Tag: What If…?

  • New ‘What If…?’ Funko Pops Include Frost Giant Loki, Ravager Thanos, and More

    New ‘What If…?’ Funko Pops Include Frost Giant Loki, Ravager Thanos, and More

    Finally, the second wave of What If…? Funko Pops have found their way online featuring some of the supporting cast. In each of the episodes, not only do we meet a variety of new twists on iconic stories but also how a simple change alters the entire world. The new Funko Pops include Frost Giant Loki, Ravager Thanos, and quite a few additions from the finale. You can check out the new line of Funkos right here:

    Ironically, we believed that Ultron was going to take on the mantle of Supreme Leader, but it turned out he was called Infinity Ultron. So, the inclusion of Killmonger taking on the mantle made us believe he may finally turn out to be him, but he’s also known as Infinity Killmonger. So, the Supreme Leader is very likely the Zola-possessed version of Vision, who doesn’t have an official name as of yet.

    Source: Twitter, Amazon

  • Director Bryan Andrews Discusses Paying Tribute to Jack Kirby in ‘What If…?’

    Director Bryan Andrews Discusses Paying Tribute to Jack Kirby in ‘What If…?’

    The last 2 episodes of the first season of What If…?, Marvel Studios first canonical animated series, saw a significant ramping up in terms of action and big, frenetic fight scenes. Episode 8 saw The Watcher go God-mode and take on Ultron in one of the best battles of the series which also saw an iconic comic book aesthetic jump mediums to the MCU: the Kirby Krackle. In an interview with ComicBook.com, What If…? director Bryan Andrews talked about bringing the artistic convention to the series and honoring the man for who it’s named, comic book legend Jack Kirby.

    Kirby often used the Krackle, or Kirby Dots, as a representation of Cosmic energy (and in Episode 8 The Watcher was giving off some big energy!). Comic readers might mostly associate the style with Kirby’s work on The Fantastic Four (as seen below) but the unique representation permeated his work and has been used in animated series and films before such as Ben 10 and Into the Spider-Verse. Andrews, who has worked as a story board artist for Marvel Studios for more than a decade, was thrilled to bring the effect to the series.

    The Jack Kirby Legacy -

    I just wanted to do it forever. And then I’ve always been bummed that they haven’t done Kirby Krackle on the live action movies, so I was like, ‘We’re doing it here, guys,’ and everyone was like, “Yay!” I think, now that we’ve done it and it looks amazing, I’m hoping that whatever weird thing that the visual effects people have been avoiding it for [is over] — I don’t know why they would. Come on guys. Bring it, bring it! So we’ll see. Maybe it’s a new era of visual effects.

    Kirby’s influence has been felt more and more in the past few years of the MCU. Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok designs were very Kirby-esque and in just under one month one of Kirby’s most obscure creations, the Eternals, will be featured in their own film. It’s both wonderful and appropriate to see the Kirby Krackle introduced into the MCU via The Watcher, one of Kirby’s creations and a staple of The World’s Greatest Comics Magazine. Let’s hope the live-action crew take a cue from Andrews and find a way to bring the Krackle to the big screen in Marvel Studios Fantastic Four.

    Source: ComicBook.com

  • Chadwick Boseman Originally to Lead a T’Challa Star-Lord ‘What If…?’ Spinoff

    Chadwick Boseman Originally to Lead a T’Challa Star-Lord ‘What If…?’ Spinoff

    What If…?‘s first season came to an end. The story explored alternate universes where our favorite heroes and friends took on very different roles. In it, we got introduced to a different version of T’Challa, who ended up taking on Star-Lord’s role in the galaxy. Chadwick Boseman gave his final performance in the series as the titular character, and it seems there were originally more plans to expand. Director Bryan Andrews discussed the original plans in an interview with Variety, where he confirms their original plans before his untimely death.

    I don’t know if he knew this, but there was planning to have Star Lord T’Challa spin off into his own show with that universe and that crew and that whole thing. We were all very excited. We know he would have loved it, too. And then, you know, he passed, and so all that’s in limbo. So, who knows? Maybe one day.

    Bryan Andrews

    Tragically, Boseman couldn’t build upon the ideas and concepts he helped develop in the Disney+ series. His spirit will live on in the franchise, especially with the upcoming Black Panther sequel. He also gave some touching speeches in What If..? that’ll surely stick with people for many years to come.

