by Nick Ferro, Contributing Writer
Growing up, I never read any of the What If… comics. However, it was a concept that I was familiar with and excited for when it was first announced as a series for Disney+. The endless possibilities with multiversal storytelling felt like a perfect way to dive into this new phase of the MCU. At least that’s what I thought back in 2019. After five years of watching Marvel present us with the most surface level of commitment to what a multiversal tale can be, I was beginning to think that the Multiverse Saga was a bad idea. Season One of What If… is a lackluster example of how to tell these types of stories. Each episode feels as though it was trapped in a box full of limits, not being too weird and outlandish for fear of alienating the unsuspecting casual audience.
This brings us to Season Two. Honestly, I was not looking forward to the new episodes all that much. I always planned to watch them, but after several movies of shallow quasi-multiversal shenanigans, I didn’t have much confidence. The first trailer and release of the episode list did a lot to help pique my interest, and after watching Season Two, I can happily say I am very pleased with the improvement this season showed. It was almost as though the production team heard all of my issues with Season One and tailor made this season to address all of them. The episodes are all about 10 to 15 minutes shorter, which results in them being a lot more streamlined and fun. They also aren’t afraid to get weird and they stray away from just retelling one of the movies over again with a slightly different plot. While there was still some of that, the approach this time feels more creative. Whether it be a result of lowered expectations or the joy of the holiday season, I had a lot of fun watching the nine new episodes that this season contains. So let’s take them one at a time and ponder the question: What If…
This season kicks off with “What If… Nebula Joined the Nova Corp?” and right off the bat, it starts strong with this Blade Runner-type story in which Nebula (Karen Gillan) becomes a Nova officer and has to solve the mystery of Yondu’s murder on Xandar. In this universe, the Guardians of the Galaxy never formed, and the only way for Xandar to repel Ronan’s attack was to activate a planetary shield. However, this means no one can leave the planet. Nebula must investigate the seedy underbelly of Xandar in order to solve a mystery full of twists and turns. She visits Howard the Duck’s (Seth Green) bar, teams up with Yon-Rogg (Jude Law), and makes friends with Korg (Taika Waititi). What I like about this episode is its noir elements. Nebula makes for the perfect quiet, no-nonsense character to lead the story, and the collection of characters is fun to see in different roles. My only negative is that the episode is a bit hamstrung by only using characters that we know from the movies.
One thing I really enjoy about this season is that not only does it start strong, it continues to deliver fun episodes, and “What If… Peter Quill Attacked Earth’s Mightiest Heroes?” is the perfect second episode. Being playfully dubbed Avengers 1988, this story takes place in the late ‘80s in a universe where Peter Quill (Mace Montgomery Miskel) was delivered to Ego (Kurt Russell), and Ego sent Peter on his mission to enact his expansion plans. When Peter arrives on Earth, S.H.I.E.L.D., led by Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) and Howard Stark (John Slattery), put together a team of heroes consisting of Hank Pym’s Ant-Man (Michael Douglas), Bill Foster’s Goliath (Laurence Fishburne), King T’Chaka’s Black Panther (Atandwa Kani), Wendy Lawson, a.k.a Mar-Vell (Keri Tombazian), the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), and Thor (Chris Hemsworth). Initially, I was worried that the shorter episode wouldn’t give enough time to really tell this story well, and to an extent, that is true. Honestly, I think it would have been better had another 10 minutes been added. But overall, this might have been my favorite because it was just so much fun! The different lineup of Avengers, combined with some familiar personalities that we know from the movies, led to a lot of humor, as well as heart. This is one episode that I think would have made a really fun live action feature. It doesn’t hurt that I’ve been saying for years that the MCU set up the idea that Ant-Man and the Wasp did missions for Shield in the ‘70s and ‘80s; they should lean into that as a potential for new stories to tell.
Did you know that you needed an MCU homage to Die Hard? I certainly didn’t, and boy am I glad someone thought of “What If… Happy Hogan Saved Christmas?” because this episode is probably the silliest of the entire season. Silly as it may be, it never becomes too outlandish — just the perfect little holiday story set in the Avengers universe. In this episode, Happy (Jon Favreau), Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders), and Darcy (Kat Dennings) are getting Avengers Tower ready for a Christmas party, when Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) locks down the tower in a very Hans Gruber way, with the goal of stealing a vile of the Hulk’s blood. Happy has to crawl through vents, talk with Darcy on a walkie, and save Christmas, all while dealing with accidentally injecting himself with the Hulk’s blood and turning into a purple hulk monster. I had such a fun time watching this one, and the best part was it was released on Christmas Eve, so we got to watch it as a family!
