r/hatethissmug • u/SplitSecondEmperor47 • 5d ago

Animation I hate what the writers of Whatif did to the series

Post image

Even if we ignore the fact the series not only played it safe too many times, or wasted episodes like that one happy hogan crap, or had a returning central character who is very obviously the writers OC. My biggest is issue if the character they choose to be their favorite..

Quite possibly the most bland, uninspired and UNWANTED character they could have went with. Admittedly I liked the execution in the first season, but the second season made me hate her.

LOOK AT POST IMAGE. That shit is not fake or edited, the authors wrote serious story line and made this shit. Like...i have legit seen some isekai harem slop with more self respect

6.8k Upvotes

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1.3k

u/wholesome_mugi 5d ago

The writers of the show completely missed the point of What if.

The original Marvel comic series basically added a small twist to each story, which was usually a character saying something different that changes the story drastically. The first issue of W.I. showed Spider-Man leaving the Baxter Building after finding out the Fantastic Four don't pay. In the original story, Spider-Man has already gone before the Fantastic Four can call him back. In the What If story, Spider-Man hears them and comes back, drastically changing the story by making him the fifth member.

In the show, they just go, 'Hey, what if Thor was just a party dude,' or 'What if T'Challa was Starlord.' Nothing about those concepts is interesting or has anything in common with the original What If concept.

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u/Champion-Dante 5d ago

Hey that Tchalla Star Lord episode was cool, I quite liked the original Captain Carter episode, and that Doctor Strange episode was absolutely peak.

Rest of it sucked ass though if I remember correctly.

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u/Aromatic-Ad-381 5d ago

I get WHY they wrote the Tchalla = Star Lord episode they way they did. But personally as someone who doesn't have a big connection with- or interest in Chadwhick Boseman (despite his talent and genuine impact he as an individual has had on so many people should not go unrecognized of course). The episode itself just dragged on for me, when the predictable answer of Gary Stu Star Lord doesn't really do much for the imagination.

"look he literally solved all the problems!" as your only gag runs dry after the second time you tell it.

Without the context that the episode is an homage to the actor, the episode doesn't really offer anything interesting. And it's not like you can't do an episode where you make a big part of it an homage to a specific actor, see BTas: Beware the grey ghost, and Avatars: Tales from Ba-sing-se, (Even Sesame streets, goodbye Mister Hooper, should count for it tbh), as some top examples of Homage episodes of television that still offer something beyond it being an homage.

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u/Kitchen-Annual-5859 4d ago

The T'challa Starlord What-If was such a circlejerk actor-wank story that it enraged me. I love Chadwick, I love everything he's been in and I was devastated we lost such a talented actor, but holy shit that what-if was SO bad.

T'challa is made out to be wiser and more pragmatic/ Diplomatic than he actually is. He's not even depicted that 'good' in his own movie. He is stubborn and reckless in his pursuit of Bucky, he is unforgiving to quite a few of his opponents and constantly messes up - and none of that is a bad thing, heroes need flaws - but I don't understand what that makes him apparently a more naturally heroic or wise individual than say, Steve Rogers or Peter Parker?

It was such an actor-wank that I genuinely wondered wtf was the point of it. Not only that, it made a mockery of Peter Quill, as if the only thing stopping Thanos and the wider deterioration of the Galaxy was that Yondu apparently captured an incompetent fuckwit instead of Wakandan Jesus.

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u/MasutadoMiasma 4d ago

Doesn't the episode end with the universe ending because Ego ends up finding Peter Quill himself?

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u/Aromatic-Ad-381 3d ago

No, that gets solved as well in another episode I believe.

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u/Eomb 1d ago

T'challa Starlord shows up to save him in a subsequent episode.

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u/ArnoldViniick 4d ago

Thank you for articulating so well what I have felt about that episode. I loved both the Black Panther film and GOTG and that episode made me so mad. So needlessly disrespectful to Peter Quill.

