Eye-popping gore and relentless death bring Marvel Animation’s latest project, “Marvel Zombies,” to life. Oozing with unapologetic violence and carnage, the miniseries never hesitates to make every death in the series as dazzling and gruesome as possible. The otherwise mediocre plot is set in an alternate timeline featuring some of the newer superheroes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The TV-MA animated series, which was released on Wednesday, continues the story of the “What If…?” episode titled “What If… Zombies?!” and follows Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) — aka Ms. Marvel — in the ruins of human civilization as she joins forces with the few surviving heroes of Earth as they try to cure humanity and stay alive.

The series does an incredible job dropping the audience into the story, wasting no time on unnecessary details or exposition, with Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) shooting and killing a zombie with her signature bow and arrow within the first 20 seconds of the show. The rest of the series also follows suit; no death feels drawn out or hesitant, keeping the pacing highly engaging.

We are introduced to the first team of heroes — consisting of Kamala, Kate and Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) — as they stumble upon what they believe to be their saving grace: a beacon that would contact the Nova Corps in outer space. Riri says she needs better hardware to use the beacon, thus kicking off the three’s adventure to a S.H.I.E.L.D. base in Ohio — a seemingly straightforward start to a linear adventure that quickly meets obstacles.

A few minutes into their journey, the trio of heroes is ambushed by a zombified Captain Marvel, who absolutely fries Kate, disintegrating her with cosmic energy. Kate’s death is so artistic and beautiful, as her skeleton is briefly shown while she dusts away. Riri is also unexpectedly bitten by a zombie shortly after.

To have two characters the audience thought would be in the main trio obliterated so quickly sets the grisly, brazen tone of the series within the first 15 minutes.

Kamala is rescued by Blade Knight (Todd Williams), who is animated cleanly throughout the show. His combat choreography is delectable, especially his face-off with a zombified Ava Starr at the S.H.I.E.L.D. base. However, other characters sometimes shatter his effortless cool persona by commenting on how cool he is, which is pretty annoying at times.

Blade Knight takes Kamala to the S.H.I.E.L.D. base, where Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Alexei Shostakov (David Harbour) and Melina Vostokoff (Kari Wahlgren) have barricaded themselves with help from surviving Black Widows. Melina also uses mind-controlling technology first seen in “Black Widow” (2021) to control a mob of zombies — an excellent callback.

It’s at the base where Wanda Maximoff’s (Elizabeth Olsen) — aka The Queen of the Dead — zombie horde makes its first appearance, with Zombie Okoye (Kenna Ramsey) leading the assault. Watching a red-eyed zombie horde effortlessly take down the S.H.I.E.L.D. stronghold is disheartening yet satisfying, especially Okoye driving a spear through Melina without a second thought, along with Ava slaughtering all of the Widows.

The second episode starts with so much potential as Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) and Katy Chen (Awkwafina) chaotically try to flee from zombies on foot in San Francisco.

There is so much happening in this sequence, from zombies raining down from buildings to giant, Pym Particle-transformed zombies to Shang-Chi’s father, Wenwu (Feodor Chin), sacrificing himself for his son, but it all plays out perfectly with fervor and mayhem.

The rest of the episode isn’t nearly as exciting until the end, where — once all of our surviving characters meet and board a giant, “secure” water vessel, the Raft — Wanda sends a zombified Namor after them.

Even with Namor’s appearance and beautiful design, the action does not compare to that of the first episode. While there are some standout moments from Death Dealer, Shang-Chi and Katy, they aren’t as memorable with less flashy combat.

Unfortunately, episode three has the opposite fate. The introduction is mild at best, only serving to explain what happened to the characters from the original “What If…?” episode. While this is definitely needed somewhere in the story, placing it at the beginning of the episode is questionable. However, it is staggering to see a zombie Thanos obliterate Rocket Raccoon and Groot.

The end of the third episode finally gives the audience its first look at Wanda, who initially appears uninfected in New Asgard, welcomed by Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson). The facade falls, revealing she is after Kamala and infects all the surviving Asgardians to join the ranks of her ever-growing zombie army. The fakeout of seeing Wanda appear normal is so well done and reminiscent of Wanda’s actions in “WandaVision” and “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” (2022).

While seeing Wanda portrayed as a villain isn’t necessarily new to Marvel projects, “Marvel Zombies” has fun with it, having her kill the audience’s favorite heroes unsparingly. This is abundantly clear in the series’ finale, where whichever heroes are left — not many — make a final stand against Wanda to prevent her from harnessing the energy of the destroyed Infinity Stones, which was absorbed by Bruce Banner, who becomes Infinity Hulk.

As Wanda commands hordes of zombies and zombified heroes, some of the best and most ambitious visuals occur, like Valkyrie traveling through the veins of a giant zombie Hope van Dyne and popping out of her head. Even Blade Knight doesn’t stand a chance as a zombified Thor vaporizes him with a powerful lightning beam.

With an ambiguous ending that leaves room for a second season, Marvel Animation has proven that it can do blood and gore right with this massively creative and inspired project. The medium of animation lends itself to the ideal amount of bloodshed in a horror series, leaving the audience only wanting more gritty, gutsy projects from the animation studio.