What if …Thanos was an Avenger? What if… Venom had bonded with the Punisher? What if… Wolverine killed the Hulk? Soon we might find out the answers to these questions… in a new animated show for Disney+ that stars the voices of the actors who portray these characters in the MCU!
In 1977, Marvel Comics released the first “What If…”, an anthology comic series hosted by the Watcher as peeled back the curtain, showing the reader alternate timelines that took our favorite heroes and storylines from the comic’s universe and saw what would happen if we asked “What If….”.
The first issue asked the question “What If Spider-man Had Joined The Fantastic Four,” which ends on a sad note (as most What If… issues had a tendency to do) as Sue Storm ends up leaving the team disbanded to marry the Submariner.
What If …? Comes to Disney+
At SDCC 2019, Kevin Feige announced a new, animated Marvel series based on these comics made for Disney+, hosted by Jeffrey Wright of Westworld as the voice of the Watcher. In a bigger surprise, he also said that many of the MCU’s stars will voice their own characters in the series.
The comics frequently focused on the X-Men, Daredevil, and Spider-man, so it’s possible that these properties will be solidly in the hands of Disney buy the time this airs (Summer, 2021) and we could see our first real Sony, Netflix, Main MCU crossover on this very show!
I loved this series and devoured every issue, the stories were hit (What If Xavier became the Juggernaut) or miss (What If Daredevil was an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D), many were great ideas that petered out, but some stories cemented themselves as some of some of the greatest one-shot Marvel Comics of all time! Some, even so good they made their way into the comics continuity proper.
In the right hands, this series could be fantastic… “What If …?” is set to premiere on Disney+ in the summer of 2021.
