ew.com/marvels-what-if-3rd-and-final-season-will-include-fulfilling-culmination-for-the-watcher-8673153
Marvel's 'What If...?' To end after three seasons at Disney+
Or "What if we inserted Peggy Carter into a bunch of wacky scenarios"
Past a certain point the Captain Carter stuff really felt like someone had tried to get a show about that idea made, it got rejected, so they either held on to some of the story beats or used this as a second chance.
I’m pretty sure that’s what it was, a back door pilot much like the Marvel Zombies episode was
Hoping the upcoming TV-MA Zombies show is better than the episode.
It hasn't been cancelled yet? I'm asking because I lost interest in anything MCU years ago and only What if...? kept me hooked, specially with the possibility of a Marvel Zombies show. But it's been some years since there was any news, right? X-men '97 came out before Marvel Zombies too
It has not been cancelled, looks like it’ll be their Halloween release for next year with the Agatha show being this year’s.
But yeah, we haven’t heard anything about it for awhile. I’d say we might get some news at Comic Con or D23 this year.
Wild to have given up on the MCU and have What If being the project to keep you hanging. Massive letdown compared to what it could’ve been.
I didn't mind Peggy Carter as a side character in the MCU and I like Atwell, but not sure how she had the popularity for TWO standalone TV seasons, dominating the animated "What If..." seasons and then yet another cameo as Captain Carter in Multiverse.
Just feels super forced for a meh character...
I've always assumed with What If/Multivers of Madness it was less about Captain Carter's popularity and more about how easy/clear of a multiverse character she is. Captain America is one of the most popular characters, Agent Carter is easily recognizable since she's appeared in multiple projects as a SHIELD agent tying the MCU together like Coulson and Fury. Captain Carter at a glance you can see "other universe where Agent Carter became Captain America instead of Steve."
It's the simplest distillation of the multiverse/What If concept recognizable instantly with no exposition that you could do with a character. Accessible to casual MCU fans and diehard fans. Rewarding to the Agent Carter TV show fans (it has a bit of a cult following). Even to someone who doesn't know Peggy at all can take one look and see "Captain America but a British Woman" and get the multiverse concept.
At least in my mind that's why I think they keep giving her focus. Less because of her character and more as an easy symbol of the multiverse
The biggest issue with Captain Carter as a character is that it's almost impossible to see what makes her different from Steve. Both Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter have basically the same morales and beliefs.
Which is why they are an ideal switch for casual audiences, but it does make them boring sadly.
I think it felt like South Park was pretty spot on about Disney.
It’s hilarious they named an episode “What if Captain Carter stopped the Hydra Stomper?”
I am willing to bet that not a single soul on this earth asked tat question before the episode was created.
What’s super frustrating is that’s a good episode with a terrible title.
Would have been much better served with the title of, “What if Steve Rogers was the Winter Soldier?”
The worst offender was "What if Kahkori Reshaped The World?" or whatever that ep was called. Yeah I'm sure people are DYING to know all about this random OC they created just for this show...
Pretty much every Marvel character nowadays.
"What if character you grew to love and care about was actually someone you don't give a shit about?"
Unfortunately it's spilled into the main universe as well. I know there's precedence in the comics, but those comics mostly suck.
I know there's precedence in the comics, but
This line describes a major problem with the MCU now. As much as I love comics, there are things about them I can find massively annoying sometimes and one strength of the movies is that they were avoiding all these issues. They knew what stories had or hadn't worked in the comics and could focus on lean, direct versions of their plots with more fixed stakes for characters. And the movies were easy for new people to come in at any time and basically understand what needed to be understood.
But they're becoming more like the comics as they go now. The stakes matter less, the universe is getting bloated, it feels event-centric instead of character-centric, and it feels much harder for new audiences to come in at any time while still understanding things. It's just a mess.
The modern MCU has done a good job recreating the world of the comics, one where knowledge of superhumans is commonplace and giant calamities are relatively routine.