By now, pretty much everyone knows the story of how the story of Multiversal Avenger Gamora was delayed due to COVID. In “What If… Iron Man Crashed into the Grandmaster?” we flashback to events prior to Season One in which Tony Stark (Mick Wingert) doesn’t make it back through the portal in the first Avenger’s movie. Instead, he gets sent to Sakaar, and although initially embraced by the Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum), he eventually realizes that he is not a good guy and decides to take him down in a Mad Max/Mario Kart race for control of the planet. In this episode, Gamora (Cynthia Kaye McWilliams) is trying to capture Tony to bring to Thanos, while Tony has to team up with Korg and Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson). It is a fun racing episode that is a look at what Tony would be like in an alien environment. I very much appreciated the dynamic of Stark and Valkyrie, as well as how the story has time to focus on Stark and Gamora’s relationship. My only negative is it feels like it fast forwards the ending to get to a logical jumping-off point to last season’s episode. I wish there could have been some story left open, so we could revisit this world for another adventure.
What If…? as a story structure doesn’t typically do sequels, as the Watcher (Jeffery Wright) narrates. However, there is one character who deserves more screen time. “What If… Captain Carter Fought the Hydra Stomper?” is the continuation of where we left off last season when Captain Carter found the Hydra Stomper in her altered Winter Soldier story introduction. In this reimaged mashup of The Winter Soldier and Black Widow, we see Carter learn that Steve Rogers (Josh Keaton) is alive and was re-programmed by the Red Room now led by Melina (Rachel Weisz). We get to see more development of Peggy’s character, as well as her friendship with Black Widow (Lake Bell). I know what you’re gonna say: “Nick, I thought you didn’t like the slightly changed movie stories?” And you would be right; however, there is enough difference in this episode that gives us more world building for this universe that I really enjoyed. In this universe, Bucky is secretary in charge of S.H.I.E.L.D., and Hydra was actually defeated, so the characters who went bad are actually good guys. I appreciate that it takes the time to expand on this one universe enough that it feels like more is planned in it. In, say, a secret war perhaps.
Now on to the biggest risk of the season: “What If… Kahhori Reshaped the World?” in which we are introduced to a brand new hero, created specifically for the show. In this universe, the Tesseract crashed to Earth in pre-colonial America, creating a portal to another world and granting powers to anyone who goes through that portal. This episode is a huge risk, for one, because it creates something new, which is always risky, but it also is the one episode that is completely subtitled, as the main character is a Native American woman named Kahhori (Devery Jacobs). The story is very straightforward in that Kahhori’s village is attacked by Spanish conquistadors, and she is sucked through the aforementioned portal and transported to an alien world. Once there, she learns that her ancestors, who everyone believed to have died in a long-ago war, were really all transported here and granted long life and the powers of the tesseract. Kahhori quickly discovers that she has a knack for these new powers and wants to use them to help save her people back on Earth. She inspires her super powered kin to come with her back to Earth to be a force for change. Artistically, this risk pays off. The episode is a well-told origin story with an interesting character who is easy to relate to. Practicality is where it fails. The powers bestowed on Kahhori and her kin are very undefined and reminiscent of the Superman or Captain Marvel problem. They are too powerful, and therefore, are not challenged by anything. Additionally, the rules of how the powers are given are ignored when some of the Spanish soldiers are transported to the alien world and not granted powers, which would have made for an interesting twist. Overall, this episode was a good idea, but I would have liked to have seen it executed with more thought.
“What If… Hela Found the Ten Rings?” is the episode that I am on the fence about the most. At its core, it is merely a retelling of the Thor story, but thousands of years in the past, and this time with Hela as the main character. My biggest surprise was that Cate Blanchett reprises her role as Hela. Granted, a lot of the voice talent for this show have been the original live action actors, but to me she is such a cut above the rest that I was truly blown away when I heard her voice. Which is a me problem that comes from growing up in the ‘90s, where voiceover was treated as beneath a certain class of actor. But boy, does she give it her all. What I love about this episode is Hela as a character. We didn’t get to spend a lot of time with her in Thor: Ragnarok, so seeing her come to life here is a real treat. She is both funny and sarcastic, witty and dry, and scary yet overall very Thor-like in her demeanor. On the flip side, the episode doesn’t work for me because it is just a clever way of retelling the same story. It’s glitzed up a bit, but it is Thor with some Shang-Chi thrown in for good measure, and the Shang-Chi side of the story feels, to a degree, like an afterthought.
