What if Disney Tried Something New?

A review of 'What If ...?'

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Warning: This review contains spoilers.

What If …? is the latest Marvel show to hit Disney+ and serves as Marvel’s new push into the multiverse that was set up at the end of Loki. What If is an anthology show in which The Watcher (Jeffrey Wright) hops around the multiverse, showing viewers how stories in the Marvel Cinematic Universe played out differently in various timelines. 

The show is supposed to re-create the feel of comic books, where the multiverse gives writers the freedom to recreate characters however they wish. But unlike comic series, where writers are given a few issues to explore the storyline and introduce their iteration of beloved characters, each episode of What If is a half-hour one-shot, meaning there isn’t really any opportunity for character development. As a result, the show relies heavily on viewers’ previous knowledge of the MCU, putting the stories on a bit of a knife’s edge. You don’t need to explain a person’s backstory or motivations or personality if everyone knows them coming in and it can be fun to see a character you know and love (or hate) in a different setting. Stay too familiar and the story feels stale. But change a character too radically, that prior knowledge becomes useless. 

Take, for example, the second episode, “What If … T’Challa Became a Star-Lord?” In the episode, T’Challa—better known as the hero Black Panther—is kidnapped off of Earth as a child by the alien pirates who were supposed to capture Peter Quill of Guardians of the Galaxy. T’Challa stays true to the character we learned about in Captain America: Civil War and Black Panther and the later Avengers movies.  Those around him, not so much. The alien pirates become alien Robin Hoods for an easy laugh, while, most egregiously, Thanos becomes a goofy dad who joins T’Challa’s heroic gang all because T’Challa made a wholesome argument as to why he should give up his plan to kill half of all life in the universe. Years of fleshing out Thanos in various films are tossed out the window in one line just for a joke.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Jack

    Hey Mr. Dent, I have a suggestion. You reviewed this show three episodes in, and I believe there are supposed to be at least nine episodes total. Maybe wait until the whole show is out until you review it? It seems rushed to base a review on a third of the show. I just finished watching the Dr. Strange episode, and it was a work of art. And oddly touching. I’d like to see a review of What If…? once the season is finished.

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  2. Stoney deGeyter

    I would have liked to see the entire third episode played out over a 8-episode season. That would give a lot more room for exploring these "what if" scenarios that 30 minutes doesn't allow. And would likely be far more enjoyable.

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  3. Dennis Trask

    Disney has plenty of company. We are awash in redundant stories throughout the entertainment world. Whenever I hear entertainers raving about the creativity of their work, it feels like a black is white night is day sort of thing. While there are special artists among us, they are few and far between.

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  4. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    “ But what if instead of relying on old properties, Disney produced original content?”

    Boom. Roasted. Very on point. Knew that’s where this was going when I opened the piece. I think I’ll just keep reading Dispatch reviews of Marvel stuff instead of actually wasting my time watching it.

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    George.Skinner

    Oh, c'mon - strip mining creative content was exactly the point of the Marvel Entertainment acquisition in the first place! It's really part of the Disney genius, if you consider they built an entertainment empire based on the antics of a cartoon mouse whose popularity peaked in the '30s and '40s.

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  6. Alan

    "What if instead of relying on old properties, Disney produced original content?"

    It would still be lousy, because it would still come out of the same writerly monoculture, still be subject to the same corporate risk-reduction processes, and still have to please the same audiences.

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    Synchronize Your Dogmas (Bill B)

    "...what if instead of relying on old properties, Disney produced original content?"

    That could cut across the entire industry.

    "A society that generates a lot of bad movies need not be decadent; a society that makes the same movies over and over again might be."

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    1. Avatar photo
      Ben Connelly

      You’re exactly correct. Is that second quotation from Ross Douthat?

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        Synchronize Your Dogmas (Bill B)

        Yup

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          Ben Connelly

          I haven’t read his book yet but it’s on my list

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            Synchronize Your Dogmas (Bill B)

            Actually from an article. Don’t know if it was an excerpt

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  8. Avatar photo
    CP

    I liked the Marvel "What If" just fine, but it was never as interesting or provocative as DC's "Elseworlds" stuff. Also, even though there have been a bazillion Marvel movies, there's still not much to draw on. "What If" was campy and relatively lighthearted, but their campy and lighthearted properties (Fantastic Four, Spiderman) haven't had "Marvel" movies made of them.

    So instead we get several different iterations of "What If...the early Marvel movies didn't have straight, white males in the lead roles?" in just about every show--in an effort to find something to explore that audiences (who are aligned with Disney's ideology) actually do care about.

    I'd love to see them use "What If" to explore other "Elseworlds"-style Marvel stories or branch out into wackier themes, but they seem hesitant to do that so far, even if the other Marvel television shows (WandaVision and Loki) have essentially been protracted "What If" stories.

    The difference is that WandaVision and Loki make us care about characters we hadn't explored much yet, whereas "What If" (so far) has assumed that we already care about these characters, based on the largely hollow--if entertaining--movies.

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  9. Avatar photo
    Dexember

    Alec, as others have posted: What If… was an actual comic line in Marvel with single issue stories just like the show. Your critique of the show was the same for the comic, so good points there. But your overall tying it to Disney ignores the history of the comic itself. A quick google search was in order.

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  10. Avatar photo
    Michael Darwin

    This is more in line with the original What If...? series, which were all single issue, stand alone stories. And, as with the three episodes here, we basically got three flavors: mostly the same with a twist, came out better, ends up worse. And yes, prior knowledge matters, as it does for any alternate timeline tale to work as an alternate timeline, otherwise it's just another story. What If...? has always been fanservice, taking comic con arguments and turning them into tales. In that, the series is successful in what was appealing about the original run. Either you are the target audience or you're not.

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