    There’s no word if they wanted to explore it as an animated feature, or even turn it into a live-action franchise. The fact they are open to exploring the multiverse as unique projects outside of this animated project also raise many possibilities. Perhaps our pitches for multiversal stories, like a No Way Home spinoff focusing on Raimi‘s version of Flash Thompson becoming Agent Venom.

    Source: Variety

  • ‘WHAT IF…?’ Needs To Stop Covering The Hits And Start Making Its Own

    ‘WHAT IF…?’ Needs To Stop Covering The Hits And Start Making Its Own

    Today saw the release of the season finale of Marvel Studios’ first animated venture, What If…?. Over the course of 9 episodes, the show did its damnedest to play with the framework offered by 20+ films in the canon and the premise of an anthological format. The result is an unexpected mixed bag of stories that felt way too familiar. For a show that was supposed to explore the endless outcomes of the multiverse, we sure as hell got some glaringly familiar outcomes.

    For example, Captain Carter is transported to the present-day, in time for the opening events of The Avengers, at the end of the pilot episode. It’s a deviation you’d think would massively impact the fate of the MCU; if Peggy is around to fight Loki as soon as he arrives on Earth, the world would be forever changed. Yet when we catch up to where she is in this finale, she’s somehow on the same path as Sacred Timeline Steve; headed to the Lemurian Star in a stealth suit to stop Batroc from hijacking the ship. The ripple effect should be way more monumental than the HYDRA Stomper showing up at the end.

    Why is this the case when even the smallest of deviations can alter timelines in drastic ways?

    To ask why from a story POV would be to tear apart the seams of Captain Carter’s timeline, which no one has time for. But to ask from the vantage of the show and all its episodes makes the answer clear: the show is more concerned with honoring the MCU’s past than it is carving its own future, for better or worse. It cares about giving audiences to point fingers at like that DiCaprio meme. A lot of the creative decisions in this show end up feeling like mandates because of how restrictive it feels. Every episode has to be about an existing movie. All the players involved must be characters in the canon. Episodes must have familiar MCU scenes.

    That’s how you end up with a ludicrous subplot like using Arnim Zola, a primitive AI from the 1970s, to stop a superior technological cosmic being like Ultron. Why is that the solution in a multiverse of infinite possibilities? Why are they aping the notoriously dumb subplot of Independence Day? Why couldn’t it have been Kree or Skrull tech? Why didn’t the Watcher pluck out technology from another universe that would rival Ultron? It just had to be Zola because… reasons and to do something unfamiliar would be to go against the season’s grain.

    When I took the job, one of my rules was let’s be free. We’re in the multiverse — we should be as free as can be and go and run into the wild, into the stories the movies will never do, into the stories the TV shows will never do, and show both Disney and the fans all the possibilities of these characters.

    Head writer AC Bradley’s quote above feels naught given the outcome of the season. When every episode seems keen on covering the MCU’s greatest hits than making its own, it doesn’t feel exactly free. Sure, What If…? does take some interesting swings in imbuing genre tones into familiar episodes like turning Fury’s Big Week into a murder mystery or turning the first Doctor Strange movie into a tragic romance. But those tonal changes can only do so much when everything else plays out like movies fans have seen dozens of times.

    It’s why the Killmonger episode feels somewhat empty. It throws in a wrench in the form of Tony Stark surviving his kidnapping but never explores it. What happens to a world without Iron Man? What would happen if Killmonger became a force for good? The show never really asks itself that. Instead, the events of Iron Man pan out in the dullest way possible. The events of Black Panther happen anyway when Killmonger ends up taking over Wakanda. It’s as if they just wanted to cover Iron Man and Black Panther in an episode to fill a quota.

    It shouldn’t come as a surprise that my favorite episode of the season is the Star-Lord T’Challa one. Brushing aside that it’s a poignant piece of storytelling that beautifully sends off Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa into the aether, it’s the one that riffs the least on the MCU’s past. The episode feels fresh on a lot of levels and gives us macro ripple effects such as Thanos becoming a good guy and the universe becoming infinitely a better place. Sure, it recreates the iconic GOTG Morag scene but it’s an episode that lives and breathes on its own terms.