Problem is, it's fucking boring. They've removed the mystique of the super heroes by having random characters walk up to them and mention that supes are so common that they have ice cream flavors branded after them. It's made the world smaller.
I re-watched the first two X-Men movies recently and holy shit what a breath of fresh air in comparison. Knowledge of the super powered humans is relatively obscure, they all use their powers in realistic ways and it's shown how they actually live with them (Iceman is shown flash-freezing a beer for Wolverine, Wolverine is startled by a cat which starts licking his claws, etc). I remember people throwing bitch-fits that the costumes weren't comic-accurate, but I'll take a dozen movies with the same tone as those first X-Men movies than what the current MCU is putting out.
Not to mention that I don’t understand tonally how X-Men will work.
“We want to hate crime Jubilee because she makes fireworks and is a mutant, but we made an ice cream named after Hulk who has killed how many bystanders?”
In fairness this problem exists in the comics as well.
its why the xmen comics generally stick to their own little walled garden.
every time they've gone for a big crossover event w/ the broader canon it winds up high on the list of most hated xmen comic runs
What? No, Hulk only destroys cars and property and faceless aliens or robots. Maybe the occasional henchman. Hulk would never kill an innocent bystander, regardless of how much it looks like that would definitely happen.
At the beginning of Civil War, Ross is going through casualties of prior Avengers events, and I believe that includes a body count in Hulks rampage in Age of Ultron. Tbf that’s probably “Iron Man AND Hulk” but either way…
You miswatched the scene. All of those buildings destroyed in Age of Ultron were in the Abandoned Warehouse District.
I mean…x-men is an analog for real life racism. And this kind of shit happens in real life. Life is stranger than fiction I suppose.
You could make the same argument for the comics, but somehow it works. And there is some sort of logic behind it.
If you got your super-powers from a scientific experiment, or radiation exposure, or special serum, it's a fluke and could happen to anyone and tend to be something that a person has earned. Someone with mutant powers is inherently nonhuman - it's not something you become, it's something you are. They are the next step in evolution and people are concerned that they will replace humanity. Mutant powers tend to be diverse, unpredictable, and overpowered, making them dangerous. The Hulk is a public figure, but mutants can hide in plain sight. Mutations sometimes come with grotesque physical changes.
And, perhaps most importantly, prejudice isn't always logical. Sex, race, religion, etc. People make distinctions. Some people just hate mutants because they're somehow different.
Yeah people loved the early MCU because your favorite character was only 1 or two movies away from their next appearance. There's just too many unrelated characters/plotlines for an average fan to follow or care about.
The fact that Shang Chi seems to have completely disappeared after being the only wholly new super unconnected to an existing one is not a great sign.
Granted it happened with pretty much all of them (where's moon knight, Sam Wilson, pretty much anyone who isn't part of the world of Danvers) but he's the only new one who popped off and now he's fizzled out.
The stakes matter less,
Yeah, this is what really annoys me and it doesn't seem that hard to fix. Just stop centering EVERY fucking plot item around world-defining/changing measurements. Have smaller stories.
The Netflix shows tried this well enough. I don't need Daredevil to fight Thanos for there to be massive stakes. Jessica Jones trying to stop Kilgrave from hurting people was good enough. Luke Cage fighting local criminals for his community was good enough. You don't need to save the entire world every damn time for me to care about the story.
I really hope with the new Spiderman stuff, they reel it back but I also get the impression that they wont be able to help themselves.
I haven’t followed their comics for a decade because it turned into an endless cycle of:
Famous hero dies
Hero gets replaced by another younger version for a year
The original hero has a new film coming out so they are brought back and their comic is relaunched with a new creative team
repeat until everybody loses interest
It's comic books, no one really dies unless you're uncle Ben, Mar-vell, Gwen Stacy, Thomas and Martha Wayne or Terra.
Everyone and their dead grandmas always come back
And that too is an update. The phrase used to be "No one stays dead except Bucky, Jason Todd, and Uncle Ben."
And, well, Bucky and Jason Todd have been back for almost twenty years now.
