The MCU's first animated outing just finished its first season, and it's a wild one. There's a lot of interesting stuff to touch on, so let's get started. What If...? is based on the comic series of the same name, which explores alternate outcomes and events from the Marvel Universe. While the comics explored a wide range of things such as "What if Spider-Man became the Punisher", the What If animated series specifically explores alternate events of the MCU. This first season explores nine such events, eight of which I will summarize below (the finale is a massive spoiler, and will have its own section). Like the comics, these episodes are narrated by The Watcher, a cosmic being who observes all that transpires in the universe, but vows to never interfere. S1E1 The first episode explores a straightforward What If: what if Peggy Carter received the Super Soldier Serum instead of Steve Rogers? It's kind of just a creative retelling of The First Avenger, so things aren't wild yet, but there are some neat surprises in here. I also just like that Captain Carter (who was pretty much just a one-off character from the Exiles series) gets a spotlight on some mainstream media. S1E2 Episode 2 is where What If starts taking advantage of its alternate reality premise, exploring the question of what would happen if T'Challa had become Star-Lord instead of Peter Quill. That seems like a complete impossibility if you're going off of the movies, but the episode gives a decent explanation as to how it could have happened. Other characters are reimagined in an interesting way, and the episode overall is a fun romp where the late Chadwick Boseman shines as a charismatic lead. S1E3 Here's where shit gets dark, as this episode sees what would happen if the Avengers were assassinated before they had a chance to assemble. This is set during what's called "Fury's Big Week" (the span of time in the MCU when the events of Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, and Thor are occurring), and it's a cool take on a murder mystery where Nick Fury races against time to identify the killer (the identity of which is a pleasant surprise). I thought this was a cool episode, but it could have used an extra couple of minutes to really build the mystery. S1E4 Another origin is reimagined here, as instead of losing the ability to use his hands (and perform surgery), the Doctor Strange of this universe loses the love of his life Christine Palmer. Both events send him on a path to becoming the Sorcerer Supreme, but this alternate take is significantly more dark and tragic. I was quite impressed at how bleak they made this episode, and there were some incredible visuals here as well. This version of Doctor Strange was such a fascinating character to watch, both in terms of his emotional journey and his capabilities (which appear to surpass that of his live-action counterpart). S1E5 This episode is essentially an adaptation of Marvel Zombies (the classic alternate universe comic series by Robert Kirkman), and shows us a world where Earth's Mightiest Heroes become zombies. I didn't think this was as strong as an episode it could have been, as it didn't have time to build the drama and missed a few key elements of the original comic. That said, it was still a decent MCU post-apocalypse, with weird (in a good way) character team-ups and fascinating plot points (like the origin of the "zombie virus" and a couple of neat plot twists). S1E6 Yet another origin story is given the ol' remix, as this episode takes a look at what would happen if Tony Stark was saved by Killmonger (and thus never became Iron Man). It was awesome to see Killmonger back in some form, and we get to see a neat story where he and Stark (who never has his life-changing experience) work together. Wakanda is heavily featured in this episode, and I quite enjoyed how Killmonger's journey to return to the nation is changed with one fateful encounter. S1E7 After a string of dark or otherwise bleak episodes (something that's also common in the original What If comics), this episode takes a backseat and is pure cartoony fun. It asks what would happen to Thor character-wise if Odin had never adopted Loki, and the result is a hell of a lot sillier than I expected. This one was just hijinks and laughs, which was refreshing after the trajectory of the episodes before this point, and there were plenty of cheeky references to boot. S1E8 We have another post-apocalypse here, as this episode looks at a world where Ultron succeeds with its original plan in the movie and uploads its consciousness to Vision's body. This is where shit goes off the rails, and while there are some plot points I have my qualms with, I enjoyed this episode on the account that it establishes Ultron as the Avengers-level threat it was meant to be (and never really became in Age of Ultron). Plus, there were some neat twists in this episode, which I'll get into in the spoiler section. [spoilers come after the fifth paragraph] Like any anthology series, What If has its amazing episodes and not-so-amazing episodes, but I'd say my experience is a net positive. That said, I do still have my criticisms. I wish some of the episodes had more time to breathe (they were all around 30 mins); it would have helped flesh out some of the more ambitious episode concepts. The shorter runtimes work for some episodes, but for episodes like the murder mystery and the zombies episode, I feel like the extra time would have been beneficial. I also wish they fully took advantage of the whole idea of exploring alternate realities to further build on the main MCU's lore. The fact that this whole show is about viewing established and familiar events from a different lens makes it an amazing world-building tool for the main universe, and there are some episodes that do capitalize on this. For example, the murder mystery episode reveals a previously unknown connection to Black Widow and The Incredible Hulk, while the Ultron episode adds a new layer to HYDRA as it was during Winter Soldier. Unfortunately, the show only does this world-building like this sparingly, and while it doesn't really affect the show's quality, I personally would have loved more storytelling like this. On the flip side, the liberties this show takes with the MCU can go a bit too far, and some of the changes they made for the episodes start to really muddy what's already becoming a convoluted main continuity. Examples of this include how certain characters/character interactions were handled, events or possibilities that are glaringly omitted or altered, or straight up anachronistic appearances. Now, granted, you can hand-wave these off to be "oh, that's just an oddity of this specific universe", but I feel like alternate reality stories require some level of consistency with certain elements of the main reality to be really enjoyable (for me, at least). There were definitely a few moments in this season that felt super jarring because it clashes with what has been established in the main MCU. Despite all this, I still had a fun time watching What If overall, with its neat concepts and nice animation. If you're an MCU fan whose slowly getting overwhelmed with all the content that's slated to come out in the coming months, I can understand why you maybe want to just skip this one. As it is right now, I can agree with the notion that S1 isn't necessary viewing, but even then, I still insist that you check it out. It may not be connected to the main MCU (yet), but I think the show can be enjoyed as it is: an exploration of alternate events to a well-established story. [spoilers directly below; you've been warned]
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June 2024
Derryck
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