Marvel Studios' upcoming animated series Marvel Zombies will be its first Disney+ original aimed exclusively at mature audiences.
During the Marvel Studios Animation panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2022, it was confirmed that Marvel Zombies would be Marvel Studios' first Disney+ original series to carry a TV-MA rating, with studio executives promising plenty of gore. Thus far, all of Marvel's live-action Disney+ originals, plus the animated series What If...?, have been rated TV-14.
It was during the same panel that Marvel revealed some of the characters that would factor into the Marvel Zombies animated series. The heroes and villains that have been turned into undead monsters include Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch, Ava Starr/Ghost, Clint Barton/Hawkeye, Emil Blonsky/Abomination, Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel, Steve Rogers/Captain America and Ikaris. Meanwhile, the survivors include the likes of Yelena Belova/Black Widow, Kate Bishop/Hawkeye, Jimmy Woo, Shang-Chi, Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel, Li Ching-Lin/Death Dealer, Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian and Katy (of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings fame).
It's Terror Time Again
Spinning out of the events of Ultimate Fantastic Four, Marvel Comics' original Marvel Zombies limited series was written by Robert Kirkman (writer and co-creator of Image Comics' The Walking Dead), illustrated by Sean Phillips, colored by June Chung and lettered by Randy Gentile. The series ran for five issues from December 2005 to April 2006. Since then, Marvel has revisited Marvel Zombies for various sequels and spinoffs.
During Disney+ Day in November 2021, Marvel Studios announced that a Marvel Zombies animated series was in the works for the streaming platform. Marvel Zombies was previously adapted into an episode of the studio's aforementioned Disney+ animated series What If...?, which premiered in 2021, offering a glimpse at what the Marvel Cinematic Universe could have looked like, had key events played out differently.
Marvel Studios has also depicted its heroes as zombies in live-action on occasion. For instance, in the 2019 film Spider-Man: Far From Home, a grieving Peter Parker/Spider-Man encounters a zombified Iron Man as part of a terrifying illusion crafted by the villainous Quentin Beck/Mysterio. Additionally, the more recent film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness sees Dr. Stephen Strange possess the dead, rotting corpse of one of his own multiversal variants.
The Defenders Paved the Way for Marvel Zombies' TV-MA Rating
While Marvel Zombies will be Marvel Studios' first TV-MA-rated Disney+ original series, it will not be the first TV-MA-rated Marvel show on the platform. Previously, Marvel Television produced a collection of live-action, MCU-adjacent shows -- Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, The Defenders and The Punisher -- which originally ran as Netflix original series between April 2015 and June 2019, each carrying a TV-MA rating.
This past February, it came to light that these six shows would actually be leaving Netflix. They were officially added to Disney+'s library in March, and are now collectively referred to as "The Defenders Saga." To accommodate the more mature content of shows like Daredevil, Disney+ revamped its parental controls, allowing for TV-MA and R-rated content to appear on the platform for those who wish to see it. In fact, 20th Century Fox's Marvel-licensed X-Men spinoff films Deadpool and Logan were recently added to Disney+ in the United States, becoming the first R-rated movies on the platform.
Source: The Direct