What If?

Marvel Studios’ What If…? flips the script on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, reimagining famous events from the films in unexpected ways. Creating a multiverse of infinite possibilities, the animated series features fan-favorite characters where a single choice can branch out creating alternate worlds from the ones we know.

In this series, we are introduced to “The Watcher“, an extraterrestrial being that watches over the multiverses and the stories that take place in them. However The Watcher is not allowed to interact with any of the characters, they are to be neutral.

In the first episode, Steve Rogers is about to undertake the first super soldier project when things take a turn leading to the first super-soldier becoming Peggy Carter. Even though she faces constant emotional harassment from Colonel Flynn for being a woman, Peggy Carter proves to everyone that a woman super-soldier is just as valuable and every bit as great as a man super-soldier would have been. 

With her by her side is Steve Roger’s in the Hydra Stomper, some would call the first “Iron Man” suit thanks to Howard Stark after utilizing the Tesseract. Together Captain Carter and Steve Rogers topple the Nazi and Hydra forces across Europe. Sadly though like Captain America, they can never be as Captain Carter sacrifices herself to repel the monster/Hydra Champion that came out of the Tesseract as Red Skull opened the portal.

From this first episode alone I was instantly hooked on What If…? The parallels between Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter are undeniably the same, stating even more what a perfect couple they could have been together. She is released from the Tesseract 70 years after the war by Nick Fury.

The second episode explores T’Challa who instead of becoming the Black Panther, becomes Star-Lord. This twist is caused by an accident when the space-pirates Ravagers kidnapped T’Challa instead of Peter Quill. T’Challa is voiced by the late, great Chadwick Boseman, who recorded his part before his untimely passing in August 2020. “Wakanda Forever“

The second episode has a lot of humor carrying it along and a lot of moments that shared Chadwick’s love for people and humanity. Yondu instead of doing it himself lets Kraglin and Taserface find and take the young T’Challa, this is the event that leads to a completely different universe than the one who originally know. Due to T’Challa being who he is, he convinced Thanos out of his plans of murdering half the population in the universe by educating him on how to reallocate the universe’s resources.

In this episode, we get to meet some major characters such as The Collector, Nebula herself with Blonde hair, and Drax. What’s more, the “Guardians of The Galaxy” are never formed as Rocket and Groot are never shown throughout the entire season, we do get to meet Gamora however she’s only revealed later in the season on another episode.

Star-Lord with Nebula and the rest of the Ravagers decide to steal the Embers of Genesis, which can terraform entire ecosystems. They are kept by The Collector who after Thanos’s change to the good side decided to fill his place. He even has some of Thanos’s Black Order members such as Ebony Maw, Cull Obsidian, and Proxima Midnight.

After successfully stealing the Embers of Genesis, T’Challa discovers a Wakandan Ship in the Collectors Vault with a message from his father indicating that they will never stop searching for him no matter how far they have to go. This goes against everything that Yondu had told him about his homeland being destroyed without a trace.

The episode ends with T’Challa and the Ravagers going back to Wakanda and meeting his family who had been waiting years to see the young prince all grown up yet still keeping that positive and good-natured attitude. Episodes 2 and 7 are probably the episodes in the series in my opinion as they are quirky and fun to watch.

It’s episode 4 that things change dramatically for the uninterrupted series when Doctor Strange discovers The Watcher’s presence watching them, indicating that things are about to take a major turn for the series. By episode 8, Ultron who has almost destroyed every living being in the universe thanks to the programming by Tony Stark and obtaining the Infinite Stones, Ultron also discovers The Watcher’s presence and learns of the Multiverse that drives him to conqueror and destroys them all.

But like how things were saved originally, The Watcher is driven into a corner and has no choice but to break his oath and intervene with the characters, or something much worse would happen.

The series drives us as the audience to think that The Watchers are extraordinary powerful beings that no matter the situation will not interact with people in that universe but like every other being out there, they too need help and will provide it when it suits them and the multiverse best.

There will always be another team of Avengers excluding Iron Man, Hulk, and Thor. As long as people believe in working together for a better cause than themselves, new heroes can be born. 

The animation art style is phenomenal to watch, props to Marvel Studios for keeping the characters as we know them aside from Nebula who looks even more amazing, the storytelling depending on each episode can be fun yet some are painful like episode 4 with Doctor Strange.

Thanks for reading…