Not to mention Barry Allen was also dead for like 20 years or so until he eventually came back too
Gwen Stacy, Bucky and Jason Todd all came back all in their mainline universe.
Thomas Wayne and Martha Wayne are the Batman and Joker of the Flashpoint Universe in DC (Martha become the Joker due to the grief of losing Bruce, Thomas had to become Batman to avenge Bruce and stop his wife.)
Mar-Vell tends to come back to life every few years, typically due to the M'Kraan crystal or Phoenix force, and typically it's to mess with the Avengers or Captain Marvel.
that last line.
i think people get so caught up in “what’s in the comics” that they don’t take a step back and go “what didn’t work in the comics, and let’s change that”
there’s actually a near 100% overlap between people telling you “but it happened in the comics” and “writers need to break from canon to tell new stories”. that’s because the loudest voices just want to dunk on everyone else, they don’t actually give a shit about the product
“Oops all Peggy Carter!”
Occasionally, they'd stumble upon an interesting What If? scenario. Like last season's "What If Peter Quill Attacked" really was "What If the Avengers Formed in the 80s?" and was an neat idea. But ones like that were few and far between.
The 80s Avengers episode was probably the best one. Its wild that Wasp has far more personality in it than the movies. I'd totally dig a mini-series about this episode's team-up.
It's probably not by design. Evangeline Lilly has the acting ability of a plank of wood
80's Wasp is Michelle Pfeiffer, or are we talking about Hope as a kid in the show?
That might be my favorite episode of the show
The Doctor Strange episode from Season 1 is still my favourite.
He destroys his entire universe to try and get Christine back, only for it to all be for nothing after he finally momentarily sees her, and she’s terrified of the monster he’s become.
Reminded me of a Twilight Zone episode
Wished his character remained as a fallen from grace hero still paying for his actions even after helping out the others in the last episodes of season 1.
um, isn't that the plot of the movie of dr strange and the multiverse of madness except that's Dr. Strange getting his love back instead of Wanda doing what she can in different universes to get a version of her children and they are terrified of her?
I think S1 was much better than S2. I still really like the premise of taking this existing MCU universe and looking at what happens when you change things, I wish we had something like this for other franchises or even like history but it would be hard to pull off effectively
That Dr Strange episode from S1 is my favorite Dr Strange thing I have ever read or watched
Absolutely, Cumberbatch nailed it… that “No no no no” at the end was so full of regret and sadness, just amazing voice acting. Far and away the best what if episode so far.
Exactly, that was the type of what if that actually fleshed out the original version of Strange and made him more compelling.
But instead most episodes were variations of Tony Stark dying.
For All Mankind is What If for the space race.
I’m a big fan of FAM except the soap opera segments but not really, FAM explores a single change to history (Korolev’s doctors not being shit) thoroughly vs What If is about the multiverse of possibilities
Yeah season 1 actually focused on being an alternate timeline, but now they are so far off from our timeline that it’s raw sci-fi (still a great show though)
S2 needed 2 more episodes. At least 1 episode should have been about the merry men before Carter showed up.
Star Wars also did this in the comics in a series called Star Wars Infinities. It only did the original trilogy. Like A New Hope was what if Luke missed when he was trying to blow up the Death Star.
Agents of Shield also did this in their 4th season. The episode that started it was called "What If"
Don't forget Marvel Zombies with all the violence, gore and humour removed.
Marvel Zombies, Agatha and IronHeart are fascinating slow-motion car crashes to watch.
They all got greenlit as the MCU got too cocky and now they have to release in a frigid and glacial environment in which most people have moved on from the MCU (save for popular heroes like Spidey and Deadpool)
I'm slightly optimistic for Agatha. It could be a fun, low-stakes show a la Hawkeye. Still have low expectations for it, but hopefully it's stronger than Echo (which was slightly enjoyable at parts but mostly forgettable).
I admit there is potential for sure, especially with Aubery Plaza. It just feels two years too late in general.
