The “What If…?” series published by Marvel Comics presents fun alternative scenarios involving our favorite superheroes. And now that we’re 23 movies into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with dozens of familiar characters and high-stakes adventures to dive into, Kevin Feige has decided it’s time to bring that format to the screen.
What If…? is set to premiere on Disney+ as a part of the MCU’s Phase Four, exploring a bunch of hypothetical scenarios involving storylines and characters from the MCU’s roster of movies. So, here are 5 Things That Have Been Confirmed For Marvel’s What If…? (And 5 Fan Theories).
Confirmed: It’s animated
Unlike any of the MCU’s past entries, the upcoming What If…? series will be animated. This will make it Marvel Studios’ first-ever animated series since branching out as an independent company. The show’s creative team has chosen to use a cel-shaded animation style. This style uses less detailed shading to make 3D computer graphics appear flat.
The series’ head writer, A.C. Bradley, has said that this is “a much more cinematic style [than you usually see in TV animation] – actually getting to play with the lighting and animation, which you don’t always get to do, especially if you’re going for a TV look.”
Fan theory: What if the other half got dusted?
This idea was proposed by Redditor u/bigfatcarp93, with fellow Redditor u/Nscope90 commenting that it would make a good season finale. What if, at the end of Avengers: Infinity War, when Thanos snapped his fingers and wiped out half of all life in the universe at random, the other half got turned to dust instead?
Scott wouldn’t be there to tell everyone about the Quantum Realm, and Tony and Bruce wouldn’t be there to use their scientific know-how to bring everybody back, but Shuri might’ve been able to figure something out. Plus, Doctor Strange would be there to look into the future. It’d be interesting to see how different Endgame would’ve been because Endgamewas already wildly unpredictable.
Confirmed: Most actors from the movies are coming back
It would’ve been easy for Marvel to just get a bunch of soundalike actors to play the animated versions of the characters in What If…?, but they’re more committed than that. They’ve signed up most of the actors from the movies to reprise their roles in voice form in the series.
These include Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Karen Gillan as Nebula, Tom Hiddleston as Loki, Josh Brolin as Thanos, and Michael B. Jordan as Erik Killmonger. Jeff Goldblum is also back as the Grandmaster, and he hinted in an interview recently that Robert Downey, Jr. could be returning as Tony Stark, although this has yet to be confirmed.
Fan theory: What if Steve Rogers signed the Sokovia Accords?
When the United Nations proposed the Sokovia Accords in Captain America: Civil War, Steve Rogers and Tony Stark disagreed over it and it led to a near-irreparable divide between the Avengers. The Russo brothers have said that if Steve and Tony were on speaking terms in Avengers: Infinity War, they would’ve been able to triumph over Thanos.
If Steve signed the Accords in Civil War, then that might have been the case. However, this would’ve also led to the Accords taking effect, and an important part of Infinity War was the Accords being thrown out the window and forgotten about. So, it would be an interesting scenario to explore.
Confirmed: There will be 23 episodes
When What If…? arrives on Disney+ in 2021, it’ll consist of 23 episodes. It was initially reported that each of these episodes would present a hypothetical scenario deviating from one installment in the Infinity Saga, from Iron Man to Spider-Man: Far From Home.
However, head writer A.C. Bradley has since debunked this, saying that while the plan is to involve as many MCU movies and characters in the series as possible, the one-movie-per-episode ratio isn’t as hard and fast as it was initially rumored. The episodes will release weekly, like Disney+’s The Mandalorian, not all at once, like Netflix’s shows.
Fan theory: What if Nick Fury paged Captain Marvel earlier?
In the post-credits scene of Avengers: Infinity War, Nick Fury paged Captain Marvel before he turned to dust, to both hype up the character’s solo movie and introduce her involvement in Avengers: Endgame. Then, in Captain Marvel, we saw Carol give that pager to Fury and ask him to only use it in an emergency.
Naturally, Marvel fans wondered why Fury didn’t page Carol sooner, during the Battle of New York or the Battle of Sokovia. The obvious answer is that Marvel didn’t plan that far ahead. But What If…? presents an opportunity to retcon this and see what would’ve happened if Fury enlisted Carol’s help sooner.
Confirmed: Jeffrey Wright will narrate the series
Westworld’s Jeffrey Wright has been confirmed as the narrator of the What If…? series. He’ll be playing a Watcher named Uatu, keeping an eye on multiple versions of Earth’s mightiest heroes. Watchers were previously introduced to the MCU in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, with Stan Lee playing one of them.
Head writer A.C. Bradley has compared the character to “a guy watching a rat drag a slice of pizza across the platform. He has no interest in becoming friends with the rat, living amongst the rat, or doing rat things. He just goes, ‘Man, this is remarkable. Look at the little guy go.’ That is the Watcher’s relationship with humanity.”
Fan theory: What if Thor went for the head in the first place?
“You should’ve gone for the head.” These were the words that haunted Thor for five years, sending him down a spiral of depression and alcoholism. What if he actually did go for the head when he arrived in Wakanda at the end of Infinity War? Thanos would’ve died and the Snap would’ve been averted.
This would probably be a conflict-free narrative, but it could work, because the audience would watch Thor be praised as the universe’s savior, knowing that it’s only a hypothetic scenario and that it actually went down differently and had really tragic repercussions, all because of one little mistake.
Confirmed: Peggy Carter takes the super-soldier serum in the first episode
When Marvel first started developing a series based on the “What If…?” comics, Kevin Feige told the writing staff to come up with a bunch of concepts for episodes, then he chose his favorites out of what they came up with to make up the first season. The first episode will show an alternative version of the events of Captain America: The First Avenger.
Instead of giving the super-soldier serum to Steve Rogers and turning him into Captain America, the episode will see S.H.I.E.L.D. giving the serum to Peggy Carter. Details from the subsequent episodes have been kept under wraps.
Fan theory: What if Tony Stark never escaped from Afghanistan?
Proposed by Redditor u/CityHog, this would change the entire fabric of the MCU. In 2008’s Iron Man, carefree billionaire playboy weapons manufacturer Tony Stark’s convoy was intercepted in Afghanistan by a band of terrorists and he was trapped in a cave and forced to build a missile. Instead, he built a metal suit and used it to bust out of the cave.
This led to Tony becoming Iron Man, uniting the Avengers, and kicking off the events of the Infinity Saga. But what if Tony never escaped the cave? The following 23 movies’ worth of stories would have been completely different.
