The end of What If…?’s second season briefly acknowledges the current state of Marvel’s multiverse
The repercussions of Loki's glorious purpose are being felt in the MCU
TV Features Multiverse
Marvel Studios has picked up a somewhat annoying habit lately of ignoring things established in its larger universe, rendering the larger universe irrelevant and spoiling what was once the big selling point of these movies and TV shows. But, despite its supposed dependence on standalone stories, season two of Disney+’s What If…? ends with an encouraging sign that things are going to change a little bit.
But, then again, it seemed like season one did as well. That season spun out from the events of Loki’s first season, which ended with the death of a being called He Who Remains who had been secretly using a group called the Time Variance Authority to destroy all potential alternate timelines that deviated from the core events of the MCU (because, in those alternate timelines, other versions of himself might come to power and threaten his rule). When he died, that all started to fall apart and the alternate timelines began to run free—creating the MCU’s version of the multiverse and making it possible, say, for three Spider-Mans to meet in No Way Home.
What If…?, under the watchful eye of The Watcher (Jeffrey Wright, serving as narrator), showcased stories from that multiverse, with different things happening to different characters and creating new twists on the established canon of the MCU (like T’Challa getting kidnapped by the Ravagers and becoming Star-Lord instead of Peter Quill). The two most noteworthy things to come out of the show’s first season were a twisted, evil-ish version of Doctor Strange known as Strange Supreme who destroyed his entire reality in an attempt to resurrect his dead girlfriend, and the instantly iconic Captain Carter (a version of Hayley Atwell’s Peggy Carter who got the super-soldier serum instead of Steve Rogers).
One of the reasons Strange Supreme and Captain Carter seemed Important coming out of the first season of What If…? is that it really seemed like both of them would show up in Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness, which saw the eponymous, definitely American wizard traveling through different realities in pursuit of a grief-stricken Scarlet Witch. The trailers teased Captain Carter, making her live-action debut, but also a weird, messed-up version of Strange.
But, it turns out, neither of those characters was really in the movie. The version of Captain Carter is apparently not the same one from What If…?, and the weird version of Strange was just some other weird wizard and not Strange Supreme himself. That seemed like the MCU’s one big opportunity to acknowledge that What If…? was canon, despite the fact that it’s exclusively about other universes, but since it didn’t, What If…? was apparently relegated to some easily ignorable junk drawer like Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. and anything else that doesn’t really matter to the MCU.
Then Loki season two happened and the rules of the MCU’s multiverse were apparently rewritten, sidelining He Who Remains entirely and putting Loki himself—literally—at the center of everything. In the season finale’s tragically triumphant climax, Loki marched into the fringes of existence itself and collected all of the strands of alternate realities, clutching them together to keep them safe and restructuring the multiverse into something reminiscent of Yggdrasil, the World Tree from Norse mythology that represents the different realms of the universe.
It was a striking image, but in terms of anything tangible, all it really seemed to mean was that the potential was now there for Marvel to reshape its plans for the future of the multiverse. Perhaps by abandoning this plan altogether?
And much like with season one, the second season of What If…? was happy to follow Loki’s lead. In the final moments of the season finale, after Captain Carter has saved all of existence from being destroyed (again), the Watcher returns to take her back to her own universe—where she may or may not be in a more-than-friends relationship with that world’s Black Widow. Rather than heading straight home, though, the Watcher agrees to show Captain Carter the scenic route… at which point he presents her with Loki’s Yggdrasil multiverse, a departure from the “floating cosmic windows” that the show had previously used to depict the endless array of alternate realities.
Does it mean anything? Maybe not, but it is a clear indication that Loki changed something and that What If…? is aware of it, which—if absolutely nothing else—shows some commitment to this whole thing still being a proper interconnected universe. Loki’s World Tree may never be seen again, and the characters introduced in What If…? may never get a real live-action spotlight, but things are arguably better this way. No complicated homework to keep up with, just a nice bit of consistency for the people who care.
32 Comments
Careful, you’re going off script. You’re supposed to say everything in the MCU is way too connected and impossible to follow on its own.
It’s funny how he bitches about the MCU’s “annoying habit lately of ignoring things established in its larger universe… spoiling what was once the big selling point of these movies and TV shows” only to end the very same post with boiler plate bitching about how keeping up with the MCU’s interconnectivity is “complicated homework”.
Well, they have to tie it up in a bow somehow. This season seemed way more jokey than last season. Podracing and Die Hard.
I hope Captain Carter shows up in the Secret War movie. She’s basically Become Captain Multiverse and it would feel like a nice connection to What If, and a better pay off to Captain Carter than Doctor Strange and the Multiverse, which basically saw everything from MCU TV shows and said “Let’s ruin it!”…
Yeah, I’m still not over the way they did Peggy in that damn movie.
One has to wonder if we have some conflicting producing or show-writing egos in the back of the studio, pulling way too hard for their own “vision” and clashing?
The whole point of the scene is that the heroes of this particular universe are all condescending pricks, which leads to them all getting easily killed. It’s not saying anything about the main versions of any of them.
I mean, Reed Richards is a condescending prick in all universes. Same with Professor X,. That’s kinda his thing. But I didn’t get that Captain Carter or Captain Marvel were pricks. But I’ll stick with the writing was basically throwing it in the face of the tv. I mean, Wanda’s whole story arc was “I need to let go of this dream life, these sons…” and in the movie it was “I need my sons! Also, I’ve got so much power and of course Im corrupted” which is one of myl east favorite tropes when it comes to ‘women with power”.
The show’s final shot is literally her failing, so…
Like she’s obsessively using the Darkhold to track down their alternate selves in another dimension, in full witch mode. And that was the show. And the show people have stated that they didn’t take any mandates from the movie people. They were just on the same page.
That post-credit scene really is the turd in the punchbowl of that series. The whole damn thing they build up to Wanda owning her own power and resolving to move past her trauma, only to undo it all in the last few seconds to service a teaser for an okay-at-best movie.
Interestingly this year, Captain Marvel was prominently pictured in the opening credits, yet she doesn’t show at all in this season’s episodes. I wonder why.
Agreed. The only character that indistinct blob of a movie really did dirty was Wanda (and also Wong a little bit).
What If’s second season is over already? I thought it just dropped last week…Personally find What If to be a really disappointing and uninspiring series, especially when you consider the animation and creative effort put into the Spiderverse movies of late. So maybe it’s been out for a while and I just tuned it out.
They released one episode a day.
Honestly? The second season was leagues above the first, in my opinion, in terms of artistic and story choices. It’s worth a watch even if someone’s generally fallen off Marvel lately, IMO.
This season is a lot better than the first one, for what it’s worth. The animation isn’t in the same league as the Spiderverse movies, but that’s a big ask in my opinion, especially with what we know of the behind the scenes treatment of the animators.
Regarding the animation for both, while the Spider-verse style is innovative and incredible, they style for What If seems to be like a comic come to life. Which I feel is well suited for an animated version of the comic books.
I do agree with that. In the same fashion as the WHAT IF comics series that I never really got into (because “it didn’t count”) the TV series is struggling to find compelling ideas, pivotal points where things would have gone a different way. Instead, they tell very mundane stories (sometimes very well, the Happy Hogan Diehard parody was fun), out of left field, that are very much inconsequential in the grand tapestry of things, if taken individually. Sure Hayley Atwell was criminally underused in the main MCU so it’s nice to see her having a bigger role in this (even though they can’t get her likeness right), especially now that OG Cap is out. I appreciate that many of the original actors are back voicing their animated counterparts (shame to the ones who do not), even though the animation style still feels weird (compared to something like Arcane for example) and hard to get used to, especially the colors.Now this year again like the previous season they try to tie everything together in the finale and wrap up in an Endgame-style brawl, but it’s hit or miss. The first season ending was novelty, repeating it this time feels like been ther, done that. This is actually the way I see the current state of Marvel, both comics and on screen. At this point everything has been done to death, repeated multiple times, and the general public, not being masochistic like hardcore comics fan who keep coming back for the same, decade after decade, wrapped in a slightly different-colored ribbon, is now saying “Nah, we’re good”.