    Lucasfilm’s far superior anthology series, Star Wars: Visions, celebrates the essence of Star Wars not by redoing The Phantom Menace or The Last Jedi but by creating new tales that revered George Lucas‘ resonant vision of a galaxy far, far away. The end result is an amazing tapestry of wildly original Star Wars stories that fans are already demanding spin-off shows for. The people who made those shows respected the greatest hits of the Star Wars universe and, in turn, made their own.

    The first season of What If…? isn’t a bad one but it’s one that leaves a lot to be desired. That it’s Marvel Studios’ first animated anthological outing gives it somewhat of a pass but in order for the show to become greater in future seasons, it needs to start making its own hits instead of covering others.

  • Ranking Marvel Studios’ ‘What If…?’ Episodes

    Ranking Marvel Studios’ ‘What If…?’ Episodes

    With Season 1 of What If… ? in the rearview mirror, it’s clear that the series certainly proved that it had more up its sleeve and more to offer its own multiverse than it seemed to early on. Marvel Studios’ first animated and anthology series was an unlikely candidate to be the first to truly delve into the newly opened multiverse, but What If… ? was specifically engineered to do just that. The episodes are a mixed bag, both because the series intended for them to be and because some fell short while others exceeded expectations. With that in mind, we rank all 9 episodes of What If… ? below:


    9. What If… Captain Carter Were the First Avenger?

    At the end of the day, What If… ?’s leading episode is the plainest and least interesting of all. The premise was simply the whole plot of Captain America: The First Avenger, and virtually the only change was Peggy and Steve switching places, more or less. While arguably it was designed well to introduce viewers to the concept of the series, the story itself was bland and a three-minute version probably would have had the same effect overall. 


    8. What If… Killmonger Rescued Tony Stark?

    If Killmonger wasn’t such a great character and if Michael B. Jordan wasn’t Michael B. Jordan, this episode would have felt like a complete flop. Even though the premises are substantially altered, the episode somehow strongly embraces the restrictive concept of sticking closely to the Sacred Timeline source. In this case, it is both Iron Man and Black Panther, but it feels like the Captain Carter episode in terms of watching a condensed version of stories we already know. Killmonger’s deception and manipulation felt one-note pretty quickly, and the episode ends in a place that neither feels like a resolution nor a cliffhanger—it just sort of feels like it was cut off in the middle. 


    7. What If… the World Lost Its Mightiest Heroes?

    Nick Fury’s Big Week is where we first were introduced to the idea of What If… ? routinely killing off major characters in order to make things feel different and add some sort of stakes to the plots that are so easily cast-off as hypotheticals. The theme of this episode is that there is always hope, and there will always be heroes willing to rise to the occasion. Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury gets a much-appreciated spotlight, but otherwise, the story plays out so flat that the death of five Avengers doesn’t come across as upsetting. The elements of a solid murder mystery are present, but it just doesn’t execute in terms of delivering something deeper than a surface-level concept.


    6. What If… Thor Were an Only Child?

    The Party Thor episode is a great example of an episode that everyone can both completely agree and disagree on. There is no doubt that this episode was fun with its countless easter eggs, seemingly infinite cameos, and silly let’s-have-a-good-time energy. Whether or not that makes for a satisfying episode up for debate. While there’s nothing particularly wrong with the episode, there’s nothing particularly worthwhile either. At the end of the day, it feels more like empty fan service than anything else. To be fair, that’s what a lot of people wanted from the series.


    5. What If… T’Challa Became a Star-Lord?

    T’Challa’s episode is genuinely delightful on multiple levels. There is a certain warmth that comes from Chadwick Boseman’s leading voice performance, and his own energy and presence matches well with the episode’s point that T’Challa would have made the universe a much better place than it is. This competes with the zombies episode for the funniest episode, but it is undeniably the most comforting heartwarming episode the series put out. Its themes of family and belonging hit the right notes, and something about T’Challa reconnecting with Wakanda just makes this episode feel fulfilling. 


