They're coming to get you, Citizens of the Marvel Multiverse. Well, that just means everyone. If the maxim of Marvel Comics holds, anyone who attends a comic convention in cosplay is at risk of getting sucked into the horrific, dimension-hopping world of Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness opened by Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) in Spider-Man: No Way Home. For any MCU cosplayer, it's time to watch reruns of Ash vs. Evil Dead to learn how to slay zombies the Sam Raimi way because it seems Zombie Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and the Zombie Strange are coming to the Marvel Multiverse.
A new TV spot for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse Madness, released on March 8th, shows multiple scenes with Zombie Strange and a quick moment with Zombie Wanda. This appears to be the first time MCU fans have seen Zombie Wanda in live-action and could indicate Doctor Strange opened a portal to another (?) undead dimension. That's why Ashley Joanna Williams (Bruce Campbell) needs to show up with his boomstick.
The zombie version of the Scarlet Witch is introduced in the fifth episode of What If...? The episode begins well after the undead Quantum Virus devoured most of the world and surprised many fans with a twist straight out of the Marvel Zombies line of comics (except for Wanda keeps Vision caged for a while). On the Disney+ show, however, Vision has been secretly protecting an undead version of Wanda at Camp Lehigh and has been luring in unsuspecting human survivors to keep her appetite for brainnnnnsssss satiated.
Doctor Strange Summons Zombie Wanda
However, What If...? did not keep Zombie Wanda in one universe for long. In the ninth episode, she is summoned along with other zombies by Strange Supreme to an uninhabited world in another universe to help him confront Ultron. Once there, although she can withstand the AI's destruction of the zombie horde, she is killed when her Ultron-assimilated hubby destroys the planet with an Infinity Stone-powered blast.
With Raimi on board as director for the Doctor Strange sequel, it makes sense for Ashy Slashy to save the Marvel Multiverse from the undead magical menace, aka Zombie Wanda and Zombie Strange. After all, Raimi knows how to work with the source material. In his Spider-Man trilogy, it's like watching a comic book swinging straight onto the big screen. Marvel fans should expect no less in Doctor Strange 2. There is already plenty of source material supporting the Deadite slaying, broomstick toting Ash Williams as the film's hero (with some significant Marvel superhero help, of course).
Ash Williams has already appeared in Marvel Comics. He appeared in a version of the Marvel universe in 2007's Marvel Zombies vs. Army of Darkness by John Layman, Fabiano Neves, Fernando Blanco, Sean Phillips, June Chung, Randy Gentile, and Rus Wooton, with covers by Arthur Suydam. Unfortunately, in one of these universes, he meets an untimely end when he meets the blood-drenched bill of an anthropomorphized, extraterrestrial, infected, cannibal, zombie duck. Yes, it's Howard.
Check out the new Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness TV spot below: