Shang-Chi, the Guardians, and Jeff Goldblum get the hypothetical treatment in What If…? season 2 trailer
Also: What if Earth's Mightiest Heroes had to play real-life, hyper-violent Mario Kart with each other?
Aux Features Shang-Chi
Out of all its various TV and cinematic tributaries, the Marvel Cinematic Universe can only truly cut loose, canon-wise, in one place: Disney+’s animated What If…?. (Even if the first season of said show did eventually give in to the urge toward serialization that infects the entire project.) Mostly, though, the show is crazy countefactual fun—something still on firm display as Marvel rolled out the trailer for its second season earlier today.
Still featuring the voice of Jeffrey Wright as Uatu The Watcher, the trailer is, just like the first season’s, as much guessing game as anything else. Squinting a bit, we can tease out at least a few of the episode concepts buried in there—there’s something where Jeff Goldblum’s Grandmaster appears to have hijacked Earth’s mightiest heroes for a violent version of Mario Kart, for instance, and another that seems to follow a young Peter Quill as he awakens to his dad’s evil powers way earlier than he should have. That’s in addition to previously announced stories, like a follow-up to the first season’s Captain Peggy Carter episode, and another that will introduce a brand new character, Kahhori, a young Mohawk woman whose people become endangered when the Tesseract lands near them in pre-colonization New York. (The time period is reminiscent of Marvel’s old limited series Marvel 1602, although the episode was written and produced in close association with members of the Mohawk Nation.)
Elsewhere, the trailer riffs on Shang-Chi—with the title character’s parents seemingly facing off against Odin, of all people—and Wanda’s arc in Doctor Strange 2. (Also, another spooky version of Strange himself shows up, because this show can’t stay away from him, apparently.) Oh, also, they make some Die Hard jokes, with Kat Dennings and Jon Favreau joking around about building-under-siege movie titles in an episode that apparently asks “What happens if Avengers Tower gets invaded while the Avengers aren’t there?”
What If…? season 2 releases in December, releasing one episode per day starting on December 22.
31 Comments
Finally, a Scottish Black Panther just as Lee and Kirby intended!
Do you know how much sheer destruction you can unleash with a Vibranium bagpipe?
Och aye the noo forever!
MacAnda?
I’m VERY DISTURBED by your ability to imagine such HORROR!!! 😲😲😲😲
Hayley Atwell, Kat Dennings, and an episode produced in collaboration with the Mohawk Nation? My interest is piqued.
Hayley Atwell … **total attention** /in a not stalky way!
Has there ever been a Mario Kart-like Marvel game? I can imagine that concept has a 98% chance of being awful and a 2% chance of being mind-blowingly awesome.
You’re right, Diddy Kang Multiversal Racing was sadly a huge flop.
Yeah, those odds are about right, given stuff like Super Bombad Racing and the Final Fantasy kart games laying the foundation for just how bad a licensed kart game can get.
For a second I thought the Native American character was Dani from the New Mutants and I was very excited. Alas, it is not, but I am still looking forward to this new season.
I hate when people don’t know what’s MCU and what’s not MCU…
I imagine there’s a reason they show Captain Carter standing with Uatu at the closing. That and the opening dialog certainly seem to imply an overall connected story arc and that The Watcher is not yet going back to being a passive observer. I’ve been wondering if we’re going to eventually see the consequences of Uatu breaking his oath.
The first season of What If…? was maybe my least favorite MCU project until Secret Invasion, but this trailer looks pretty good. Honestly, it was mostly a problem of it being Marvel’s first animated work, and it seeming very much like that. Maybe they’ve got a bit more experience this time around.
They should detach it from the MCU story arc. Keep the MCU characters but don’t try to link it to whatever is going on with the MCU main story line. I guess what I’m saying is I would like to see “What If May Parker Was a Herald of Galactus” on screen.
Good god do I want a Goldie Oldie movie now instead of Madame Web
I mean, it mostly has been detached from the MCU. Aside fro the multiverse aspect you could have skipped the that whole first season and not missed a step with the rest.The more interesting part is often the way it explores the characters because you see how they’d act in different scenarios. For example, the Dr. Strange episode last season did a really great job of showing how selfish he could be and how far he was willing to go to fulfill his own goals.That very much adds some background that further fleshes out his motivations in Multiverse of Madness, even if they’re already hinted at throughout the film.
It was and remains detached from the MCU film continuity. The sole connection was that they both have alternate universe versions of Captain Carter, but they said during the press stuff for Dr. Strange 2 that the one in that film wasn’t the same as the one in What If (apparently the jet pack was enough to make it obvious? I would have just said “Yeah, one of them is a cartoon” personally).
Ah OK. I guess I just assumed it was and that the connections were for the MCU superfans to notice or research (and I didn’t feel like doing that). Having said that, it kinda was what with the whole multiverse theme but I guess that was a good set-up opportunity.
Maybe my favorite Marvel program, simply because it does go left of center and has a sense of humor, and one of the only reasons I regret having gotten rid of my D+ subscription. Curious about that release timetable. Is this some kind of Zaslavian tax issue where they lose money if they don’t release this year?
D+ is experimenting with different drop schedules, like with Echo. One episode per week gets us this many viewers and new subs, one episode per day gets us this many, binge model of a whole season/series in a day gets us this many. If the one per day model keeps viewership up and people talking about it online, they might move more shows to that model.
I read that Echo is being dropped all at once because it’s a turkey, and there will be less time for nerd anger to build week-to-week. Like they’re just going to fart it out into the ether and then try to forget it was made.
This, like the first season, looks fun as shit. I have no idea why Marvel doesn’t do more of these animated shows, as it would be much less of a headache just to get the actors in the voice booth, or just cast soundalikes. Mad Max+superheroes looks like a great time. Less so about Happy making Die Hard jokes for an entire episode, but that’s anthology series for ya.
To be fair, Marvel still does do a crapload of animated shows, they just aren’t MCU tie-ins.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_Rising
Narratively, I wasn’t a huge fan of the first What If…? (I really had no desire to watch zombie Avengers, for instance) but there was enough there to make me interested in S2. And the animation style is just amazing.
I was interested in Zombie Avengers but they managed to do it in the most boring way possible (imo)
It’s so crazy to me that that episode has zero blood in it. If that surprises you look again, even when Cap gets sliced in half it’s just a clean transverse cut.
there’s something where Jeff Goldblum’s Grandmaster appears to have hijacked Earth’s mightiest heroes for a violent version of Mario Kart,
for instance, and another that seems to follow a young Peter Quill as
he awakens to his dad’s evil powers way earlier than he should have
That first one is what happens if Tony didn’t make it back through the portal at the end of Avengers. It was supposed to be part of S1 but wasn’t finished in time due to COVID.The second one sounds like a follow-up to Star Lord T’Challa. The Ravagers took the wrong kid, so now there’s a team of Avengers who’re trying to manage a young Quill discovering his powers on Earth.
Out of all its various TV and cinematic tributaries, the Marvel Cinematic Universe can only truly cut loose, canon-wise, in one placeAnd yet it didn’t—they opted for an arching narrative that tied in directly, while aesthetically (costumes, etc) was more of the same. I think they should’ve/should run it more like the Star Wars Visions series, and tell one offs that actually let loose.Alas, that’s probably more expensive, but at the very least “cut loose” could be done.
I guess I’ll give this a shot but I was pretty unimpressed with the first season honestly. I think it has something to do with the fact that I think they’re so committed to their gimmick (that being that this is the MCU (or I guess the Marvel Cinematic Alternate Universe) versions of these stories and even includes some of the same actors) that it hinders the show in a way. It’s alternate universes, they should look… ALTERNATE, not just like Benedict Cumberbatch (or whoever) run through an animation filter like I’m watching A Scanner Darkly. The MCU actors can still voice them, that’s fine, but I want something more like Star Wars Visions where every episode feels really new and different. Or hell, just this year we had another Spider-Verse, make them all look unique for when they crossover with each other at the end (because you know they will) like the 1st season.
You know if the MCU just produced 1602 as a limited series or something they could bring back some of the old cast members, while also introducing the X-Men and F4. Then the next thing that happens is all of these characters get retconned into the present-day story lines and we can pretend they were there the whole time. It’s as good of an idea to get better engagement as anything else.