Marvel Just Confirmed How the Multiverse Will Continue After Avengers: Secret Wars

Believe it or not, the MCU’s Multiverse Saga is nearing its end. Although most fans prefer the Infinity Saga’s purity, it can’t be denied that Marvel’s second era has offered much more bang for your buck, encompassing hundreds of hours of content across movies, live-action series, animated series, and one-off specials. What’s more, for the first time, Marvel has released projects set outside the MCU’s universe, including The Fantastic Four: First Steps, X-Men ’97, and the reality-hopping What If . . .?

With things set to reach a no-doubt cataclysmic conclusion in 2027’s Avengers: Secret Wars, theorists have long speculated that the MCU will close its doors to the multiverse once again after the end of this saga, allowing for a new chapter to begin (the Mutant Saga?). However, some surprising news from Marvel Studios has seemingly confirmed that the multiverse is not going anywhere, after all, and the MCU will continue exploring vast new realities even years into the lifespan of the next saga.

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Marvel Zombies Set to Continue on Disney Plus Through 2029

Marvel Studios offered some exciting announcements on its TV front at October’s New York Comic-Con. On top of the unveiling of a new live-action “spy thriller” series, Zodiac, coming in 2028, the studio confirmed that three new Marvel Zombies specials are set to release over the next three spooky seasons. Marvel Zombies: The Winter Soldier breaks out onto Disney Plus around Halloween 2027, with Marvel Zombies: The Fist of Khonshu following in its shambling footsteps in October 2028. Finally, Marvel Zombies: The Last Guardian takes a bite out of streaming in 2029.

For those who need a refresher course, Marvel Zombies — based on the comic book series of the same name, by The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman — spans out of an episode of What If . . .? Season 1. Set in a universe where the Avengers had become brain-munching undead monsters, the four-part animated series released in 2025, ending on a massive cliffhanger that teased more to come. With no news on a second season dropping over the past 12 months, however, fans assumed it had been canceled. But — as is often the case with the living dead — Marvel Zombies has proven hard to kill.

Going by the subtitles of these specials, fans can likely expect the first to focus on Bucky Barnes, one of the heroic survivors, last seen in the What If . . .? episode. The second then seems set to star the Zombies universe’s most unique variant — a version of Blade with Moon Knight’s powers. The title of the third teases the zombie outbreak spreading into outer space, with only one of the Guardians of the Galaxy still left alive. As intriguing as the Marvel Zombies news is on its own, though, this announcement may also tell us something major about both the plot of Secret Wars and its repercussions.

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More Marvel Zombies Confirms the Multiverse Is Going Nowhere

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The hidden significance of this Marvel Zombies news is not just that there’s plenty more Marvel animation on the way, but that there is plenty more of the multiverse to come, too — even once the next saga begins. By fall 2029, when the final Zombies special hits streaming, the MCU’s third saga will have been in effect for almost two full years. So it is 100% confirmed that Marvel Studios will continue exploring other realities, even after whatever multiversal mayhem occurs in Secret Wars.

This is something of a surprise, as fans had widely theorized that Marvel would use Secret Wars to streamline its ever-sprawling franchise. As teased in the ominous post-credits scenes of the Avengers: Endgame Encore re-release, both Doomsday and Secret Wars will feature the destruction of countless universes across the multiverse. Now, obviously no one was expecting the Avengers to let these universes die and fail to save the day, but fans were anticipating some kind of multiversal reboot. Maybe something that would integrate various timelines into one, e.g., the Fantastic Four’s Earth-828 merging with Earth-616. The comic book version of Secret Wars did much the same thing, by folding the Ultimate Universe into the mainline continuity.

As it happens, Secret Wars may have a much smaller impact on the multiverse than predicted. Clearly, many universes will remain untouched by the events of Avengers 6 and continue unscathed. Similarly, from a real-world perspective, Marvel will clearly keep on releasing projects set outside the MCU continuity. In addition to Marvel Zombies, both Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man and X-Men ’97 seem to have several seasons left in the tank. Apparently, the multiverse is just too deep a well of ideas — or, if you’re being cynical, too big a cash-cow — to ignore even once the Multiverse Saga is kaput.

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The expansion of the multiverse has been something of a controversial move for Marvel, as many critics have labeled this saga’s tangled, more homework-heavy storytelling as one of the reasons the franchise has endured a bumpier road this decade. On the other hand, multiversal films like Deadpool & Wolverine and Spider-Man: No Way Home have been among the highest-grossing movies of the 2020s so far. Likewise, much of Avengers: Doomsday’s marketing has focused on the appeal of various familiar faces from Marvel’s multiversal past making a comeback. Not every multiverse-related project has been a slam-dunk, but as long as the hit rate is high, then Marvel is likely going to keep all those other Earths spinning.

Come December 2027, Avengers: Secret Wars might just skip the franchise-wide reboot that fans were banking on and instead deliver more of a casual refresh. Despite the enormous stakes that are promised as we head into these next two Avengers movies, this Marvel Zombies news suggests that the multiverse will remain a big part of the MCU for the foreseeable future. After all, it’s hard to put the genie back in the bottle once it’s out. Or, to put it another way, it’s hard to contain a zombie virus once it’s spread.