It is wildly irritating how small the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s multiverse is.
Let me present you what I imply. Listed here are the episode titles for all seven episodes of What If…? season 2, the present about imagining all the probabilities current within the MCU multiverse, which have aired so far:
- “What If… Nebula Joined the Nova Corps?”
- “What If… Peter Quill Attacked Earth’s Mightiest Heroes?”
- “What If… Happy Hogan Saved Christmas?”
- “What If… Iron Man Crashed into the Grandmaster?”
- “What If… Captain Carter Fought the Hydra Stomper?”
- “What If… Kahhori Reshaped the World?”
- “What If… Hela Found the Ten Rings?”
What, pray inform, does any of that imply? Nebula becoming a member of the Nova Corps isn’t terribly thrilling, as a result of, effectively, the MCU Nova Corps are boring area cops, and this episode isn’t involved with fleshing them out. Captain Carter preventing the Hydra Stomper? Beg your pardon? I like half of that sentence, I suppose! Hela discovering the Ten Rings? Props for lastly pulling from Part 4, however Hela was already dangerous information with out the Ten Rings from Shang-Chi; this is not an enormous twist.
Picture: Marvel Studios
Worse, these premises all obscure the cool stuff every episode is really doing. Pleased Hogan saving Christmas? That’s sneakily an Iron Man 2-period Die Laborious spoof. Iron Man and the Grandmaster? That’s a Marvel-flavored Demise Race/Ben-Hur pastiche. Kahhori reshaping the world? That one is supposed to be confounding, as a result of it introduces a brand-new hero, the Mohawk lady Kahhori, who is empowered by the Tesseract in a single universe and thrust into the broader multiverse by final season’s Unusual Supreme. (Kahhori’s episode is additionally the one one to actually strive something new right here, versus mixing and matching issues we’ve seen in MCU motion pictures.)
What If…? didn’t begin this fashion. Whereas it had its issues — issues that stay constant, like an animation type that is fairly nice for folks preventing and fairly horrid for folks speaking — there was a readability to each episode’s proposed twist. Examine season 1’s first seven episode titles to the present lineup:
- “What If… Captain Carter Were the First Avenger?”
- “What If… T’Challa Became a Star-Lord?”
- “What If… the World Lost Its Mightiest Heroes?”
- “What If… Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?”
- “What If… Zombies?!”
- “What If… Killmonger Rescued Tony Stark?”
- “What If… Thor Were an Only Child?”
These are all questions worthy of the invitation to surprise within the present’s title, and proposed adjustments that ripple outward in a means that goes past a one-off escapade or a barely completely different lineup for the Avengers or Guardians of the Galaxy. (Which is kind of the extent of what a number of season 2 episodes do.)
It seems that making Marvel’s cinematic multiverse really feel really infinite is an impossibly massive activity, as a result of the probabilities current within the Marvel Cinematic Universe are frustratingly restricted. Positive, the films have taken us from Earth to the far reaches of area, however the folks in it? They’re useful. Each heroes’ supporting forged principally includes co-workers or fellow troopers, maybe a love curiosity. Few have favourite bands (how rapidly has Tony Stark’s style in loud rock disappeared), a definite sense of favor, or annoying opinions. This missing ripples outward, limiting the array of imagined futures writers on reveals like What If…? can conjure for these characters, leaving them with no selection however to nudge plot occasions round, reshuffle rosters, or, in the event that they’re feeling formidable, retcon some range into the MCU’s stodgy white early years.
In different phrases, What If…? desperately must ask higher questions, earlier than we begin asking the apparent one: What if all of us did one thing else with our time?
