Marvel Zombies Confirms That the MCU Ruined the Best Avengers Villain Arc

Marvel Zombies features a powerful villain who would have been a perfect adversary for the Marvel Cinematic Universe‘s Avengers. A follow-up to What If…? Season 1, Episode 5, “What If… Zombies?!,” Marvel Zombies takes place in an alternate reality where the undead run rampant. After most of the Avengers turn into flesh-eating zombies, the remaining heroes band together to put an end to the terrifying outbreak. Surviving MCU heroes — among them Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani), Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), and Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) — join forces and battle numerous former allies who roam the Earth as zombies. Marvel Zombies‘ horror elements and heightened brutality solidify it as one of the MCU’s most unique animated shows, and its main villain is the best part.

Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) appears as the Queen of the Dead in Marvel Zombies, making the show’s world-ending threat a familiar face to the heroes. An Avenger infected by the zombie virus, the all-powerful Scarlet Witch only appears in two of the show’s four episodes, yet holds a pivotal role in the plot. Wanda assembles an army of zombies and seeks to harness the power of the Infinity Stones to reign over the universe, posing an immeasurable danger to everyone. Although short in length, Marvel Zombies confirms that the MCU should have made Wanda the villain of an Avengers movie.

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Marvel Zombies Proves the Scarlet Witch Would Have Been an Amazing Avengers Villain

Wanda serves as an excellent villain in Marvel Zombies despite her limited screen time. Not a moment spent showing her menacing aura and glowing red eyes is wasted, as Marvel Zombies puts the zombie Scarlet Witch’s immense power on full display. Even when she’s not on screen, there’s a palpable sense of dread generated by each mention of the Queen of the Dead. In addition to Marvel Zombies‘ intimidating visual portrayal of Wanda, Olsen’s voice performance adds the right amount of maliciousness to convey the character’s wicked intentions. In Marvel Zombies, audiences get to see the Scarlet Witch as a genuine big bad, and it feels like a natural role for the morally ambiguous MCU heroine.

Unfortunately, the MCU has squandered the chance to make Wanda an Avengers-level villain in Earth-616. After fully evolving into the Scarlet Witch at the end of WandaVision (2021), Wanda acquires the Darkhold and descends into villainy. Returning just one year later in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022), Wanda is at her most powerful while under the Darkhold’s influence. The Scarlet Witch’s fearsome presence doesn’t last long, as she ends her multiversal killing spree by bringing Mount Wundagore down on herself. In the years after WandaVision, the MCU should have built up Wanda as a formidable next adversary for the Avengers, but the franchise instead rushed and wasted her villain arc in a mediocre Doctor Strange movie.

With Wanda’s future now uncertain, it’s frustrating to think about how much better the MCU could have handled her in its main timeline. Marvel Zombies validates the Scarlet Witch’s enormous potential as a big bad, rendering her trajectory in Earth-616 even more disappointing. Choosing Wanda as the next Avengers movie’s antagonist would have been a much better choice than fast-tracking Doctor Doom (Robert Downey Jr.). With six live-action projects under her belt, Olsen’s character has been thoroughly fleshed out as a compelling character, often wavering between good and evil. Wanda excels in Marvel Zombies’ relatively thin narrative, but she would have been even more interesting facing off against her old friends in an Avengers movie. The idea of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes fighting someone once in their ranks is a fascinating dynamic that the MCU failed to take advantage of.

The MCU Has Mishandled Its Villains Since Thanos and Avengers: Endgame

The majority of general audiences were captivated by the Avengers’ epic battle with Thanos (Josh Brolin) in Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019); however, the MCU has since struggled to produce a big bad on the Mad Titan’s level. Several villains, such as Namor (Tenoch Huerta), Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe), and the Void (Lewis Pullman), have stood out from the pack thanks to their unique powers and layered personalities. Even so, the MCU’s attempts to identify Thanos’s successor have been a mess.

Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors) had only appeared in the Disney+ show Loki before finally making his film debut in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023). Following the movie’s poor reviews and subpar box-office performance, Majors’ legal troubles were the final nail in the coffin for Kang. Time will tell whether Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom stacks up to Thanos in Avengers: Doomsday (2026), but his circumstances are far from ideal.

Doom glaringly lacks a solid foundation heading into Doomsday, only showing up in the brief mid-credits scene of The Fantastic Four: First Steps thus far. In the process of developing a new Avengers-level threat, the MCU has frustratingly gotten in its own way. The fierce, complex, and massively popular Scarlet Witch was right there, but the MCU missed its chance to make her the franchise’s best villain since Thanos.

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