Disney+ Marvel's What If? (1 Viewer)

[Jake Lipson]

Disney has released a new trailer for Marvel's animated series What If? which will begin airing on Disney+ on August 11. This is the animated alternate realities show. I searched for a thread for it since I figured we probably have one already but couldn't find an existing one. If Ioverlooked it, any of the moderators should feel free to merge this post with the old thread.




Especially notable is that Chadwick Boseman voices T'Challa in the series. Presumably finished recording prior to his unfortunate passing last year. So we get one more performance of Boseman after all, albeit a very different version of the character than he played in the canonical MCU timeline.

The release of the new trailer and launch date announcement today follows an earlier trailer several months ago. Because it doesn't seem like we have a thread already, here's the older one just in case anybody hasn't seen it yet:



I'm looking forward to this. The live-action MCU shows thus far have managed to tell different stories in a way that just wouldn't work within the confines of a feature film, and this also seems to be taking its stories in a really interesting new direction. So I'm down.

 

[Sam Favate]

What’s interesting is that I initially thought this was just going to be a fun installment in Marvel’s TV programming, but now I see that it absolutely ties into their multiverse narrative that’s happening in Phase 4.

 

[Robert McNay]

It is an animated extension of the Marvel What If? comics line that ran from 1977 to 2018.

 

[Jake Lipson]

it absolutely ties into their multiverse narrative that’s happening in Phase 4.

I'm not sure if it is to be considered canonical in the MCU or not in the sense that the live-action series are. Something like Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is going to assume that you've seen WandaVision. At least from what I've heard about it, I'm not currently under the impression that What If will be required viewing to understand something else in the live-action MCU. But it's certainly playing around with the same multiverse ideas as are being introduced into the MCU via Loki and future projects.

 

[TonyD]

I will watch each episode like it’s my job but I really dis like that animation style.

 

[Edwin-S]

Looks interesting. I'm still no fan of Disney virtually owning everything, but I do have to give them credit for actually giving these animated series reasonably decent production budgets.

 

[DaveF]

Can’t wait for more of my favorite scifi show!!!!

 

[DaveF]

Ok Animated multiverse? Hopefully anthology style? I’ll check it out. It promises fun.

 

[Sean Bryan]

Can’t wait for more of my favorite scifi show!!!!

The trailer does shows Scott Lang’s head in a jar. Maybe Stark will invent the “finglonger”

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Guess they're really gonna try their darnedest to keep everyone subscribed permanently...

So maybe I shouldn't have bothered w/ the last 4K Marvel sale on Vudu...

_Man_

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

New Poster:

In other news, producer Brad Winderbaum has confirmed to ComicBook.com that Chadwick Boseman recorded dialog for four episodes of the upcoming anthology series.

 

[TonyD]

The first episode is up.

The animation is dynamic. Beautiful but it’s going to take something for me to get used to it especially facial movements which look weird to me.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

THIS POST MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS FROM "WHAT IF?" 1x01.

It'll be interesting to see if future episodes diverge more significantly from the main MCU continuity. Most of this episode hit the same beats as Captain America: The First Avenger, only with Peggy and Steve's roles swapped. And because the story was condensed into a much short runtime, some of the callbacks that worked really well in the movie felt overdone here, like Peggy and Steve's banter about going out dancing.

The animation also didn't have a super strong grasp of scale; Peggy was taller than Skinny Steve before going into the chamber, so she should have absolutely dwarfed him afterward. But she only appeared to be a couple inches taller than him after the serum, while also being a couple inches taller than Bucky and Stark. This will be less of an issue for future episodes, where a physical transformation isn't central to the plot.

I did like the idea that supersoldier Peggy would hit the ground running faster than supersoldier Steve, and intercept the Tesseract before Red Skull got his hands on it before he could use it to build an arsenal. Consequently, Howard Stark could use the Tesseract in place of the ARC reactor he was unable to miniaturize and create an Iron Man decades before his son did.

Most of the voices were performed by the live action actors. The most notable absence was Chris Evans as Steve Rogers, but Josh Keaton did a pretty flawless impression. Rather than try and impersonate Tommy Lee Jones's voice, they killed off Colonel Phillips and replaced him with the more overtly mysoginistic Colonel Flynn. Hugo Weaving wasn't back either, but Ross Marquand (who played Red Skull in Infinity War and Endgame) was.

Still unanswered: Whether the events in some of these alternate timelines will have any ramifications on the main MCU continuity, or if it's going to be purely an anthology of other possibilities that keep to their own universes.

 

[Sam Favate]

I thoroughly enjoyed the first episode of What If. I loved the animation. Always great to have Hayley Atwell back (I still wish they’d give Agent Carter a season three). Looking forward to everything this series brings.

 

[GlennC]

Really enjoyed it. I would wish for more Agent Carter too.

 

[Darby67]

The first episode was a wonderful start to the series. I'm in for the duration....

Sean

 

[NeilO]

THIS POST MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS FROM "WHAT IF?" 1x01.

Still unanswered: Whether the events in some of these alternate timelines will have any ramifications on the main MCU continuity, or if it's going to be purely an anthology of other possibilities that keep to their own universes.

I enjoyed the first episode. I would be very surprised if none of the stories from this series are not at least referenced in the various multiverse related TV series and movies that are coming. I doubt most of them will, but I think there will be some crossover action.

 

[TonyD]

Since it looks like at least a few of these episodes will have the same variant characters interacting I wonder if this will be taking place on only one of the Multi verse Earths.

 

[TonyD]

After sitting on it a few days my thoughts are that this first episode was not the best choice for the beginning.

I didn’t feel like it was that different from what happened in the prime MCU.
Everything was pretty much the same they just got there on a different road.

 

[Sam Favate]

Everything was pretty much the same they just got there on a different road.

That was one of the motifs of the original comic series from 1977 — the other being that that nothing is the same and the wheels come off the bus. I’m relying on memories from 40 years ago, but those are the two ways the stories went.