Anyone that’s ever watched a movie in their life will be completely aware that no good can ever come of digging up a virus that’s been embedded in permafrost for almost 50,000 years, so you can completely understand why Clark Gregg has become so concerned by a recent discovery.
The longtime Marvel Cinematic Universe favorite may not have appeared in the What If…? episode that saw a cavalcade of superheroes transformed into flesh-eating undead monsters, but the season 6 finale of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. did lean fairly hard into similar territory, so his knowledge of the comic book company’s zombie background puts him in good stead to share his fears.
It sounds like the plot of a horror flick, but science has nonetheless decided that reviving the ancient virus is something worth looking into and experimenting with, because no harm has ever come from evils being awakened from their frozen slumber to end up wreaking catastrophic damage on humanity.
We’re assured that the risks are low, even though that was swiftly followed up by the helpful addendum that chemical and radioactive waste dating back to the Cold War is also in danger of being released as the Arctic thaw continues in the midst of a global warming crisis.
Just when you thought the environmental damage couldn’t get any more serious, along comes a zombie plague that’s almost 50,000 years old, with potentially radioactive materials thrown into the mix, too. What a time to be alive, or in this case, potentially undead.