I'm not sure who wanted that Agatha Harness show. I don't think she's even had a one shot issue to herself in all her history. Iron hearts another one that makes no sense, she was a character most comic fans rejected when introduced and is almost gone less than a decade later in the books.
I think that they were caught off guard by how well received Wandavision was, and how much fun and how scenery-chewing Kathryn Hahn was as Agatha.
I'd imagine it was her performance that got the show greenlit.
That said, I could see how you could pretty easily put together a watchable show with her, especially if they made it an anthology series about the Darkhold, but unfortunately they already in-universe destroyed The Darkhold.
That's one of the bad things about the MCU: They're willing to burn 50-60 years of stories and continuity to make one movie.
I liked Wandavision.
I haven't heard anybody talk about Wandavision more than a couple months after it came out. Especially after Loki's strong ending, I can't imagine the Harness show does anything but disappoint ratings wise.
I'll die on the hill that the MOM ruined the entire purpose of that show.
Counter point: I will watch pretty much anything Kathryn Hahn is in
Aren’t they doing a show about them too? Could of swore they were putting an ma rating on it
They are
And it's going to be rated TV-MA so it'll have gore and violence.
lmao im fond of the MCU but they have been dangaling "No guys i pinky swear this product will be sooo adult" carrot for 15 years, and every time its just that they cursed a little and made a pg-13 sex joke
Echo had some gore but it had stupid writing so none of that mattered.
Man I really liked the first episode of echo. Then the rest of the show happened
Tbf, the comic book version does that a lot as well.
I remember reading What If The Punisher Became Captain America? as a kid.
Yeah, it was pretty disappointing IMO. You could’ve recounted things that ACTUALLY happened in the MCU and not had them affect anything. It would’ve been cool to see a couple dozen universes instead of 1 or 2
What if Hydra won WW2?
What if Ultron was a success?
What if Loki wins?
Have the actual timeline branch off and just do a serial instead of a consistent story. I think people would’ve much preferred that
I got what you meant but I think you mean anthology or episodic instead of serial, a serial is a consistent story
Exactly this. This is what I wanted. Star Wars Infinities did this for the original trilogy. Each one started fresh without having to tie into the previous story.
What if Hydra won WW2?
Agents of Shield kinda did this in their 4th season when they did a What if storyline. It was awesome
Yeah. I liked when it was announced for its potential, especially as it was animated. But they squandered it real hard.
This is how I felt about it. I loved the first episode with Peggy becoming Captain Carter even though it was this because that did feel like a slight shift of what happened in the movies. But T'Challa becoming Star Lord? It was just so random. I never even got around to watching all of season 2 because I had become fed up after season 1. And they didn't space out the episodes so I felt burnt out on them
Agents of Shield Season 4 had several episodes doing a What If storyline where they fixed one regret in the main characters lives and it was amazing.
At least I'm glad I'm not the only one who hated the concept of T'challa as Star Lord. I hated how the episode implied Peter Quill was such an idiot that had T'challa had been kidnapped instead, he would've magically unified the whole universe and made freaking Thanos of all people abandon his perfect balance plan because "chill Wakandian prince is the real Guardian of the Galaxy".
Kinda wish they let the part of Ego's plan coming to frutition just to imply that, for as good as T'challa was as Star Lord, he couldn't save the universe like Peter Quill did. Would've been a kickass ending... and I feel maybe that was originally the plan but Boseman's passing happened in between the show's production and the ending got changed to a more hopeful one.
Right? Why does Peggy HAVE to love Steve in EVERY reality??? That's not very What If.
S1 was enjoyable, S2 was basically a repeat. Didn’t even finish it.
The What If...? writers needs to understand that the concept of what if works better when every episode is standalone.
Yep they couldn’t resist the allure of the multiverse and the chance to have wacky versions of characters team up with each other.
Also why is a fifth of the show dedicated to Peggy Carter of all characters?!
Maybe she’s one of the most available voice actors
That doesn’t really seem like an issue for Disney considering they have infinite wealth, along with the fact they used fake voice actors for Tony and Spidey.
