Avengers (or what’s left of them, anyway) assemble: This article contains spoilers for “Marvel Zombies” season 1, episode 4.
Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff is both the big powerhouse and the big villain of the “Marvel Zombies” animated series. However, that doesn’t mean she’s automatically the absolute most powerful character on the show. In fact, there’s some evidence that the series is not-so-stealthily Harry Potter-izing the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s version of Kamala “Ms. Marvel” Khan (Iman Vellani) into someone even more important and potentially stronger than the undead Scarlet Witch herself.
The final 10 minutes of the “Marvel Zombies” season 1 finale put Kamala Khan on par with Wanda — who, it should be noted, is a chaos magic zombie queen who nevertheless treats Kamala as almost an equal for some reason — and a Hulk variant that holds the power of the Infinity Stones, as Ms. Marvel finds herself in the middle of a face-off between these two abnormally strong figures. During this confrontation, Wanda outright states that while Kamala is too weak to directly take her on (for now, at least), they were both destined to be there. In fact, the undead Scarlet Witch herself isn’t strong enough to “fix” the world by pulling off whatever stratagem she goes for in the deliberately obscure final moments of the episode, and she specifically needs Kamala’s powers for her plan.
Begrudgingly and out of options, Kamala decides to go with Wanda’s plan, only to end up trapped inside a fake “normal” reality á la “WandaVision,” while zombie horror is still happening behind the veil. That’s a lot of attention for an all-powerful zombie witch to give to a youngster who’s hitherto been relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of things … unless Kamala is secretly strong enough to hurt Wanda and her plans.
Marvel Zombies is gunning for a second season, and Kamala Khan could be its centerpiece
The cliffhanger ending of “Marvel Zombies” season 1 is considerably less wholesome than the surprising origin story of the show’s title (i.e. Stan Lee’s term of endearment for Marvel fans). It also proves that creators Bryan Andrews and Zeb Wells’ show would like to keep telling its story and reveal what’s up with the illusion Wanda created. It remains to be seen how, exactly, either a second season or Wanda’s plans would play out, but for the time being, we can certainly pin some educated guesses on the clue board.
Just being featured in the same climactic season 1 sequence as the Hulk and the Scarlet Witch is a pretty good indication that the “Marvel Zombies” iteration of Kamala is way more powerful than she seems to think, and the way Thor quickly recognizes her as a worthy Avenger earlier on the show seems to back this up. Kamala’s power set in the comics is fairly eclectic, and that goes double for her hard light abilities in the MCU. Both they and the mythical quantum band behind them seem to have plenty of untapped potential, which “The Marvels” has already explored. With all signs pointing toward “Marvel Zombies” embracing Kamala as a protagonist and the person with the potential to bring down a villain of zombie Wanda’s stature, I’d wager that the series is laying the groundwork for a massive power upgrade-slash-reveal.
Indeed, considering that several more experienced “Marvel Zombies” characters already treat her as a Very Important Person, it seems all the more likely that Kamala Khan will actually turn out to be one. “Marvel Zombies” is fond of overlooked MCU heroes, so Kamala might yet become the strongest character on the show — provided “Marvel Zombies” gets that second season, that is.
“Marvel Zombies” is now streaming on Disney+.