    4. What If… the Watcher Broke His Oath?

    The finale did deliver a sense of resolution to the series and the Ultron arc that began last episode. While it was exciting to see pieces and characters of the multiverse come together in such a direct and desired way, the episode unfortunately felt shallow by completely ignoring the implications the series—and the multiverse as a whole—have on the main MCU timeline. The character team-up is gratifying, and the rag-tag group of multiversal heroes has a solid dynamic. There was a significant amount of humor that keeps the episode on a level apart from the previous episode, What If… Ultron Won?. Ultimately, while it is exciting, fast-paced, and delivered an epic showdown, the victory feels a bit cheap and the overall effect and punch of the episode did not quite meet its predecessor.


    3. What If… Zombies?!

    This episode was just great. We had a huge array of characters, and most of the ones that are not mindless zombies are characters often not given as much attention. Hudson Thanes’ Peter Parker was center stage and delivered on both humor and emotionality. So much of the episode, by nature, is violent and gruesome—it’s the closest thing the MCU has to horror at this point. Yet amongst the apocalyptic survival, the episode is also hilarious. As a result, it’s probably the most enjoyable to watch. It’s a great example of how the series can succeed by generally ignoring what the movies have done. 


    2. What If… Ultron Won?

    The penultimate episode finally gave us something that made it feel like What If… ? has a point and can provide the type of storytelling that fits within the MCU rather than just having one-off mini-stories over and over again. The concept of the multiverse actually comes into play here for the first time, and the Watcher comes alive. Ultron is portrayed as the most powerful villain of the MCU, and it fits. The Ultron versus Watcher showdown is not only great because of the strength of the two characters, but it is visually and conceptually stunning as they punch their way through the multiverse. It also features some very human moments, but the real triumph of this episode is that we finally have the multiverse as an overarching concept to play with. 


    1. What If… Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?

    The Doctor Strange episode was the first time the series felt like it had something particularly meaningful to offer. While still heavily anchored by the general events of Doctor Strange, it moves past this to intimately explore a dramatic reimagining of a character. The character-driven piece was shrouded by extremely compelling dark themes that are absent from the MCU at large. It was the definition of a tragedy drowning in grief, desperation, and defeat that resonated in the empty void that Doctor Strange left himself in at the end. Combine all of this with a mystical twist that Doctor Strange had been time-split in half, this episode was truly phenomenal. 

  • ‘What If… ?’ Season 2 Will Feature More Characters and Less Death

    ‘What If… ?’ Season 2 Will Feature More Characters and Less Death

    While fans are awaiting tomorrow’s finale of What If?, head writer A.C. Bradley is already giving us a taste of what Season 2 of the animated series will be like and how it compares to Season 1. A second season of Marvel Studios’ multiverse anthology has been confirmed for some time and, according to Bradley, every episode of Season 2 has already been written. The writer indicated that the series will start to focus on new characters and will be able to pull ideas from Phase 4:

    Going into the second season, we’re sticking with anthology form, and it’s going to be all-new stories, lots of fun, new heroes, and pulling more from Phase Four than we were obviously able to this season…[t]he fun of What If…? is that we get to explore the entire infinite multiverse, so we try and bounce around as much as we can. I want to play with all these characters, and as much as I love Captain Carter, we’ve got to share the love. I’m very excited to show new worlds, new heroes.

    A.C. Bradley

    Interestingly, Bradley also hints that Season 2 may not be quite as dark as Season 1, or at least may not kill off characters as many times. She noted that while many of the first seasons episodes featured “big, let’s end the world, let’s kill everyone” arcs, but also says that next season is more character-driven. She hopes he series can show “a different side to [characters] that people don’t expect and hopefully they can relate to.”

    Bradley added that What If… ? is not “designed to set up Avengers 5,” and emphasized how she approached the series as an opportunity to focus on entertaining and exploring what MCU heroes mean to us:

    When I took the job, one of my rules was let’s be free. We’re in the multiverse — we should be as free as can be and go and run into the wild, into the stories the movies will never do, into the stories the TV shows will never do, and show both Disney and the fans all the possibilities of these characters.

    A.C. Bradley

    Bradley’s comments about What If… ? utilizing its creative freedom definitely echo some of fans’ desires for the show that weren’t necessarily met in Season 1. Either way, it looks like Season 2 could be significantly different in tone and potentially explore far more possibilities of the multiverse than the MCU has so far.

