Viewer Log: What if...? ep 5

ZOMBIES!

Last time on What if…?, we explored what would happen if instead of losing his hands, Dr. Strange lost Christine, his metaphorical heart. After stopping Dormammu, Strange uses the Eye of Agamotto to go back in time to try to save her. She repeatedly dies despite his efforts. The Ancient One arrives and explains that her death is an Absolute Point in Time, because she needs to die for Stephen to get started on his journey. Fridging conversations aside, Stephen travels back in time to the lost library of Cagliostro and research how to save her. He learns that to break an absolute point, he needs an absurd amount of power and spends hundreds of years summoning mystic creatures for their power. He's visibly corrupted by the process and learns that the Ancient One split him into two in their last confrontation. He goes to fight his other self, and ultimately absorbs his better self in the struggle. He saves Christine but destroys his whole universe in the process. The episode ends with him in a little of reality, sobbing and begging for forgiveness. Dark. Enough recap, let’s get to it, shall we?

 

Ep 5: What if… Zombies?!

Well, crap.

 

After the Uatu intro, we’re shown the Hulk being Bifrosted back to Earth at the start of Avenger’s Infinity War. But, upon landing in the Sanctum Santorum, and reverting to Banner, he finds it empty. He takes an acolyte’s Gi and goes outside to see the streets of NYC empty. The Black Order members Cull Obsidian and Ebony Maw arrive moments later. Banner tries to Hulk out but the Jade Giant doesn’t want to play. He’s seemingly saved when a sling-ring portal opens and Iron Man repulsor blasts Maw from behind. But the Iron Man, Dr. Strange and Wong that join him attack the two Black Order members like Rabid dogs, killing them and eating their flesh. It’s only when the dust cloud that they kicked up settles that we learn that all three are Zombies. Cull Obsidian and Ebony Maw also get back up as Zombies. Banner looks screwed, but Dr. Strange’s Cloak of Levitation flies in and saves him from their initial charge. Maw grabs him telepathically, but Banner is ultimately saved by a swarm of insects that eat the zombies down to the bone. They’re being directed by Wasp, who tells Banner to go with her giant ants. Banner, a bit freaked out, doesn’t go at first, but then Spider-Man swings in and grabs him.

 

When you see something like this, back away. 
Do NOT engage!

Uatu explains that two weeks prior, Dr. Pym went into the Quantum Realm to save his wife Jan van Dyne who’d been trapped in that dimension for three decades. Unfortunately, in this timeline, she contracted a “Quantum virus” that corrupted her brain, aka Zombie virus. She attacks and transforms Hank. When they get out of the Quantum Realm, they miss Hope but attack Scott. The plague infects the entire Pacific Northwest in a day, and they get the Avengers in that time, Cap being bitten by a mini-Scott before the others are taken out as well. Uatu says that the world was doomed at that point, unless one knew “the rules.

 

We cut over to an amateur video Peter made on how to survive the zombie apocalypse. With the obviously begrudging help of Harold Happy Hogan and more enthusiastic help from Scott’s friend Kurt. Step 1: Long sleeves, less exposed skin, less chance of being bitten. Step 2: Hygiene, clean your body to reduce your pheromones. They suggest body spray over shower as you’re less likely to be attacked naked. Step 3, go for the head. General Okoye joins Peter and Banner, telling him to turn that silly thing off. We’re shown that the survivors have set up shop in several buses that have been suspended in the air over Manhattan by a TON of Spider-Man’s silk. Okoye tells Banner that they might have some hope, as they got a signal from another camp that they might have made progress with a cure. It’s at Camp Lehigh, the New Jersey Camp that was SHIELD’s first base. They think it MIGHT have the facility to cook up a cure, so they head out to investigate.

 

Good team, not a great team.

The group, consisting of Spider-Man, Banner, Okoye, Sharon Carter, Happy Hogan, Winter Soldier, Wasp and Kurt head out. They make it to Grand Central station in a Pym Particle mini-Van. When they’re full sized, Okoye orders Hope, Banner and Parker to get the train running. Kurt comes too, to help, while the others guard the area. They can’t get the engine started, and to make matters worse, there’s clearly zombie Falcon circling above the station. They try to use Peter’s webs to sling shot the train forward to give them a boost. At the same time, Happy is stabbed through the chest by an arrow and pulled into the shadows. He’s zombifies, and he and Hawkeye go to zombify Sharon. Winter Soldier and Okoye fight Falcon. Sharon kills Happy, using his personal repulsor and the Zombie’s slow wit to blow his head off, as the zombie horde joins Hawkeye. Okoye saves Winter Soldier from death, splitting Falcon in half. Sharon grabs Happy’s repulsor and she and the other two make for the train.

