Episodes Viewed: 8 of 8
The MCU’s Multiverse saga has been a bit hit and miss, but What If…? is one of its success stories. Since its 2021 debut, the show has asked weird, dark, funny, and ambitious questions, where decisions big and small have led our favourite Marvel characters down new, unexpected paths. That’s a trend that continues in its third and final season, which finds time for intergalactic romances and end of the world dystopias as well as an overarching plot with ties reaching all the way back to its early episodes.
The best of these 25-35 minute offerings tap into the essence of what makes each character interesting and unique beyond just their fighting capabilities. The heart of the season’s first entry – ‘What If… the Hulk Fought the Mech Avengers?’, which is equal parts inspired by Godzilla, Pacific Rim, and Power Rangers – is Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), and his ability to give sage, therapeutic wisdom in trying times. Another standout is ‘What If… the Red Guardian Stopped the Winter Soldier?’; It imagines the soon-to-be Thunderbolts* teammates as an unlikely buddy comedy duo in a story that manages to be both hilarious — thanks in no small part to David Harbour’s entertainingly OTT line delivery — and tragic, as the two super soldiers figure out they have more in common than they first thought.
Action set pieces have always been a strength of What If…?’s animation, and the climactic battles in the final two episodes find inventive, colourful highs.
These new episodes also do a better job of utilising the MCU’s deep bench, with few disappointments. Though an appearance of Moon Knight (a returning Oscar Isaac) is sadly lessened by the fact that he’s stripped of all the eccentricity that made him so endearing, Xu Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) is brilliantly reconceived as an outlaw (along with Hailee Steinfeld’s sharpshooting Kate Bishop) in the Wild West set ‘What If… 1872?’, which will only make you wonder why we haven’t seen or heard more from him since his solo movie. Even the Eternals’ Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani) is fun in the tonally erratic second chapter. Throughout, Laura Karpman and Nosa Kroll-Rosenbaum’s score is pleasingly playful, adapting perfectly to each setting the stories play out in.
When it eventually comes time for The Watcher to take centre stage, the results are wonderfully satisfying. Action set pieces have always been a strength of What If…?’s animation, and the climactic battles in the final two episodes find inventive, colourful highs. There’s a vocal boost too thanks to the likes of Natasha Lyonne as Byrdie — a new original hero with an unusual parentage — X-Men 97’s Alison Sealy-Smith as a Mjolnir-wielding Storm, and most impressively, Jason Isaacs as The Eminence, who effectively voices three characters at once. It also works as a conclusion to the story-at-large, as well as The Watcher’s personal arc. The extraterrestrial observer of events we met at the start of season one is much different to the one who closes out the series, and the added focus on his origins arrives right on time.
By its very nature, What If…? could easily have been something that the MCU continually returned to. There’s no limit to the stories they could tell in this style. But if this is the end, it’s going out on a high.
