The following article contains spoilers forWhat If…?.
What If…?is an odd entry in theMCUlibrary as the show is not only Marvel Studio’s first foray into the animated territory, it’s also a rare instance to see many of the heroes on whose shoulders the superhero film genre was built on without the needed interconnection in-between different franchises.
While Marvel boss Kevin Feige andWhat If…?’sproducers have confirmed the series is canon to the MCU, throughout its plot, the show carried itself independently from the Infinity Saga movies that inspired, with its stories being stronger the more that each entry departed from the original movies.What If…?episodes were also completely independent from one another, up untilInfinity Ultron crashed Thor’s party in episode seven, and that’s arguably the way it should have stayed for the sake of the show’s entertainment qualities.
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See, the entire premise forWhat If…?comic books is that all of its stories are exercises of the imagination to venture off inside other universes, so much likeThe Twilight ZoneorAre You Afraid of the Dark?, each ending could be as grim or filled with doom without any type of lasting consequences in Marvel Comics' many universes. The reason why that results in high-value entertainment is simply because sometimes it’s nice to see the good guys lose.
It’s easy for any Marvel fan to watchWhat If…? and pick out a favorite episode that plays out a new side to their favorite character or one story that they might feel would just make for a -hypothetically- better mainline MCU. However, the impact of having Doctor Strange lose everything is somewhat diminished when in the finale his demise leads to him escaping his imprisonment to save the world asDoctor Strange Supreme, the most powerful Guardianof the Multiverse.
What if…?can either be a series of one-off adventures to tackle superheroes and villains in a fun, meaningless new vision; or it can be a collection of intertwined stories conceived in a similar way to the MCU plots, however, by attempting to do both it falls short in each of the two categories. The season finale features not one but technically three villains as Infinity Ultron is succeeded byKillmonger’s ever-present thirst for power, and then Arnim Zola’s usual brand of nazi fantasies, yet the problem is that two of these only came into the mix barely one episode earlier.
Great MCU villainsare good when they have deep connections to the heroes they’re fighting, that’s precisely what separatesBlack Panther’sKillmonger orShang-Chi’sMandarinfrom a bunch of Laufeys. On the opposite end, each of the antagonists work well enough in the individual episodes, or at least as good as they did in their original stories because writers are not trying to elevate them by climbing on the shoulders ofWhat If…?’sfinale, which is the problem with Infinity Ultron in the final episode.
Episode 8 does a fantastic job at expanding on its"Age of Ultron gone wrong" plot, in fact, the android is among the characters that benefit the most fromWhat If…?despite the fact that his defeat robs him of that very impact. On the other hand, if writers wanted to set up an epic showdown asWhat If…?’smain goal and season ending suggest, the climax could have been much better if the Guardians of the Multiverse weren’t recruited by The Watcher in less than a couple of minutes.
As the saying goes, you can’t have your cake and eat it too, and that’s possibly something that could apply toWhat If…?’sentire approach. Make no mistake,What If…?is very entertaining, fun, and quite an easy watch, it works great as animated content; nevertheless, if the series is ultimately added to the mainline MCU canon, then the “unrelated up to the very end” route won’t do a lot character building for futureCaptain Carterand Doctor Strange Supreme appearances in future movies.
What If…?post-credits scene hints at a season two that will feature a lot of Steve Rogers andCaptain Carter (along with The Watcher), the latter was always hinted the most important character in the series, yet there’s really no sign of that anywhere else in the series besides this tiny teaser. Again, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with that, but it does detract from the idea of having a protagonist if writers choose that road.
Marvel Studios doesn’t need to write a fully coherent story for eachWhat If…?season or the show as a whole, the numbers and popularity from weeks 1 through 7 prove that. Instead, they could dish out one short twisted Marvel story after another and still get the viewership craved by Disney because one thing is for sure, playing too many angles at a time doesn’t even work for Loki the trickster god.