  • ‘What If…?’ Creative Team Promise Craziness and Resolution in Season One Finale

    ‘What If…?’ Creative Team Promise Craziness and Resolution in Season One Finale

    Marvel Studios first foray into canonical animation will come to a conclusion tomorrow when the finale of Season 1 of What If…? goes live on Disney Plus. Production on Season 2 began before Season 1 aired, so fans have always known there’d be more animated adventures, something that was reiterated recently by Executive Producer Brad Winderbaum, and it’s also been made clear that Captain Carter will be returning for Season 2 and beyond. What’s been less clear is whether or not we should expect Season 1 to end on a cliffhanger or if the season’s recently revealed big bad, Infinite Ultron, will be defeated. In an interview with EW, the series’ creators, director Bryan Andrews and head writer AC Bradley, answered that question…sort of.

    It goes places you don’t expect. I know people are starting to get a sensation that things are building to something — and they are. And craziness ensues,” said Andrews of the finale. The director and longtime storyboard artist for the studio addes, “There’s a degree of resolution where it feels like all the stuff that’s been percolating across the episodes, the adventure that we bring you into for the ending, ends, to a certain degree.

    Bradley, who also served as a consulting producer on Marvel Studios Ms. Marvel, reveals that part of that resolution will involve revisiting several characters met earlier in the season who will come together to take on Ultron whose newfound awareness makes him a threat to every reality.

    We will pop into and re-meet some of our heroes from the previous episodes, including the lovely Captain Carter [Hayley Atwell], Strange Supreme, Party Thor [Chris Hemsworth], and even Killmonger [Michael B. Jordan]. Early on in the first season, like day one talking about it, there was this notion of we’re creating all these great heroes, but we only get to sit with them for 20 or 30 minutes. Wouldn’t it be great to see them again in the finale? And then once that decision was made, it liberated me to make the endings a little bit darker and bigger, knowing that we can give some sort of resolution in the finale.

    As expected, the season finale will see the Watcher break his vow to never interfere and assemble a team that has been marketed as The Guardians of the Multiverse. We already saw the beginnings of this last week when Uatu visited with Doctor Strange Supreme and can expect it to be further explored in the opening moments of Episode 9.

    And while we can expect a resolution to the Ultron situation, Andrews makes it clear that there are more stories to be told in each of the individual realities from which these disparate characters will be drawn:

    All these universes, when we’re done with our episode, those universes continue. It’s an ongoing cinematic universe; there is stuff that happens yet to come that maybe we will see and maybe we will not see. But we don’t necessarily want to have it all tied up in a perfect bow. There is a level of buttoning up with a certain degree of things that we get into with a certain storyline.

    That sounds like a pretty perfect way to give a satisfying end to the current arc while leaving enough room to allow the characters we’ve already seen be available for future stories whether those be further animated adventures or live-action appearances.

    Episode 9 of What If…?, “What If…The Watcher Broke His Vow”, streams tomorrow on Disney Plus.

    Source: EW

  • How the MCU Is Using the Multiverse To Explore Themes

    How the MCU Is Using the Multiverse To Explore Themes

    The multiverse is an unwieldy storytelling device with potential positive and negative impacts. For example, meeting alternate variations of favorite characters has the potential to undermine earlier stories. However, it could also potentially provide emotional flourish to stories that haven’t been possible previously. Some fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s consistency are concerned about how the multiverse could fray the cohesion of the MCU. The multiversal elements of Loki and What If…? have shown us hints of how the multiverse stories we might be seeing in Spider-Man: No Way Home and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness can be kept tight and concise.

    Loki’s head writer Michael Waldron and director Kate Herron have both spoken in multiple interviews about the themes of their series. Loki spends much of the season up against the bureaucratic order of the TVA. He also finds himself grappling with his identity in the face of Loki variants from alternative universes. Order versus chaos. Self versus selves. The structure of these debates brought up in the show also show another theme Waldron and Herron have spoken about, in the gray space between villainy and heroism. It’s clear that these themes are present even without confirmation from interviews because of how tightly woven into the narrative action they are. 

    On the surface, an anthology show like What If…? shouldn’t necessarily have a narrative or thematic coherence between episodes. Yet we have seen enough to know we are getting a conclusion to some of the previous episodes in the finale. In this context, should there be a thematic reverberation between the heroes of each episode? It’s not easy to point one out. Loki’s themes are much tighter as almost every scene has a thematic resonance. An anthology show doesn’t need coherent themes but where there is a continuing story, What If…? is perhaps missing something thematic to bring the season together. 