I don’t think that there are many people left who still care.
Don’t worry – there aren’t.
| That seemed like the MCU’s one big opportunity to acknowledge that What If…? was canonIt’s a cartoon.
It’s also canon. Have you heard of Ahsoka? That’s a live action show that is a continuation of another canon cartoon in a live-action film universe. But please, go on.
To me the larger question for superhero movies is who will care, regardless of tweaks to allow altering the MCU? There have been far too many superhero movies in the past decade and a half. Offerings like “What If…” show how the Marvel studio execs are desperate for originality after having stretched the “MCU” beyond all reason. Imagine if “The Wizard of Oz” had been followed by 15 years of 25 movies and multiple television series based on the adventures of various characters, old or new, in the land of Oz. Of course the enthusiasm of the audiences would be exhausted. Like mine is depleted, after watching so many superheroes bash it out to save the rest of us from some single ultra-powerful monster and his crew of ugly cohorts. Enough.
L. Frank Baum churned out Oz books, plays, and silent films for his entire writing career and it never got old. However, that was a case of one creator with a singular vision writing something he enjoyed. What holds the MCU back now is that it’s crafted from many hands, about half of them seemingly indifferent to the task, all in service to maintaining a franchise rather than creating a worthwhile body of work that renews itself with each new entry.
If the movies are good, peiple will watch.
Except when the novelty aspect of the first decade has worn off.
That’s not how nerd culture works.
To me this hints that Captain Carter will now be apart of Loki’s plan to ultimately stop Kang.
The whole MCU world building enterprise has definitely shown fissures, in general, and there’s been some lackluster entries since Endgame, to be sure. I don’t think you can blame Feige & co., however, for slipping a bit since then as they have had to deal with several major disruptions to the original overall plan—everything that had to be altered because of covid chief among them, followed by a shakeup at the top of Disney, and now the fallout from their new big bad turning out to be a real life shitheel. Not to mention all the “woke = broke” bullshit brought on by culture warriors with nothing better to do than compete over who can feign the most outage over movies based on comic books and the inevitable fatigue and unrealistic expectations that set in after Endgame’s crescendo. It was always going to be difficult to launch another multi-phase series that could match (or surpass) the hype and expectations set by the Infinity War series. Feige’s track record before 2019 is strong enough that I’m willing to give him a chance to find his footing and course correct for greener pastures. If using What If…? as a sandbox to test some of those paths, that’s great. The comic series was always a place for writers to try out one-shot high concept pitches; it seems fitting the MCU version does the same.
It’s an infinite multiverse, so the continuity with Doctor Strange’s sequel isn’t wrong. There’s just tons of variants that could easily be mistaken for each other. Odds are that, possibly barring Uatu cameos & Secret Wars, it’s never going to affect the live action MCU. So you don’t have to feel obligated to watch it. Only being concerned about whether it’ll impact a future release, however, isn’t a good way to enjoy media. This series is inessential, but that doesn’t preclude you from having a good time watching it. Season two was a bold improvement on the first.https://mattthecatania.wordpress.com/2023/12/30/what-if-season-two-closed-out-2023/
Does it mean anything? Maybe notMore like “absolutely not.”
but it is a clear indication that Loki changed somethingIt’s really not.The rules of MCU’s multiverse remain as loosy-goosey as ever. That’s not itself a bad thing, but we gotta stop falling for it every time a new Marvel thing hints at some new clarifying details about it all. It will be forgotten by the next thing, guaranteed.
Presumably the goal is to keep telling interesting stories to keep people buying movie tickets and D+ subscriptions. Yet lately they don’t seem to be doing such a good job at it. Even though I enjoyed The Marvels (am I the only one ?). I was a lifelong fan of OG Mar-Vell in the 70s books, and I appreciated the modernization of that story in the first CM movie, which was very different (thank god) from what they’re doing with Carol Danvers in the books these days, as a Woke/diversity/feminist Icon (or something).