They may have infinite wealth, but a very finite willingness to spend any of it
But having the actual actor is a huge boon for them. Sure they could replace her, but they wanna get their moneys worth from the plot.
I dont mind 2 part episodes, but there really shouldn't be an overarching story.
agree. 2 parts fine but it is overall an athology (or should be). These days it is harder to do live action anthologies but there is no reason you can't do an animated anthology.
Inside No 9 is probably one of the better Live-Action anthologies of the last few years. They had the occasional dud, but overall the quality was pretty high.
It's probably more of the producers' call.
We don't talk enough how nerfed Thanos is in What If...? lol. In most of the episodes he's killed off without uttering a single word.
Seems like Doctor Strange got lazy and just stopped looking when he found the first option to defeat Thanos and said "good enough".
"Tony Stark's dead? Good enough for me!"
I actually found that funny, along with killing Tony Stark literally every chance they got.
My man is the Kenny or Krillin of What if...? 💀⚰
Worf effect
It’s What If. You kind of “have to” explain Thanos if you’re playing in that time period.
But, What If... We made even MORE episodes about Captain Carter?!
It would be cool if they just made a series about her, and I would watch it, but enough with her hogging the What If universe.
Something along the lines of Netflix's Love death and Robots but with marvel would have been sweeeet
I really liked season 1 but didn't care for much of what was going on in season 2.
But WHAT IF you did?
Loved captain carter in S1 but it was just too much in s2 and yeah I don’t remember anything about the plot
It’s weird that it even had an overarching plot. The whole thing about What If comics is that they’re generally just one-offs.
That’s what killed it for me. It should be a bunch of disconnected short stories. When they tried to make it connected they lost the magic of the comics. Now it’s just “here’s similar Avengers and their story”.
I mean I liked the sort of ish overarching plot at the end of S1 where Infinity Ultron threatens the multiverse so the watcher has to act to save every universe by pulling heroes from the previous episodes. I think the attempt at something similar in S2 fell flat though
It was neat because it was unexpected in S1. Making it a staple for S2 was certainly a more glaring issue.
I think doing the 1602 crossover would have been fine, then Strange Supreme sends her home and that is the only real crossover for the season.
This hasn't been the case for the what if comic series that have been coming out too unfortunately, happened with Miles Morales, Venom, Dark.
It's disappointing as What if was one of the primary reasons I got into comics in the first place, alright TECHNICALLY it was Mutant X, but counter continuities as a whole.
Man, this is why I couldn't care for Season 2 when I knew it had Peggy back.
What I loved from the What if...? comics was how they usually have a one shot story and that's it. Not arching stories that keep going and going, just a beginning and an end. Like what if Wolverine became lord of the vampires? (That one's my favorite). What if the Fantastic Four had the same powers? What if Spiderman The Other? (A.k.a. Peter rejects the Spider deity within him, dies, and the Venom symbiote possesses him as Poison, and he revives Gwen Stacy as a Carnage symbiote). Or that What if story where Valeria Richards was actually an alien demon/parasite that killed every single Fantastic Four member and Dr. Doom in a slow way and only Franklin could stop it?
Or how some of these stories became so popular, they became their own concepts? Like Spider Girl and the whole Marvel Comics 2 universe (I still loathe Marvel for not giving main universe Peter his daughter already and make him happy instead of cucking him with a self incert).
Strange Supreme was trying to redeem himself by capturing universe killing variants. Captain Carter and the new psychic girl team up to take him down and “fix” the multiverse.
I really liked some eps in season 1, but found most middling. I thought season 2 was a huge step backwards.
Season 2 seemed to move away from What If and just became Peggy Carter and the multiverse
They dropped the ball on a simple premise pretty hard. I saw an article on 'Why what-if is the prefect place to introduce Kahhori' and I couldn't disagree more.
What-if is supposed to be taking a known concept, asking "what if this one thing were different" and exploring that difference. To have an episode focused around a new character.....we don't know anything about her, so asking "what if Kahhori did X" is meaningless.
