In the upcoming TV series Marvel Zombies Icaris of the Eternals will appear — a twist that makes the zombie virus even more disturbing. The Eternals introduced a new cosmic superhero group to the MCU, but until now Marvel seemed wary of integrating them into the broader MCU. Chloe Zhao’s film may have included a third act in which a giant Celestial began to break out of the Earth’s core, but so far the Eternals seem to have mostly influenced the general universe thanks to Kingo’s Bollywood career, whose name is mentioned in Miss Marvel. .
Ironically, it now seems that the first MCU project to include a cameo by one of the Eternals will be Marvel Zombies, which is now set for 2024 with a TV-MA rating. The Marvel Studios animation panel at Comic-Con 2022 in San Diego included confirmation of an extensive cast list, including Elena, Kate Bishop, Agent Wu, Red Sentinel, Merchant of Death, Shang-Chi and Kamala Khan among the living heroes. Surprisingly, Marvel also reported that at least one of the Eternals will become a zombie — Ikaris, who is played by Richard Madden in The Eternals.
This is an unexpected twist because it means that the zombie virus is even more contagious than previously thought. In the MCU, the Eternals are synthetic beings, not organic. The previous creations of the Celestials, Deviants, became scammers as a result of evolution, and the Celestials, such as Arish, switched to using synthetics precisely because they will not change. Thus, it is an important point that the zombie virus has infected a completely new form of life.
What does Zombie Ikaris mean for a Zombie Virus
The zombie virus originated from the Quantum world, but it is reasonable to assume that even there it naturally spread through completely organic beings. Infecting the Eternal either means that the virus is more resistant than previously thought, or, even worse, that it is actually evolving to infect other kinds of life forms. It’s true that the process the Celestials used to create the Eternals is still a mystery; they were certainly organic enough that their energy was drained by the deviant Kro warlord. However, successfully infecting the Eternals could mean that the virus is evolving in a direction where even fully synthetic creatures like Vision are no longer protected.
At first glance, Marvel Zombies seems like a direct continuation of the timeline shown in Marvel’s What If…? Episode 5, but the inclusion of the Scarlet Witch Zombies is actually a problem. She was one of the zombies summoned by Supreme Strange to battle Ultron in episode 9, and she was apparently destroyed when Ultron destroyed an entire planet. Presumably, the actions of Supreme Strange created what Marvel calls a “nexus”, where the timeline is divided into several branches; the action of the upcoming Disney + TV-MA series takes place in the branch where Strange did not open the portal. It’s funny, but this increases the likelihood that Ultron created new branched timelines, and did not destroy them —timelines in which he never wreaked havoc at all. Ultron may not have been as dangerous as the Observer made the audience believe, but the zombie virus in Marvel Zombies is even worse.
