Total Film got a chance to talk with the team behind Marvel Studios’ first foray into animation, What If. They offered some insight into what we can expect from the new Disney+ series, which will explore different outcomes of iconic storylines. The latest trailer focused on T’Challa as Star-Lord, Killmmonger saving Tony Stark, and Peggy Carter taking the Super Soldier serum. It’s only a glimpse of what the series has to offer. Head writer A.C. Bradley teased the flexibility the animated show gave them a chance to tackle each episode creatively.
Our episodes are either darker or lighter than a traditional Marvel movie, and we also have a couple of straight-up tragedies. We have an episode that’s like a political thriller. We’ve got a dark Doctor Strange episode that’s like a tragic love story. One of them is just me wanting to goof off and relive my favourite movies as a kid. Can’t Hardly Wait was a touchstone… I can’t imagine any other point in my career when I’m going to get to write one of those National Lampoon crazy party movies
We’ve first heard rumblings of the Doctor Strange episode some time ago. Bradley confirms that the tragedy will be the point of no return when Strange goes down a much darker path. It opens up the question of his story might even connect to the teased zombie episode. If he tries to bring back Christine Palmer to life, he may cause something even darker.
It seems they won’t just retell the films, but even adapt an MCU tie-in comic, as executive producer Brad Winderbaum also teased an Agatha Christie episode that takes place in the Fury’s Big Week storyline, which was only part of a comic run that acted as a prelude for Marvel’s Avengers.
Then we have a great Agatha Christie episode. It takes place in this obscure point of detail that only hardcore fans know called ‘Fury’s Big Week’.
There were quite a few hints in the first trailers that they may tackle this story, where Fury has to clean up the mess left behind by the Avengers. It even featured a cameo by Samuel Sterns, who last appeared in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk. There’s a lot of potential with this series, and it may even indirectly fill some holes between films that never got explored before. As it takes place in the Multiverse, it would be fun to get a brief cameo by Edward Norton as Bruce Banner or Terrence Howard as Rhodey.
Source: Total Film