Not just a new character, but a setting completely unconnected to the rest of Marvel. The only real connection was the Tesseract, but that was changed beyond recognizability. So it is almost 100% original content.
It's pretty obvious Marvel's endgame here is to have Captain Carter in the main timeline. Sadly they did this at the expense of the What If concept.
Season 1 was okay and they actually kind of did stuff with the What if concept.
Season 2 was bad
Baffles me that they didn't do some proper what ifs. You know "what if the other half survived the blip instead", What if "everyone was on board with Sokovia accords?". Like actual interesting ones
"What if" but instead of what if we just make a new character entirely lol
What if the What if series had good what ifs
How many ifs could a What if? if, if What ifs could what ifs?
I hate the Black-Panther Star Lord what-if with a passion. makes no goddamn sesnse
What If Disney didn’t make some stupid overarching narrative for a show called “WHAT IF” and made actual WHAT IF stories instead of 5 captain Carter episodes a season and a shitty team up with their B-list? Just literally make one off what if stories it’s seriously not that hard
Yeah, how they missed the opportunity with this one to do an anthology with different animation studios each episode I don't know.
Yeah I expected this to be like Love Death and Robots but with What If stories
It seems so obvious
I feel like that was the intention, but then got distracted by the possibility of an overarching story, and then that spilled into the live action.
AKA how to make a formulaic series of movies feel even more repetitive.
Exactly my thought. God that would have been amazing.
So Star Wars Visions? So Disney has done it before...
I think the main issue is Disney didn’t just hire a bunch of traditional television show runners.
Disney seems very against doing episodic television and I don’t know why. Some of there shows work as a larger story, Loki and WandaVision (to a certain extent) but the idea that something like Mandolorian or Book of Boba Fett aren’t just those characters taking a bounty each week and doing something akin to Kung Fu or the old Hulk show, where they walk into a town and do their bounty and leave is beyond me.
I can’t believe there were two Star Wars shows about bounty hunters and the only bounty hunting was in like 1 episode
It’s crazy how bad Book of Boba Fett was too. One thing that helps the episodic structure is, if one episode is bad it doesn’t matter as much. Next week is a different thing. Look at TNG, there are plenty of absolutely dog shit episodes but that’s fine because the following week they just move on. If every thing is telling a larger story, then a bad episode still matters.
100% and I'd go one step further: it only matters but with short seasons it risks bringing the whole thing down. It's one thing when there was a bad episode in the middle of a 24 episode season because in the end what happened matter but not as much because there was a lot to dilute in that long runtime. But if your episode is shit when you only have 6-8 per season just a single poorly written EP can damage the plot of the entire season.
Why does Mando have to be 6 episodes? If they did a bounty a week, with some overarching plot weaved in the season, why not do 16 episodes? I
Book of Boba Fett had me jump ship on almost everything Star Wars excepting Andor.
Because with episodic series you might get bored halfway through and, God forbid, cancel your Disney+ subscription. Whereas if every show's plot just drags on and on throughout all the episodes, and only fully finishes disappointing you in the finale, then you'll be forced to stay subscribed all the way through!
1.) The 8-episode model allows them to stretch a series across 2 membership billing cycles while providing the bare minimum for content.
2.) The way that writers' rooms function for streaming service TV shows makes labor organizing more difficult (the real reason).
Disney has access to some of the greatest animators and animation software in the world there's so much missed potential here
I didn’t continue after season 1 but for my money the Doctor Strange episode in S1 where he destroys the universe was the peak of the show.
Yeah, would have been great if it was an anthology series where they would randomly drop a new episode whenever one was ready. People would look forward to unexpected, new episodes coming out if they were standalone eps.
There's a reason I go back and watch things like "Hulk vs. Thor".
I mean why cancel it, just makes seasons whenever you need additional content
It should just go on extended hiatus
My guess is that there is a 4th season option to the writers and producers they don’t want to pay.
