2021, Disney+
The Marvel backlash is in full swing and it's only going to get more vocal, louder, as Marvel just continues to crank out the high-quality, highly-entertaining, moderately-formulaic content over the next decade. The talk was there even before "the pause" but it seems even more strident now, with huge budget programming filling up Disney+ this year alongside a backlog of feature films. Critics finally returning to theaters after much anxiety about being away and saying "oh, this again".
Besides critics, who always complain about getting too much of a good thing, Letterboxd armchair critics have also been dissenting over Marvel, bemoaning that people will be seeing Eternals instead of Dune or whatever film they think people *should* be watching.
The masses, the people who lift films up over the billion dollar threshold, like to be entertained. Marvel entertains. As long as they continue to entertain, people will continue to watch, and spend money on it. If the people who love movie theatres were worried about the health of the industry, well, they should be hoping Marvel has the goods to get people back into seats, or it all might go away. The new film from Japanese auteur Hirokazu Kore-eda is never going to do that, no matter how much they wish it would.
I remember a time where superhero films were more often than not vastly disappointing. And looking back upon the non-comics superhero media I consumed prior to Marvel studios upping the ante, well, most of it looks pretty bad in hindsight...not just effects, but scale and even faith in the source material to translate. Hell, it still happens.
Critics have a thing against stuff just persisting at doing what it does well. I get it. When you're watching 500 films a year, you want to be challenged, you want something different. But Marvel is only interested in being different by inches. They've figured out their formula for making things work, and when you're sinking $150 Million to $200 Million into a film, you want to go with what works.
But now they're in the realm of TV, where they're bringing their cinematic budget and talent and stretching it over 6 - 8 hours of episodic storytelling, where they can invest more in character, and slow down a little and take more risks. And if you thought that the last risk Marvel took was having the heroes lose to the villain's grand plan and then making people wait a year for resolution was the last risk they were going to take well, that's wrong.
Every risk is a micro-step, Marvel doesn't just leap forward, they toe the line before they step forward just to make sure there's something on the other side. Loki's Season 1 finale broke the Marvel Universe as we knew it, from a single timeline (a concept introduced in Endgame) to the exploding Multiverse. It was done via talking heads, with no immediate sense of the ramifications. And with that set... What If...?
What If...? is Marvel Studio's first foray into animation that is directly connected to their Marvel Cinematic Universe. The series is an anthology (uh oh) of stories, each episode posing a "what if" scenario that would take a familiar story on a very distinct trajectory. The concept is based on the comic book series of the same name, where the comics would postulate a different outcome to a particular storyline or character event.
This...is some nerdy shit. And risky.
Dedicated fans of Marvel comics and film will have no problems with the series, it's more the general population who are never asked to consider parallel realities or to do so via animation. Immediately there's two barriers, the high concept and the vehicle of delivery. The smart play on Marvel's part is to keep it contained. It may, in a strange way flesh out the characters of the MCU even further by seeing dopplegangers of popular heroes (and villains) in different setting, and building the MCU multiverse, but whatever it's doing here in this format doesn't ever need to ripple out into the live-action MCU, which is not to say that it won't, but likely not.
We start with retreading Captain America: First Avenger except it's Peggy Carter who instead gets the super-soldier injection instead of Steve Rogers. She becomes a super-soldier ("Captain Carter") and Steve winds up in pre-Iron Man armour called "The Hydra Buster". The rhythms of the episode are familiar to First Avenger but vary as a result of who the lead character is. Hayley Atwell was exceptionally charming in every appearance in the MCU proper, and just as charming as Peggy in her own two-season tv series, and she remains just as enthusiastic in her voice role here. Some of the other players are voice by their original actors (Toby Jones as Zola, and Dominic Cooper as Howard Stark for instance) but, as we'll see, there's a few roles - Steve Rogers here, Tony Stark, and Black Widow - that were recast for obvious reasons. I love the design for Captain Carter, and the episode has a brisk energy that for many reasons threw some people off. Because the stories are contained to roughly a half hour, they feel very compressed which leaves a sense that we're just getting a taste, and not really a full meal. But that was the nature of the comics as well. There's a trust here that Marvel movie fans know those stories well enough to get the shorthand the movies set up and to understand the impact of the deviations. It's a lot to ask an audience. Like I noted above, some people are starting to get tapped out, others quite happy to be along for the ride.
