Watched the first two episodes of "What If...?" on Disney+.
It's okay so far.
I like the animation style decently; others might differ. It's pretty fluid and expressive.
The plotting is hit or miss so far. Episode #1 casts Sharon Carter as Captain America through a fluke in the original scene that turned Steve Rogers into Cap. But it pretty much just seems to be similar in all the beats (except for a few that mildly change) to CA: The First Avenger except with a woman in the role. So not super imaginative or anything.
Episode #2 is What if T'Challa had been captured instead of Peter and became Star-Lord? This episode is a bit more imaginative, although it all kind of rolls out of the premise that T'Challa would bring a nobility to Star-Lord that Quill did not possess, so instead of becoming a scoundrel, he becomes more like a Robin Hood figure and the ruffians who either did not recognize him or who ragged on him now are kind of glomming for his attention. What's really kind of fascinating is the huge cast we recognize from MCU and how they would be reshaped by this, and that Marvel got all the voice actors back from live action MCU (aside from Chris Pratt). Again, it's marginally better than the first episode and at least tries to do something newer with the concept, and I even laughed occasionally throughout. (It's kind of funny hearing a reformed Thanos continuing to gripe all the time about how he still thinks his personal plan to reallocate stellar resources is more effective and efficient -- he's like the loser at the bar who just cannot shut up about his pet peeve.) ALso, they got Chadwick Boseman to record his lines before his passing.
Jury is still out, it's been rather lackluster so far overall. I don't really get how they managed to take an idea like this and just come up with some kind of lame one-offs. I loved the What If comic, there were some great issues. (I still reread the "What if Jean Grey had Lived?" title, and the humor issue.)
Watched the first two episodes of "What If...?" on Disney+.
It's okay so far.
I like the animation style decently; others might differ. It's pretty fluid and expressive.
The plotting is hit or miss so far. Episode #1 casts Sharon Carter as Captain America through a fluke in the original scene that turned Steve Rogers into Cap. But it pretty much just seems to be similar in all the beats (except for a few that mildly change) to CA: The First Avenger except with a woman in the role. So not super imaginative or anything.
Episode #2 is What if T'Challa had been captured instead of Peter and became Star-Lord? This episode is a bit more imaginative, although it all kind of rolls out of the premise that T'Challa would bring a nobility to Star-Lord that Quill did not possess, so instead of becoming a scoundrel, he becomes more like a Robin Hood figure and the ruffians who either did not recognize him or who ragged on him now are kind of glomming for his attention. What's really kind of fascinating is the huge cast we recognize from MCU and how they would be reshaped by this, and that Marvel got all the voice actors back from live action MCU (aside from Chris Pratt). Again, it's marginally better than the first episode and at least tries to do something newer with the concept, and I even laughed occasionally throughout. (It's kind of funny hearing a reformed Thanos continuing to gripe all the time about how he still thinks his personal plan to reallocate stellar resources is more effective and efficient -- he's like the loser at the bar who just cannot shut up about his pet peeve.) ALso, they got Chadwick Boseman to record his lines before his passing.
Jury is still out, it's been rather lackluster so far overall. I don't really get how they managed to take an idea like this and just come up with some kind of lame one-offs. I loved the What If comic, there were some great issues. (I still reread the "What if Jean Grey had Lived?" title, and the humor issue.)
Five episodes out now. I'm kind of disappointed. The issues of the comic that stuck with me were more often ones that were important in the comics and really were crux points leading to different outcomes. Like, "What if Elektra had lived?" because Matt had been able to save her or as mentioned "What if Jean Grey had lived?" because it was a true crux point/dilemma in the comics. So far we've seen five storylines paraded around here, and most seem inconsequential or not based on the storylines. I already mentioned how Episode #1 just seems to be Captain America but with many of the same beats (or no important deviations in the storyline) if Sharon Carter had become Cap. Episode 3 explores a storyline of the Avengers all being murdered the week we saw them assembled but that's not really a choice, it's more just a one-off. Episode 4 is one of the more intriguing, with what if Christine had died in the car crash instead of Strange losing his career... but this was not part of the film! She was never in the car during the film, yet we're now supposed to accept she's a fixed point in time for him. Again, this is more truly a "one off" alternate story, not a "What if?" based on a crux point in the MCU. And now we see the "Marvel Zombies" storyline, which who cares, because zombies are so overused nowadays + again this was never a thing.
There's room for variation sure in the storytelling / basis for it, but typically the most powerful what if's are the ones where someone's choice that we actually saw in the MCU could have been made differently and so we see what might have actually happened if that important point had played out that way. Like, what if Thor had actually gone for the headshot? What if Hawkeye had made the supreme sacrifice on Volmir? What if Vision had chosen to let the last Ultron clone live out of pity? What if Captain Marvel had killed the skrull leader when he came to her for a truce? What if Steve had given the shield to Bucky, not Sam? They seem to be telling stories right now that are just fan-fic one-off's (ooh, what if all the heroes became zombies??) that aren't really based on what happened in the MCU if a different decision had been made. The best what if's end up either undermining the decision that was actually made in the original storyline (underlining it as a tragedy) or showing why despite the pain involved it was actually a "best outcome" (underlining it as a triumph).
Daredevil season 3 fucking ruled and I feel like people don't talk about that enough. I miss that show.
The buzz I have been hearing is that Charlie Cox would be reprised in the role of Daredevil as it enters the MCU. Maybe we will see something in Dr Strange 2.
I didn't much like the Elektra arc of the Netflix storyline, it didn't seem to live up to its potential, but I think that was Season 2. The Kingpin storylines were always the best throughlines in the series.
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