They most likely can’t/won’t not make it MCU connected and you can only do so much with what’s in the MCU. Probably do more with it once X-Men and Fantastic Four are introduced in the movies. Also isn’t it same team doing the Marvel Zombies show?
They need to end it with “what if: Avengers Endgame but the heroes that were blipped weren’t and the ones that weren’t were?” Or whatever better title I’m not a goddamn tv writer.
What if the avengers were blooped not blipped
Yeah but how can they shoehorn Peggy into that?
when the other half is blipped and no one can invent time travel, Peggy Carter came from the multiverse to gave them infinity stone, also she's the one who's going to wield all 5 of it and came out fine
"What If: We strung along fans for three whole seasons and then never actually showed them what happened if the other half got snapped?"
What if you were? (That is a good idea)
Season 2 was a snooze fest. Story lines I really wanted to see didn’t happen 1. What if Bucky became the new Captain America 2. What if Peitro didn’t die 3. What if the other half of the universe survived the snap 4. What if Thor did the final snap instead of Tony 5. What if the eternals stopped Thanos in time 6. What if Hela survived to see the events of Infinity War
This was a good opportunity by marvel to do some real fan service. But they didn’t
This is because Disney/marvel made fun what ifs into a series that has to tie together
We want interesting stories not an overarching story
Both Captain Carter fans are going to be devastated
I like Captain Carter, but not the way they used her in S2. Don't think I'll have the enthusiasm to watch S3, Secret Invasion broke the MCU spell for me.
Secret Invasion felt like everyone was just showing up for their paychecks and going through the motions.
Hayley Atwell is awesome!
She is and we loved her as Agent Carter and even Captain Carter the first couple of times. But when we are told we're getting a What If series, we want a fucking What If series. Not a Captain Carter series
she was great in the most recent Mission Impossible movie
There are dozens of us! Dozens!
Season 1 was ok, but Season 2 was "What If Peggy Carter..."
it just didn't hold my interest at all.
Sucks they decided to torpedo a pretty interesting premise by turning it into another Captain Carter show
The format of this show literally lends itself to perpetual continuation. Cancelling it after 3 seasons is a mistake.
And if it’s because it doesn’t bring in enough money, take it off D+ and put it on TV
They’ve been limiting themselves with this show, between the MCU focus and them trying to make it serialized. It’s such a good formula for fun episode ideas and they keep wasting it.
Agreed. It could be a show with perpetual continuation, but rather than having fun and weird "What If...?" stories like the comics, they made a concerted effort to keep them closely linked with the MCU in most cases, while tying it to an arc in a way that limited how creative this series could've been.
I have enjoyed what we've gotten, but there's always this feeling while watching it that it could've been so much more.
I hate that it’s serialized. The beauty of What If comics is that it’s usually a one-shot.
Pose a what if, do a 30 minute story, move onto a new one next week. I hate that everything has to be connected and in continuity. There are no one shot stories anymore, where you can just turn on a show or pick up a floppy, ingest it, and move onto the next one next time. Or not and not be lost forever because you missed one episode of a thirty minute show or one single issue in decades of interconnected content.
They’ve been shooting themselves in the foot trying to make an overarching narrative.
The finale of S1 was fine, but S2 was too connected.
At this rate S3 will be a single story just like all their other shows, instead of the standalone anthology the concept is supposed to be.
Cancelling it after 3 seasons is a mistake.
Unless it doesn't justify the expenses.
The animation is gorgeous but no one gives a shit about this show, I gotta assume this just costs Marvel a shit ton of money for little gain.
Look at how successful and impactful Invincible was, but it looks like garbage next to animated Marvel stuff.
You don't keep doing something expensive because you can. You do it because there is a demand for it.
There isn't much of a demand for What If season 3, so I can't imagine anyone would care when Season 4 would have dropped.
I don’t think the animation is that gorgeous, it’s rather cheap looking half the time imo
the animation is gorgeous
Is it?
Comparing against the high water marks in recent years like arcane or the spiderverse movies I have to strongly disagree.