My favorite Marvel Comic is Marvel 1602. It’s a story I highly recommend everyone read. It is in essence a What If…? tale, only presented as a full comic run, not just a single issue. So, when I heard that “What If… The Avengers Assembled in 1602?” was the penultimate episode of the season, I was super excited, but extremely trepidatious. My fear was that they would not be able to pay the proper respect to such a fun tale. This story tells the story of time travel shenanigans that result in a world where the Avengers as we know them came to exist in the year 1602. I don’t want to spoil too much about this story, as it does stray from the original comic run, which saw the X-men, Fantastic Four, Daredevil, Spider-man and our Avengers teams come together to solve a similar problem, but with a much different twist. However, I will say this is the first story to further the idea of incorporating Captain Carter as a main character for the What If…? series, which is something I both liked and have reservations about. On one hand, my reservations come from the show’s insistence on creating a connected multiverse. The show’s strength is its unique anthology style. On the other hand, I am really starting to love Captain Carter as a character, and to see her more is, to me, always a good thing! I very much look forward to her inclusion in future projects, and we will get into that more later. Overall, 1602 is another fun, outside-the-box adventure that really works well. My only real negative is the lack of inclusion of more known characters outside the movie canon.
This brings us to our final episode of the season: “What If… Strange Supreme Intervened?” This is the episode that I think Marvel wanted us to love and get excited for, but is ultimately the worst by far. Once again, the season ends with a crossover in which Strange Supreme (Benedict Cumberbatch) from Season One conscripts Captain Carter to help him stop someone he is calling a universe killer. He has decided to guard the multiverse and imprison all versions of people who pose a threat to their respective universes. He sends Peggy to capture one of those threats, and it turns out to be Kahhori. Peggy learns fairly quickly that Kahhori is not the real threat, and there is more to the Strange’s story that he omitted. The episode quickly devolves into a greatest hits of What If…? episodes, with many familiar variants of characters we have seen throughout, and it once again showcases how Kahhori’s powers are far too upscaled for anything to ever be a threat for her. My one positive from this episode is that the chemistry between Kahhori and Peggy is engaging, and they work great as a team to take on a villain with an equally insurmountable power level. Ultimately, though, it is an incredibly weak ending for a season that, up until this point, had been riding on a high of original and fun concepts.
As a whole, I would categorize this season as a rousing success! I enjoyed watching every single episode, despite a few being less than stellar. The show has grown in a positive way since Season One, and I am very excited to see where (the already announced) Season Three will take us. My biggest complaint is the continued reliance on only using characters from the movies as focal points or side characters. I was hoping, now that X-men and Fantastic Four rights are back at Marvel, we would get to see some of those characters start to make an appearance. At this point, there better be a really good reason to not be including them in the multiversal shenanigans, because honestly, I can’t think of a better way to introduce new characters than by giving us a non-canon version of them to test things out (see: John Krasinski as Mr. Fantastic).
That minor gripe aside, there is so much that I enjoyed. The voice cast all give great performances, both the recast voice actors and A-list stars alike. An issue that Season One has is that many of the voice performances, mainly from the non-voice actors, sound a bit stiff, and don’t flow very well. Here, it was clear that they had more direction and help that probably wasn’t available due to the COVID situation of the first season. I would also be remiss to not call out the absolute MVP of this whole show: Jeffery Wright. He is absolutely the perfect casting for the Watcher! His voice has the perfect tone that can convey such a wide array of emotion. More so than that, he really pulls off the humor that the Watcher is very rarely given, making those moments stand out as some of my favorite parts. I also really love the animation style; it even feels more polished this season, and along those lines, I very much love the shortened, stylized MCU logo. The writing, as well, for every episode feels tighter and more thought-out, save for a few instances. It is much more reminiscent of watching an old Saturday morning cartoon like Justice League Unlimited this time around. Finally, I want to give my kudos to the whole production team for listening to the feedback that they received on Season One. As I said at the top, it really felt like they improved on or corrected every problem that Season One had.
If you were hesitant to return to What If…?, then rest assured, it is worth giving a second chance. I was pleasantly surprised, and I feel very confident saying there will be something for you to enjoy, making your return trip into the multiverse worth the time.
Rating: Liked It
What If…? is currently streaming on Disney+
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