The first trailer for Marvel Zombies has arrived — and it does not pull its punches. Marvel’s four-part animated spinoff, slated to land on Disney+ on Sept. 24, leans hard into gruesome spectacle, repurposing familiar MCU faces into a relentless, gore-forward nightmare. Unlike previous animated Marvel installments, this one carries a TV-MA rating and a clear promise: expect much darker, much bloodier versions of heroes you thought you knew.
What the trailer shows
The clip — just under two minutes long — moves at breakneck speed, trading quips for carnage. It opens and closes on scenes of visceral violence: dismembered limbs, swarming undead, and frenetic swordplay. A standout moment introduces Blade Knight, a Moon Knight–style take on the Daywalker who spectacularly slices through an undead Ghost associated with the Thunderbolts. The character, voiced by Todd Williams, brings a showy, blade-heavy combat style that steals several of the trailer’s best frames. The trailer’s soundtrack — Babymetal and Poppy’s 2025 track “from me to u” — backs the mayhem with a pulsing, metallic edge.
Who returns — and who’s been twisted
Rather than building a whole new ensemble, Marvel Zombies draws from the MCU’s existing pool of characters and voice talent. The trailer confirms vocal returns from many familiar actors: Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Rudd, Florence Pugh, David Harbour, Tessa Thompson, Simu Liu, Awkwafina, Hailee Steinfeld, Wyatt Russell, Randall Park, Iman Vellani, and Dominique Thorne, among others. On-screen heroes such as Ms. Marvel, Kate Bishop, Jimmy Woo, Yelena Belova, Okoye, Captain America and Wanda Maximoff appear either as survivors, fighters, or — chillingly — as members of the undead horde.
From a What If? episode to a four-part horror event
The project grew out of a zombified take that originally appeared in What If…? — specifically Season 1’s Episode 5, “What If…Zombies?” In that episode, Janet van Dyne brings a contagion back from the Quantum Realm that quickly transforms many Avengers into ravenous corpses. Early victims include Hank Pym, Hope van Dyne (the Wasp), and Scott Lang (Ant-Man). The episode then follows a small band of human survivors — including the Wasp, Spider-Man, Winter Soldier, Hulk, Sharon Carter and Okoye — as they flee a world overrun by infected superhumans. That version ends on a grim cliffhanger involving a zombified Thanos and an incomplete Infinity Gauntlet; Marvel Zombies picks up the idea and expands it into a focused, four-episode arc that turns up the gore and the stakes.
Creative roots and production
Marvel Zombies traces its conceptual lineage even further back: the Marvel Zombies concept began as a comic series created by Robert Kirkman in 2005. For the Disney+ adaptation, creators Bryan Andrews and Zeb Wells lead the project, with a production team that lists Kevin Feige, Louis D’Esposito, Brad Winderbaum, Dana Vasquez-Eberhardt, Andrews and Wells as executive producers, and Danielle Costa and Carrie Wassenaar as producers. The series intentionally adopts the off-canon, alternate-universe style of What If…?, but it embraces a much darker tone and the TV-MA classification to explore horror elements that previous MCU entries have largely avoided.
What to expect
Expect a compact, intense story that trades the usual MCU’s family-friendly beats for blood, body horror, and high-velocity action. The series promises surprise variants (like Blade Knight) rather than strict adaptations of already announced live-action versions — so, for instance, Mahershala Ali’s long-teased Blade remains a separate (and still-developing) presence in the MCU, while this animated project experiments with a different Daywalker variant. Fans should also watch for blink-and-you-miss-it cameos: the trailer peppers in zombified versions of characters such as Hawkeye, Abomination and Namor assembling an undead army.
Whether you’re drawn by inventive alternate takes on beloved heroes or you want to see how far Marvel will push animated violence, Marvel Zombies aims to be a short, sharp shock to the MCU’s animated lineup. The series premieres on Disney+ on September 24.
