Marvel’s What If Review: Letting Go of MCU Canon Is a Good Thing

Though all of Marvel’s newer live-action reveals had been introduced as tales that viewers might (in idea) watch with out being deeply acquainted with each element from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the studio’s comedian ebook diversifications have grow to be more and more more durable to simply soar into within the buildup to Phase 4. The Disney+ animated What If—Marvel’s newest sequence and its first animated MCU undertaking—understands this effectively.

What If—an anthology of tales set within the infinite alternate timelines of the MCU’s new multiverse—is arguably essentially the most “out there” of Marvel’s Phase 4 choices. That’s a results of its excessive conceptuality and a sheer variety of “wow” moments that are higher considered necessary narrative particulars than mere Easter Eggs. While the importance of What If’s metanarrative is actually clearer the extra acquainted you’re with the remainder of the MCU, every of the episodes are crafted in such a means that an encyclopedic understanding of the canon isn’t actually all that essential. What If understands that by this level, you most likely know who the Avengers and their foes all are in a basic sense—simply sufficient to make the Watcher’s (Jeffrey Wright) guided tour by way of the multiverse all it’s essential dive in.

What If eases you into the multiverse with various episodes that cleave shut sufficient to the beats of flicks like Captain America: The First Avenger and Guardians of the Galaxy to really feel comfortably acquainted, however not a lot in order that it feels as if head author AC Bradley merely swapped characters round. Tonally and thematically completely different as every episode is, what turns into clear as you watch them is how What If places the majority of its power into altering the contexts that its characters exist inside reasonably than the characters themselves.

What If’s Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell), T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman), and Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) all look, sound, and act like their live-action counterparts as a result of the sequence leans into the concept of them being mythic ideas who, time and time once more, discover their lives intersecting in numerous methods. In phrases of cameos and the variety of actors who reprise their big-screen roles, What If has the remainder of the Disney+ reveals beat by a mile after which some. It’s all made the extra fascinating by the truth that the tales are a part of the MCU’s ever-growing canon. For figures who’ve been taken off the map by latest occasions—like T’Challa and Black Widow—What If’s performs like one other likelihood to see them of their prime. But for others, like Captain Carter and Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), it comes throughout as an earnest query about what the longer term holds for these characters (or no less than their variants) within the grander scheme of the MCU.

The animated sequence’ examination of sure high-quality particulars—what Loki’s TVA would think about Nexus Events—reveals you simply how a lot there may be to the multiverse now that it’s in play. But the multiverse is actually solely the backdrop to What If’s character-focused tales, all of which highlight its stars with a grandeur that will be tough to drag off exterior of animation. Because every episode tells full tales that clock in round 40 minutes or so, the plots transfer with a swiftness that’s punctuated by splashy, action-heavy set items that will really feel at dwelling in a comic book ebook. However, when it comes to What If’s general high quality of storytelling, your mileage could range relying in your emotions in regards to the characters and locations being spotlighted in every episode.

Because a lot of What If’s characters really feel extra like slight deviations from their MCU counterparts, it’s the episodes that spend extra time in usually unexplored areas of the multiverse that shine the brightest. The questions raised by What If’s first couple of episodes aren’t precisely “What if Peggy became Captain America” or “What if T’Challa became Star-Lord,” however reasonably “What kind of heroes might these people become if destiny pulled them to the front lines of war on Earth, and in space?” Other episodes, like these about alternate variations of the MCU’s unique core Avengers, fare barely much less higher if solely as a result of we’ve already seen a lot of them that their appearances right here really feel a bit like throwbacks.

Though it feels inevitable that What If will finally play into the live-action house in a direct means, what’s thrilling in regards to the present is how Marvel appears eager on maintaining it round for no less than yet another season. Regardless of what goes down with Doctor Strange within the Multiverse of Madness, What If exists in an area of pure risk the place principally something could possibly be on the desk and explored from quite a lot of angles. There doesn’t appear to be anyone “right” strategy to watch What If, which could make it one of many best of Disney+’s Marvel reveals for newcomers to check out, but it surely additionally makes it the form of endeavor one can simply think about Marvel plans to maintain going effectively past the close to future.

What If hits Disney+ on August 11.

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