What If…? Season 1, Episode 5 Recap: The Chaotic World of Marvel Zombies

Warning: This piece contains spoilers for What If…? Season 1, Episode 5.

Marvel’s What If…? season 1, episode 5 focuses on Marvel Zombies. It features zombie versions of iconic Marvel characters such as Iron Man, Captain America, Hawkeye, Doctor Strange, and more. The cast of What If...? episode 5 includes Mark Ruffalo, Chadwick Boseman, Danai Gurira, Evangeline Lilly, Emily VanCamp, Jon Favreau, Paul Rudd, Tom Hiddleston, Paul Bettany, and more. The series is directed by Bryan Andrews and AC Bradley is the head writer.

What If…? Season 1, Episode 5 Recap

The fifth episode of What If…? opens with Bruce Banner crashing into an alternate version of Earth as Hulk. He intends to warn the human race about the arrival of Thanos. However, after reaching Earth, Banner notices that the place is already mostly abandoned. Thanos arrives and tries to kill Banner, who is unable to transform into Hulk.

A portal opens up, which brings Iron Man, Captain America, Doctor Strange, and Wong just in time to save Banner. But, Iron Man and others keep brutally attacking Thanos and Banner notices something strange about the Avengers. Iron Man, Strange, Captain America, and Wong have all become zombies. Fortunately, he is saved by Spider-Man, Hope Van Dyne, and Doctor Strange’s Cloak. They take Banner to a hideout, where he meets Bucky, Happy, Kurt, Okoye, and Sharon Carter. Hope explains Banner that Hank Pym travelled to the Quantum Realm to bring back Janet Van Dyne, but Janet was infected with the Quantum Virus that turned her into a zombie. Janet attacks Hank to turn him into a zombie and they both bring the virus to Earth. Scott Lang becomes their first victim and the virus starts spreading rapidly. Things got worse when the Avengers decide to help out and get infected.

The team receives a report that there is a cure for the virus at Camp Lehigh. On their journey to the camp, Hope gets infected and decides to sacrifice herself to allow the group avoid a fight with hordes of zombies. After reaching Camp Lehigh, they discover that Vision and Scott Lang’s head have been hiding from the zombies. Vision found out that the Mind Stone had the potential to cure the virus. However, Vision was hiding a dark secret. He was holding zombie version of Wanda captive, who resists the cure with her powerful chaos magic. Vision had kidnapped T’Challa to feed Wanda and she had already eaten his right leg.

After being confronted by Banner and Okoye, Vision decides to do the right thing and gives Spider-Man his Mind Stone. Spider-Man, Scott Lang, T’Challa, and Doctor Strange’s Cloak somehow escape and try to reach Wakanda to transmit the power of Mind Stone to the entire world. Meanwhile, Okoye and Bucky get killed while trying to fight Wanda. The episode ends on a dark note, where zombified Thanos has gathered five Infinity Stones.

What If…? episode 5 has several action-packed moments and somewhat of an emotional arc for Peter Parker. As the episode ends on a cliff-hanger, we can expect this story to be continued in a future episode or season.

What If…? season 1, episode 5 is now streaming on Disney Plus Hotstar.

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