Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Iman Vellani, Todd Williams, Florence Pugh, Elizabeth Olsen, Awkwafina, David Harbour, Paul Rudd, Tessa Thompson, Hailee Steinfeld, Dominque Thorne, Kerry Condon, Kenna Ramsey, Kari Wahlgren, Simi Liu, Randall Park, Feodor Chin, Wyatt Russell, Rama Vallury, Hudson Thames, Greg Furman, Adam Hugill, Daniel Swain, Sheila Atim, F. Murray Abraham.

One of the most intriguing episodes of the animated What If? series from the great American comic house of Marvel, is surely the one that delved into the world of horror as Zombies overwhelmed and desecrated the ranks of the heroes that the fans adored, leaving only a rag tag bunch to fight Wanda Maximoff as her new persona, that of The Red Queen.

The four-part series of Marvel Zombies connects that singular episode and offers a genuine appreciation of some of the lesser characters drawn upon over the course of the last few years as they fall one by one in the pursuit of saving the universe, and the way that the producers and the creators, Bryan Adams and Zeb Wells, set out this alternative narrative of good v evil with consummate ease.

With very few of the established names of Marvel actually inhabiting the roles presented in the very best of graphic novel terms, the face off between the Queen and Iman Vellani’s Kamela Khan/Ms. Marvel is a particular highlight. However, even just the appearance of characters such as Hailee Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop, the excellent representation of Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova and David Harbour’s Alexei Shostakov add exciting colour to a story that is in itself one of high evolution and persistent cool.

It is perhaps telling that of late the finest of series or one offs have come in the animated form, away from the live action films, from the television series, the animation has given the audience more in terms of emotional security and freedom to truly see the characters at their absolute best, and their most broken. The sense of devastation at the hands of a virus playing on the fears of the audience who have lived through so much anxiety in the last decade of just how precarious life can be is palpable and gives the resonance of the times that spiky edge of diseased foregone conclusion that stalks us indefinitely.

A great series that opens the door for its own sequel, a fierce delivery by Marvel in its purest form.

Ian D. Hall