 

Peter meanwhile has gotten his slingshot back far enough to get them moving, he thinks, just as the zombies reach them. The Cloak does its bests to protect him and Wasp flies out to blast a bunch of zombies too. They get on the train, the Cloak of Levitation grabbing Peter and pulling him onto the train as it launches. Sharon, in the back most car is attacked by a Zombie Cap. Winter Soldier faces off against his friend, and a zombie Carter. He ends up slicing Cap in half with his Shield before claiming it, and Hope ends up growing in Sharon’s zombie mouth, killing her. Damn, that’s hard core. Unfortunately, Hope’s suit was damaged in her regrowth. She’s infected, but it seems like if you’re not killed in the initial act the rate of infection is much slower. Peter gives everyone a speech about hope, name dropping Uncle Ben for the first time as he does so, saying that they need to keep smiling for the people they lost. The train, unfortunately, has run out of fuel and they’ve gotten stuck in the middle of a zombie horde. Damn.

 

Hope, knowing her time is about up, Hope supersizes herself up and carries them the few miles to the camp. She’s attacked the whole way, but she gets them to the camp. She tells Peter to keep smiling as she’s pulled back and down into the horde. At the camp, they meet Vision. He’s been able to keep the zombies away with his mind stone. Using super targeted blasts of the mind stone, he has been able to reverse the process with Scott Lang… unfortunately he’s now just a head in a jar. They think they can broadcast the signal and cure everyone… they just need to get to Wakanda. It’s the only place with a powerful enough satellite dish to do so. Thankfully, it’s still shielded, so it should be safe if they can get to Africa. Bucky goes on his own to search the perimeter. Vision cryptically warning that he won’t find what he is looking for.

 

This is much worse than zombie Stark.

What Bucky finds is zombie Wanda Maximoff in a containment cell and 95% of T’Challa, who is still alive. Bucky brings T’Challa back and we get the kind of twisted reveal. Vision, wanting to save his beloved, is keeping Wanda contained as he tries to work out a cure. He was able to cure Scott, but Wanda’s power resists treatment. With little more he could do, he kidnapped T’Challa in San Francisco and has been using him to feel Wanda while he tries to figure out how to bring her back. He’s lured others there to help in his research. Wanda escapes her cell and kills Kurt. With few options, the crew tries to escape. Okoye is captured at the last minute and killed. Vision uses the mind stone to destroy his lab and bury her, tell them to use the Quinjet in the hanger while they can. Wanting to atone in some small way for what he’d done, and being unable to leave Wanda, Vision rips the Mind Stone from his head, killing himself. Wanda rises from the ashes of the lab and crouches over the Vison’s destroyed form. Bucky stays back to try to hold her off, but get’s thrown aside when she gets annoyed. Banner is the last one to get to the hanger and is almost bitten by a zombie but partially transforms into the Hulk, saving himself. Banner gives Peter the Mind Stone and tells him to Avenge them. He runs out, wanting to buy them time to take off. He runs into the swarm, yelling at himself to hulk out. He’s completely swarmed before he transforms. He throws off the zombies and wrestles with Wanda buying them time to take off. Zombie Hope gets up and tries to stop them, but they’re able to escape her grasp.

 

Oh, geeze, much much worse.

T'Challa gives Peter a pep talk about not losing hope, and they fly into Wakanda. Uatu ends the episode by saying that humans will give there all to save their planet, even if it might bring an end to the universe. The final shot being a zombie Thanos with a nearly complete Infinity Gauntlet. Damn.

 

This was an… okay episode. I can’t really point to exactly why, but it just didn’t gel with me. Could be the global pandemic just made the whole concept of a zombie virus apocalypse a less fun concept to deal with, could be the fact that the Marvel Zombie’s comic run was more interesting, could be that 30 minutes was too short a run time to really do this idea justice. Who knows? I feel like this was edited down from a longer episode. There was maybe a minute between the Vision’s cryptic warning to Bucky to the reveal that he’d been going to some dark places to try to get Wanda back, which is not how you pace a scene like that. I liked that Peter was the one trying to keep people’s spirits up, as that’s something he tries to do, even if in most continuities he relies more on his bad jokes than hope speeches. I think part of what made this feel… odd was the zombie heroes themselves. In Marvel Zombies, a mini-series that ran from Dec. 05-April 06, the virus that transformed nearly all of earth’s heroes into zombies didn’t turn them into mindless “ugghh” zombies, no it did the much scarier thing of leaving the heroes with their intelligence and personalities but with an insatiable craving for human flesh. A good chunk of Spider-Man’s dialogue is devoted to him sobbing about having eaten Aunt May and MJ. The horror and fear come from seeing your heroes still be your heroes but not being able to stop themselves from killing. In this, they are dumb zombies, but with the heroes somehow having enough of their minds left to be able to do their individual skills. Something about this just doesn’t jive. Or maybe that Episode four was so good that it brings this episode down further in my esteem for only being okay. I’m not sure. Regardless, I think it was okay. We’re doing episode 6 tomorrow. 

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