects the studio has in the works.
On top of that, they showed off the characters that will be included in the animated series, X-Men ’97, What If…? Season 2 and other intriguing projects. With Bryan Andrews as the lead storyboard artist, Marvel Zombies will feature a zombie version of Hawkeye, Captain America, Captain Marvel, Wanda Maximoff and Okoye in addition to the original characters. Yelena Belova, Kate Bishop, Red Guardian, Jimmy Woo, Death Dealer, and Shang-Chi and Kamala Khan are among the heroes they’ll be taking against. It was in Disney+’s 2021 animated series What If…? when the notion of flesh-eating zombies invading the Marvel Universe was first brought to the MCU. Though the notion of a zombie epidemic isn’t new, it hasn’t been explored in the horror genre until now.
During a virtual conference in 2021, A.C. Bradley, the chief writer of What If…?, described the genesis of the zombie idea and how he pitched it to Marvel Studios president and producer Kevin Feige: “Kevin startled us by saying, “No, you’re doing Marvel Zombies.”…because the comic is so amazing, we pulled more directly from it for inspiration and real chunks of sequences.” Robert Kirkman, the guy behind The Walking Dead, wrote the first five issues of Marvel Zombies, which were released in 2005.
According to one of the Ultimate Fantastic Four storylines, the virus that infected Earth’s Mightiest Heroes might be traced to a zombie Reed Richards tricking his Ultimate counterpart into establishing a portal between both worlds. There are spoilers for the Disney+ series, but fans may witness what happens in the zombie realm after Richards wins the day in the highly anticipated What If…? episode. Until further notice, there is no release date for the show.