    So perhaps if Spider-Man: No Way Home can use the multiverse to weave themes tightly, it can produce an impactful story regardless of multiversal incursions. Much of the trailer is connected to Spidey’s identity as Peter Parker. The public release of that information and Peter’s going to Doctor Strange to have it erased from public consciousness. It’s clear that they “tampered with the stability of [the] space-time” continuum when performing the spell. The full impact remains to be seen but it is easy to see how themes of identity, responsibility, and fate can be tied to this spell gone wrong and possible multiversal variants. It remains to be seen how tightly woven those themes might be into the story. 

    wandavision doctor strange

    So can we spot the themes for  Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness as clearly and easily? Given Wanda Maximoff was last seen studying The Darkhold, also known as The Book of the Damned, it stands that she might face some corrupting forces. To some extent, this is a theme that can be extended from Doctor Strange as Kaecilius became corrupted by Dormammu. Corruption, alongside the fraying of the multiverse which Strange admits he knows “frighteningly little” in the No Way Home trailer, can also point in the direction of balance as a theme. How will Strange weigh up the dilemmas of the incursive multiverse? In a meta-sense, if the film can get that thematic balance right, then the rumoured cameos won’t seem as uncoordinated as some fans fear they might be. 

    jonathan majors kang

    Parenthood and family are themes that  Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania could manifest. With Kathryn Newton taking on the role as Cassie Lang it seems as though she might play more of a role with the heroes, with Scott, Hope, Janet, and Hank having to figure out parental decisions related to that. It’s not immediately obvious how Jonathan Majors’ Kang will connect to that, though being a citizen of the future, it’s possible an ancestor of his might be involved in the story. How they will connect the multiversal elements to the existing Ant-Man themes will be the test for how tight of a story we’ll be getting. 

    Beyond the second seasons of Loki and What If…? there are no major clues about what other Marvel Studios projects the multiverse incur upon. It will be interesting to see whether Loki can keep up its thematic resonance during its sophomore season. Similarly What If…? could either fully embrace the anthology format or increase the thematic and narrative continuity between the episodes. The multiverse certainly won’t be vanishing so other characters like Doctor Strange, Wanda Maximoff, and Ant-Man might still have to contend with it. Wherever it does emerge though, using the multiverse concisely and closely connected to the themes of the project seems like it will be a successful approach.

    Sources: ETOnline, Grazia.

  • Murphy’s Team-Up: ‘What If…?’ Finale Wish List

    Murphy’s Team-Up: ‘What If…?’ Finale Wish List

    Murphy’s Team-Up brings the team together every Sunday to give their hot takes on a hot topic. This week: the finale of Marvel Studios first animated series, What If…?. Take a look at what the members of the team hope to see in the finale.

    Anthony Canton III

    What If…? episode 8 recap: Ultron brings Infinity Stone-empowered Marvel  chaos - CNET

    I want to see what actually defeats this Ultron. In a lot of these scenarios normally you can appeal to the villains humanity but that doesn’t apply here. As far as the Watcher, what will be the price of his interference and the additional interference? I want to see that story be told. Finally, will Supreme Strange have a connection to Multiverse of Madness? He’s seemed like the most important character in these stories.

    Charles Murphy

    WHAT IF...?' Marvel Legends Arrive, Hint at a Live-Action Captain Carter -  Murphy's Multiverse

    At this point I’m eager for the series to come to an end. I haven’t loved too many episodes and I feel like in most episodes they’ve made some really weak choices with how they’ve dealt with what could be a really freeing premise. So for me, I’m hoping that as the first season of the series comes to an end, we see some of the heroes step through a portal and morph into the live-action versions of their characters that we are rumored to see in upcoming films. I’m also hoping that once this is over, we get our first trailer for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

    Mary Maerz

    What If...?' episode 8 review: There are no strings on me | Hypable

    I would like to see Ultron upgrade himself one final time, and that upgrade just so happens to be voiced by James Spader. The series did very well with dark themes and stories without happy endings—so I’m rooting for Ultron. I’d love to watch him take down the array of multiverse Avengers/Guardians we’ll get and be established as an ongoing and genuine threat for the series and maybe even the MCU at large. I would also be a bit disappointed if we didn’t get some sort of tease of how What If… ? can or will connect to the Sacred Timeline.

