Brad Winderbaum, the Head of Streaming, Television, and Animation at Marvel Studios, seems to be everywhere these days.
He just revealed that the upcoming Eyes of Wakanda animated series will be canon within the sacred MCU timeline continuity and now he's hinting that the upcoming Marvel Zombies animated series will draw inspiration from the original 2005 comic book series from Sean Phillips and Robert Kirkman—yes, the same guy who created The Walking Dead.
Speaking to IGN, Winderbaum teased, "In terms of more mature animation, yeah, we're making a Marvel Zombies show right now that is pretty intense that's for sure a TV-MA show. "
"And again, it's trying to honor the comics. And what was so great about the comics was it not pulling its punches. That's certainly what we're going for on that project also."
During SDCC 2022, Marvel confirmed that the Zombies animated series would be a spinoff from What If...? season 1, episode 5 "What If... Zombies?!"
The show imagined an alternate version of events leading up to Thanos' invasion of Earth, one in which Ebony Maw and Cull Obsidian landed on a zombie-infested world due to Hank Pym unintentionally releasing the virus long ago, as he searched for a way to save his wife from the Quantum Realm.
The episode concluded with a decimated Wakanda and a zombie-like Thanos brandishing an almost complete Infinity Gauntlet.
In the five-issue 2005 miniseries, the undead Marvel heroes are already established, with a large contingent of the Avengers, X-Men and Fantastic Four inexplicably transporting themselves into an alternate reality in order to satiate their "hunger."
When a small group of zombies obtain the "power cosmic" as a result of Galactus and the Silver Surfer's ill-timed visit, things get really bad.
Furthermore, a subsequent sequel series in 2007 supplied an origin for the zombie virus in the 2005 series.
Through a crossover with Dynamite Entertainment's Army of Darkness series, it's revealed that The Watcher actually caused the zombie invasion through an eternal time-loop, in which an unstoppable Sentry would be sent back in time, over and over again, to restart the zombie invasion.
Based on Winderbaum's comments, it will be interesting to see how closely the new series adheres to the original comic. While the What If...? episode definitely altered events to fit its narrative, there were definitely elements of the 2005 comic series within the episode.
Zeb Wells (Robot Chicken) is leading development of the series, which will reportedly consist of 4 episodes. Wells will write each script while Bryan Andrews (Jackie Chan Adventures) directs.
Andrews previously disclosed that he was unsure of when Marvel Zombies will be released as he stated that Marvel was continuously shifting things around, internally.