MarvelBlog News for April 12th, 2026

Marvel’s owner may be quietly admitting a multi-year mistake.

I’ll explain in this week’s MarvelBlog News, which includes a surprising but fitting return.

Well, They Are Zombies

A couple of weeks ago, I discussed a shocking Marvel television renewal.

The Walt Disney Company, Marvel’s owner, unexpectedly brought back Wonder Man.

That show getting a season two had about the same odds as you or me winning the lottery.

Disney just left this show to die, abandoning it on the dreaded studio shelf for 18 months.

Then, when Wonder Man finally debuted on Disney+, critics and fans alike noticed something odd.

The first season of Wonder Man was really, really good, and I’m saying first season for a reason.

Disney presented the program as a limited series because it wasn’t ever going to get renewed.

Then, people watched it in much higher volume than Disney+ executives had expected.

Now, here we are. Wonder Man is getting a season two…and that’s not all.

Marvel’s Zombies, a divisive series, is also getting a second season. No, that wasn’t the plan, either.

In fact, none of this has worked out the way that Disney and Marvel officials had intended.

We’re witnessing a seismic shift in Disney’s streaming strategy, at least for Marvel content.

I may throw Star Wars in there as well, but we’re in a wait-and-see mode on that one.

Here’s what we know. Marvel’s Zombies was intended to be a standalone limited series.

Disney and Marvel like to do those to build intrigue by selling them as limited-time options.

“Watch Agatha All Along now because this is all you’re getting!”

Yes, I know that’s a bit strange, as the math doesn’t quite work out for programs like this.

A limited-time discount works for a physical product because you know it will go away soon.

Disney Changes Tactics

Digital content should last forever, even if we’ve learned the hard way that isn’t always true.

So, streamers aren’t placing any real onus on viewers by pushing them to watch quickly.

To a larger point, this strategy was always a terrible idea and a baffling one to boot.

Anyone who has ever participated in a startup knows that the early expenses are horrendous.

You must buy everything for your business, straight down to the desks, tables, and chairs.

In television, you must create entirely new sets, which cost a fortune to construct.

Thus, the goal should always be to run a series as long as possible, presuming you can minimize the budget.

The cast and production crews expect raises after a time, typically three seasons.

Therefore, every show should aim for at least three seasons and then a reasonable renegotiation.

Disney+ has programmed most Marvel and Star Wars programs to last for just one season.

The idea is that the stories could build to an epic crescendo and give each story some gravity.

Then, Andor and Loki emphatically demonstrated the benefits of second seasons.

Neither show was guaranteed a second season. Both were initially standalones that could be tied off.

We got more seasons due to the impeccable quality and the big ideas for follow-up stories.

Why We’re Getting More Zombies

The importance of those shows cannot be understated when discussing Marvel’s Zombies.

We have several of these comic book stories, but the animated series should have been a one-off.

I mean, that was the plan. However, X-Men ’97 and Marvel’s What If…? both proved something.

Marvel’s animated series are popular enough that they more than justify their expense.

Since they’re cheap but slow to make, we often see long lead times of more than a year.

For this reason, I may be reading too much into the timing of the two moves.

The Wonder Man renewal was unquestionably a stunner. Marvel’s Zombies is just weird.

Disney may have finally realized the financial wastefulness of their limited series tactic.

The studio paid a fortune for titles that, even if they were instant hits, had no future.

Disney got cocky here in trying to reinvent television after a century.

Nobody asked them to do that, and it never made good business sense, either.

So, these two renewals suggest that Disney and Marvel have reconsidered their plans.

From now on, you may be safe in becoming attached to particular programs.

I know that many of you desperately wanted more Agatha All Along.

The story absolutely set up a second season as well. Could Disney circle back now?

I’d like to think that the studio is contemplating such moves, and that’s forward progress.

At a minimum, the days of spending $200+ million on a few episodes of Secret Invasion are over.

Marvel Miscellany

Robert Downey Jr. made an Easter post last Sunday that gave away a couple of secrets.

These eggs sure seem to indicate that Spider-Man and Captain Marvel are in Avengers: Doomsday.

We didn’t know that yet, but it’d be weird for RDJ to post this without knowing something.

I suspect this is another clever attempt to gain social media engagement for the new film.

 

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Front page image credit: (Photo by Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Disney)