    Nathan Miller

    Marvel's What If Assembles the Guardians of the Multiverse for New Hyundai  Ad

    I hope to see some thematic cohesion between the characters brought together in the What If…? finale. The somewhat abrupt ends of some episodes alongside an unresolved confrontation from What If… Ultron Won? suggest The Watcher will bring together a team to resolve those loose ends. When the Avengers came together they were all lost despite being powerful enough to be Earth’s mightiest heroes. They each found some sort of purpose they had been individually lacking in becoming a team. Whatever team might form in the finale of What If…? does seem like it has a couple of members that are lost like Captain Carter and Supreme Strange. Potential members T’Challa Star Lord, Party Thor and Killmonger each seem content in their universes so it will be interesting to see what the thematic thread between them is that pushes them to join a multiversal team.

    Hunter Radesi

    Marvel Retconned MCU Time Travel Rules For The 4th Time

    If there’s one thing Marvel’s What If…? is lacking, it’s long term consequence. The show has thus far utilized immediate, dramatic effect to highlight it’s differences in universes, but this takes away from the subtle charm that always drew people to the comics. There, a story would often start with an obvious change and end with some unexpected butterfly effect far down the Marvel timeline. If the finale of the show’s first season finds time to revisit any of the worlds it set up in prior episodes, it would do well to show the audience how the likes of Captain Carter’s existence ended up changing the modern MCU time period as well.

    Dalbin Osorio

    What If Episode 8 Ending, Explained: Is Clint Dead or Alive?

    For me, I want to see what comes out of the finale. During Endgame, time-travel was explained to us, but it wasn’t until Loki that we found out that this was just how the Avengers understood time-travel. In Loki, we figured “ok, this is the accepted framework for time.” What If has played in that sandbox, with variants and what have you, but there’s still a little bit that is unclear. Namely, is the Watcher pulling all the Guardians from different universes, or do some of these stories overlap? If so, what does that mean for the overarching MCU story that’s going on right now? I hope What If…? begins to clarify the rules because time is a confusing plot device as is, but it can cave on to itself if it isn’t explained correctly. I expect What If…? to do just that.

    John Sabato

    Chadwick Boseman loved What If...? and reimagining Black Panther's T'Challa  - Polygon

    I hope to see the finale episode of What If…? really set the stage for what’s to come. The series has yet to really wow me and I hope they can do that here. I think I’m mostly looking forward to to seeing what could be Chadwick Boseman’s final performance.

    The finale of Marvel Studios What If…? streams this Wednesday on Disney Plus.

  • ‘What If…?’ Ultron’s Funko Pop Isn’t the Leaked Supreme Leader

    ‘What If…?’ Ultron’s Funko Pop Isn’t the Leaked Supreme Leader

    Last week, a reliable leaker shared the potential naming of Ultron being changed to “Supreme Leader.” It seemed like a fitting name for a version of this character to take ownership of the Infinity Stones and tackle multiversal domination. Yet, now that the episode went online we also got the official Funko reveal. It turns out, it wasn’t the Supreme Leader but rather simply known as “Infinity Ultron.”

    infinity-ultron-what-if-funko-pop.jpg

    So, this naturally opens up the question of who the Funko known as “Supreme Leader” is meant to be. There are still five planned to release in the third series of Pops that are part of this series. There’s a chance that some minor characters will get their time to shine in the finale that didn’t get attention earlier on. As such, they could get some Funko Pops alongside their larger role in the finale. There’s also the chance it still ends up being Ultron, as he may go through some transformations.

    In the comments, another well-known Funko leaker pop_freak1 shares that the Supreme Leader is 6” and Amazon shared. As such, it’s larger than the average 4” Funkos. There’s a chance it might be inspired by the brief Galactus moment we got in the latest episode. It could also be a special Funko for The Watcher in the golden armor we saw, as he will most likely lead the Guardians of the Multiverse. Whatever it may turn out to be, it looks like we have a lot more heading our way once the finale airs.

    Source: Entertainment Earth, Instagram, ComicBook