Hell the star wars visions anthology even has some episodes with beautiful animation.
What if though....It's fine. It does the job, but it's not noteworthy.
I have to agree with u/MattyKatty
I didn't think the animation was gorgeous. It looked so cheap. X-Men 97? Now that was gorgeous
I LOVED the Christmas episode, that was peak What If?
The overall ideas seem very disappointing for the sheer insane potential of the show's premise and I shouldn't look at season 2 and say "Half of these episodes don't seem interesting at all..."
Nebula in the Nova Corp? Don't care. More Captain Carter replacing Captain America stories? Don't care. Iron Man hanging out with the Grandmaster? Sounds kind of fun, but is probably extremely underwhelming. Happy Hogan saving Christmas??? LMAO wtf.
It was never as interesting as the premise promised it could be.
This has always been the case with the comics, too. It's such a gripping concept that everyone says they love it, but the few people who actually have read them know that they're mostly duds. More often than not, they have horrible endings where everyone is dead or worse off, and the point of the comic is to tell readers, "See how bad it could've been? We've got it good in the main canon, so quit complaining!"
The comics clearly assign the edgiest, most pessimistic writers to those projects.
So, SO many interesting scenarios they could have explored instead of just “what if X character was Y character” or “what if Peggy Carter did X”
What If instead of Tony Stark abandoning his weapons manufacturing after getting captured, he doubles down?
What if Black Widow stayed a Russian agent?
What if Captain America was never found in the ice/died in the crash?
Not to mention giving it an overarching story was just super weird and ultimately boxed them in way too much. Just another fumbling of the bag by Disney.
What if... Marvel had any momentum still?
I wonder what Star Wars series they’re going to replace it with?
What if became basically “different avengers” by the time season 2 was done. Just a lot of interconnected stories that didn’t need telling. I hope season 3 is actual what if.
It started off good with the zombies and stuff but it went to shit quite quickly. This was not the What If? I was expecting, what I grew up reading. Season 2 was truly terrible outside of the Nebula episode and some of the Supreme Strange one. The amount of wasted potential is criminal.
Embarrassing waste of the concept
They turned it into one story. It stopped being what if, after that happened.
WHAT IF Peggy Carter was a raccoon? Show got real bad
Two seasons too late. Skipped season 2 because the episode synopsis sounded like uninspired garbage.
Not sure why they even bothered with introducing the multiverse in the first place, it has been disappointing and boring asf so far.
Good, what a colossal waste of potential
Would’ve liked it way more with better animation and not being beholden to movie storylines.
I would have just preferred it be one-offs like the comics rather than constantly going to some over-arching "Guardians of the Multiverse" story. I really started to enjoy season 2 when it seemed that they were going that way... then nope. Even silly stuff like "what if the Tessaract landed in pre-Colombian North America" was neat.
Is that what it ended up being? Marvel already have the Exiles and Captain Britain Corps for that function and again they use the same ten characters for everything in the films.
Yeah, would’ve been nice (I wasn’t impressed enough with season one to watch season two, though).
It’s a shame, I’m a big fan of the What If? comics, so seeing them limit themselves to spins on movie storylines was a disappointment for me.
Season one was strong but season two sucked ass. Nothing against the character herself but why do they love Captain Carter so much??
I enjoyed this show a great deal and I think it is a bad idea to cancel it. This show allows newer characters to interact with older characters whose actors have retired. That is a great way to help build up a little bit of familiarity with new characters.
hopefully they will have other projects animated, i know spiderman is coming this year (well 2 actually)
What killed it is probably the overarching narrative. The powerscaling is literally off the charts. Basically nowhere to go. Should've just had the Watcher be watching all the universes unconnected to anything.
I don’t get why they just didn’t make it stand alone each eps.
I wish they made a what if.. with the X-men or fantastic four or anything other than current mcu
Waiting for the ,”What if Marvel had good writers?” episode.
I wished it was an actual What if instead of “what if this MCU character was another MCU character instead”