The Short Take:
The premiere of Marvel’s animated series, What If…?, strikes the right balance between familiar faces and fresh story with an action-packed adventure that does not feel as random as I had feared. The art style didn’t work for me, but I’d still recommend the show to MCU fans.
Image Credit: Screenrant
The Long Take:
Even the most die-hard MCU fans may balk at this show. It’s an animated anthology series that depicts events that could have happened to characters we know but didn’t happen to them in films we’ve already seen. So I can understand if even someone who normally makes a point to see all of the live action MCU properties may view this as skippable. As inconsequential bonus material.
But I’m here to report that, while I do have a few issues with the show thus far, it does matter for the larger MCU. Since this is the first episode (and you may be reading to decide whether or not to watch), I won’t spoil anything. All I’ll say is that the voiceover narration that bookends this episode definitely connects to both what we’ve gotten in Phase 4 thus far (looking at you, Loki) and upcoming titles (ahem, The Eternals, ahem). These “what ifs” are not hypotheticals; they are multiverse manifestations that will, as Marvel has confirmed, stand as canon. I think this show, then, will act as a primer to help fans better understand the multiversal madness to come. Once we get used to the idea that in another dimension Peggy Carter could be Captain Carter because she took the super soldier serum instead of Steve Rogers, it will be easier for us to follow along with random variants showing up in the same scene or bouncing from one dimension to the next — at a quicker pace — in a tentpole film like Doctor Strange 2.
But didn’t Loki already do this? Yes. Perhaps, then, this is the second step, extending what Loki already started. Lots of Lokis is one thing, but will we immediately buy lots of different versions of our other favorite heroes all together? What if…? gives us a chance to test that out and get comfortable with variants on a much bigger, far-reaching scale. As a Loki fan who is interested in the general concept of a comic book-style multiverse, watching What if…? was exciting.
The art style of this episode, though, is a little hard to take at times, if I’m being perfectly honest. I had no problem and in fact enjoyed the accelerated movement of characters during action sequences. The style overall appealed to me less. I’ve been watching The Dragon Prince lately and the 2D cut-out style seems similar but more extreme. It’s very on trend in the animation space right now, and I find it distracting.
More specifically, the way the faces were drawn kept taking me out of the story. I get that animators might want to give these characters an identity separate from the actors who have played them, but Marvel made a huge deal in their marketing for this, flaunting the names of all the actors from previous MCU films who were returning. If you hire the same actors to do the voice work, but deliberately do not make the characters drawn to look like them, you create a cognitive dissonance that frequently interfered with my enjoyment of the episode. This problem may ebb over time as I get used to it; we’ll have to wait and see.
The action and the story told through the animation worked fairly well, and that ultimately prompts me to recommend the show. I was super impressed (but also a little terrified) by just how much the writers pack into one 34-minute episode: we basically relive the entire plot of Captain America: The First Avenger, but with a few major changes. I don’t mean to say that this is a clip show or a rehashing of old content. It’s not. It really is a new story, but with bits and pieces of the original film scrambled to create an uncanny feeling. I rewatched the first Captain America film a couple months ago, and certain set pieces brought me right back to it. Some dialogue stays the same but other characters utter them. It’s so weird. But good weird. I imagine the uncanniness may be even more acute if you haven’t watched the film since it was in theaters.
To me, Peggy Carter was the perfect choice to kick off this series. The romance between her and Steve was, in a lot of ways, the beating heart of the entire Infinity Saga, chronologically beginning with their separation in Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) and ending with [OH, COME ON, IS THIS REALLY A SPOILER? If you’re reading this but you haven’t seen all the other major MCU movies, what are you doing here? Go watch them.] their reunion. Peggy and Steve as a couple serve as an anchor in this episode as well. The twist the writers put on their relationship is adorable. And just knowing that Peggy and Steve’s star-crossed romance is a constant in the multiverse warms my heart.
Haley Atwell’s Agent Carter as a standalone character has been a heroine I will loyally follow anywhere since we first met her in that film. I was, for reference, very upset when the sometimes mediocre but all around fun and satisfying ABC series, Agent Carter, got canceled. And turning Agent Carter into Captain Carter (or, if her shield is any indication, Captain Britain) isn’t just a fun, fan service-y thought experiment because it pulls out feminist themes in a really clear but not heavy-handed way. The “what if” is as much probing what problems Peggy would have as a woman (that Steve would not) as it is about what she would do with super strength and a vibranium shield. The phrase, “lucky to be in the room” echoes throughout the episode in a way that efficiently and sharply conveys that Peggy has been left out of many rooms in her career, despite her qualifications. The fact that super strength apparently can’t even change that is awful and impactful as a statement. I’m not happy that Bradley Whitford is the poster jerk for sexism in this alternate universe because to me he will always be Josh Lyman. But his voice really screams through all the action in a way that makes the message difficult to ignore.
There was, however, one comment Whitford’s John Flynn makes about Carter not being trained for the field that I take issue with, even if it’s coming out of the mouth of an obviously sexist character. I think the writers meant to say that Agent Carter is not a trained soldier, but making the argument that she isn’t qualified for the field seriously downplays her super spy skills, which we see in the 2011 film and see in even more detail in the television series. She may not have the fancy flips and poses of Natasha Romanoff, but I’d argue that she’s as lethal and cunning as a Black Widow.
Carter’s fighting style resembles “old timey” boxing; the way she punches reminds me of old Hollywood action. And we get to see that in full force in What if…? There’s a 1940s wartime montage with a suped up Captain Carter that was pure catnip for a fan of retro vibes like me.
Now the question is: will the next episode be able to tap into what I loved about the original versions of these characters and their films while still delivering a new and interesting narrative?