Series Review: 'Marvel's What if?'

Disney’s What If is the latest extension of the Marvel Brand on the Disney Plus streaming platform. Created by A.C Bradley and directed by Brian Andrews, the series is a re-imagining of the Marvel Universe. Taking the origins of classic Marvel heroes and giving them a new spin, What If manages to refresh these characters and these stories. Thus even a story such as the origin of Captain America, one very familiar from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, feels new again in an alternate universe where Steve Rogers never becomes Captain America.

Episode One of What If posits an alternate universe overseen by The Watcher, voiced by Geoffrey Wright. The Watcher will be our guide throughout the series as he explains how little changes in events can spark an entirely different universe telling stories in slightly different ways. For instance, our first story which proposes that when Steve Rogers was set to become Captain America via a super soldier experiment overseen by Howard Stark, Peggy Carter ends up in the experiment and becomes Captain Carter.

This kicks the universe in a very different direction with some familiar elements remaining. In a mere 36 minutes this animated series manages to tell the entirety of Captain America The First Avenger from Peggy’s perspective, as she gets a less than stealthy super suit built by Tony Stark to reflect her British rather than American heritage. We still have The Red Skull, voiced by Hugo Weaving, pursuing the tesseract and trying to build a Hydra super-army but many other things get significant changes.

For instance, instead of Steve Rogers becoming Captain America, a sympathetic Howard Stark decides to build scrawny Steve his own super vehicle, an early Iron Man proto-type suit called the Hydra Stomper. It’s closer in look to what Obediah Stane created for Iron Man 1, but I digress. You get the gist, this is just one of several strong indications of how the change from Steve to Peggy as Captain Carter will affect the future of this version of the MCU.

Episode one of What If is highly intriguing ,building in several smart alterations of the MCU while leaving several familiar events in place to ground long time fans in this strange new world. I won’t describe anything further from the episode so as not to spoil anything, I really want you to experience this smart, funny, and exciting new series for yourself. The biggest takeaway from this review is that What If is terrific.

The animation style of What If, overseen by Annie Award winning Animator Steven Franck is gorgeous. I’m not an expert in animation so I can’t toss around technical terms or explain the use of color, light and shade, but I can say it’s beautiful. I know what I like and I like this animation style a lot. It’s familiar and yet has a sleek, fresh quality that doesn’t appear derivative of any particular style.

In an interview with SlashFilm, What If director Brian Andrews stated that the style of animation was inspired by artist J.C Leyendecker, an artist well known in the early part of the 20th Century. Leyendecker created animated covers for the legendary publication, The Saturday Evening Post, one of the first national publications. His style is said to have greatly influenced Norman Rockwell. Looking at Leyendecker’s work you can certainly see the inspiration for what you see in What If.

You can also see where they attempted to keep the animation grounded in order to maintain a connection with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The series keeps with the known physics of the Marvel Universe, a pseudo-realistic style in which the animated characters very much resemble the characters you know from the Marvel movies. Steve Rogers, Peggy Carter and Howard Stark are especially close in look to their real life counterparts, tiny CGI Chris Evans, Hayley Atwell and Dominic Cooper, who also returns to voice Howard Stark.

What If is spectacular and it debuts on Disney Plus on Wednesday. August 11th, 2021.