The second episode posits, strangely, "What if T'Challa became Star-Lord". The plausibility of Peggy getting the super-soldier serum is far greater than what if Yondu grabbed the wrong kid from Earth, but that does not stop this episode from being hugely fun, in no small part thanks to Chadwick Boseman's superbly charismatic vocal performance, which brings in the smooth, soothing dialect he crafted for T'Challa in his live action roles, but liberates the character from the confines of being a royal and just lets him have fun. But T'Challa was a born leader, and if he were traveling the galaxy his rather positive impact would be felt. This was a surprise, but a delightful one. Miss you Chadwick.
Episode 3 is the first of a trio of darker turns, this one a murder mystery as someone picks off each of the heroes that Nick Fury was recruiting for the Avengers Initiative. It's an engaging enough watch, but given the mystery angle, it doesn't maintain its level of intrigue upon rewatch knowing who the murderer is. Episode 4 is Doctor Strange-centric and asks what would have happened if Strange lost Christine Palmer (surprisingly still voiced by Rachel McAdams) in his car accident and went to extreme lengths to get her back. It gets bleak. Bleaker still is Episode 5 which asks "What if...zombies?" which isn't really good grammer or a complete question. It brings the popular Marvel Zombies comic book conceit into the MCU for better or worse. It's got both humour and horror in equal measure, but it's still zombies and mileage may vary.
Episode 6 finds Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) putting his plans for the world in motion earlier than he did in Black Panther by coming to Tony Stark's aide circa Iron Man. As a result he manages to gain access to technology and weapons that allow him to rule Wakanda much sooner. Nearly the whole Black Panther voice cast returns (save for Letitia Wright) though much of the Iron Man cast is replaced. It seems, of any of the episodes, the most open ended, like the first part of something larger.
In centering on Thor for Episode 7, asking basically what if Loki were never adopted as Thor's brother, Thor never matures and it's pretty much a goofy, fun, romcom with Chris Hemsworth and, yes, Natalie Portman, being three times as lively as they were in the original Thor movie. Thor essentially throws a party on Earth while his dad is in his "Odinsleep" and his mom is away. It's the cliche of the high-school rager gone out of control, done with Marvel scale. It's pretty fun.
Marvel, however, can't help itself. These 7 episodes are all self contained, but with Jeffrey Wright's Watcher as the linking threat. Episode 8&9 serve as a two-parter, but also a series connector as Ultron succeeds in defeating the Avengers, obtaining the Infinity Stones and not only dominating the galaxy but learning of the existence of the Multiverse which he also seeks to conquer. The only hope to stopping him is characters poached from the previous episodes. It's a way of making this "What If..." endeavor seem to have greater importance, but I don't think it was necessary (but hey, more Chadwick Boseman, and I'll take all I can get). It doesn't feel like it adds anything specific, except maybe more questions. The finale, like so many, ends in a big spectacle fight, which becomes numbing after a while and not the epic denouement I think they were hoping for.
All told, like any anthology, a mixed bag, but no outright clunkers here. If anything they're all good to great viewing. The animation is very bright and bold, and knows when to lean into the animatedness of it all, whether for comedic or dramatic effect. If there's any issue with the animation it's solely in the mouths, they move funny and don't seem natural at all. It's not a deal breaker but it's always noticeable.
[Episode Ranking]
- What If... Captain Carter Were The First Avenger (ep1)
- What If... T'Challa Became Star Lord (ep2)
- What If... Ultron Won (ep8)
- What If... Killmonger Rescued Tony Stark (ep6)
- What If... Zombies?! (ep5)
- What If... Thor Were An Only Child (ep7)
- What If... Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands (ep4)
- What If... The Watcher Broke His Oath (ep9)
- What If... The World Lost Its Mightiest Heroes (ep 3)
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