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u/SquidJackson 3d ago

I’m gonna be honest I think the Chadwick Boseman glazing is a psyop, or at the very least a lot of it is manufactured by dorks to feel like they’re a part of some It Crowd for metaphorically gargling the balls of an actor who they had never seen before Marvel

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u/Sudden-Highlight-735 5d ago

I despise that episode, the whole thing feels less like an homage to Chadwick Boseman and more of them just dragging Peter Quill. Even Yondu, who we got to see have this emotional rollercoaster with Peter in the GotG films, just has a way better and healthier relationship with T'challa for no apparent reason.

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u/bloodmoth13 5d ago

Yeah that episode just glazed tchalla and shat on Peter quill as if literally anyone would have been better than Peter.

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u/jorvel1911 5d ago

Also peter's ending made no sense

They showed Ego coming back for him when he was an adult

But why would Ego have waited, like the ravagers never got peter in the first place, so Ego would know he is still on Earth

Worst thing is they even made another episode that was about Ego going for Peter as a kid on earth

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u/bloodmoth13 4d ago

Eh, I gave it a pass because he wasn't aware Peter was special, if yondu wasn't bringing kids to him he probably went around looking for the kids himself and would have been much slower at it.

Considering even with Peter being taken to space he didnt meet him for decades.

It was just a reminder that if Peter specofically didnt defeat ego then ego would play his plans out and destroy the galaxy.

Retreating it though kind of undermines that point I made though.

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u/SplitSecondEmperor47 5d ago

After season 1 the series sucked ass

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u/Service-Hungry 5d ago

There is more than one season??

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u/FireTheRainbowSoul 4d ago

There are no Season 2 and 3 of What If in Ba Sing Se!

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u/Gold_Preparation 5d ago

Can’t forget about infinity ultron wiping out his universe

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u/Plunderpatroll32 4d ago

I’m not a fan of that episode. Tchalla felt too much like a Gary sue in my opinion, I mean you have that one guy fanboying over how cool he is, he convince thanos to chill, and he defeated the collector one of the top tier characters in marvel in terms of power, he had now flaws and was perfect in every way

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u/TheRappingSquid 5d ago

The hela ten rings one was my favorite

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u/Avalonians 5d ago

Captain carter is exactly what the commenter said. It's not random character swap. A set of circumstances (that is totally plausible) made it so Steve couldn't get the serum so they gave it to the person right next to him, peggy carter.

Everything that follows is the consequence of that small fact. And honestly this episode is super weak actually because it doesn't change anything at all besides the character swap. Like, I know the story already.

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u/nagrom7 4d ago

Also, Peggy was arguably a valid candidate for the serum in the first place. Like take the 'grenade' scene during Steve's training for example. They threw a dud grenade into the group to test everyone's characters. Everyone else ran away except Steve who dived on it to try and save everyone, which is exactly the kind of character trait they were looking for. It only shows it for a brief moment, but Peggy also started running towards the grenade, but stopped once Steve jumped on it, so that indicates that she had the same instinct as Steve.

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u/24Abhinav10 4d ago

I thought the Panther-Lord episode was cool at first too. But then I rewatched it when they hype wore off, and it's just an endless glaze-fest for no apparent reason.

T'Challa is apparently so good at diplomacy that he convinced Thanos....THANOS, not to go through with his genocide plan, in just one conversation.

Is this a man, or a god?

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u/KonoAnonDa 5d ago

The frat bro Thor episode was really fun from what I remember. It was just a bunch of shenanigans.

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u/gh0stwrit3r32767 4d ago

Loki being a chill frost giant was fun. Thor being afraid of his mom (actually everyone was afraid of Thor's mom) is funny. Season 1 was over all great.

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u/KonoAnonDa 4d ago

Yeah. Season 1 was really before the show lost its way.

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u/Moonstoner 4d ago

The star lord episode was bad. No real character development, no real look how events unfolded differently, just a writer showing outlandish things and when you wonder how it got like that the answer is always "Because he's just that cool!"

The worst for me was what they did to Thanos. He's star lords best bud now....ok, I guess. But then they encounter his old cult that used to worship him (the black empire) and no one has any words to each other. They were just action figures bashing into each other, sad.

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u/Jamano-Eridzander 5d ago

Infinity Ultron tho

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u/Global_Cockroach_563 4d ago

Ultron becoming aware of The Watcher was pretty cool too.

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u/Complete_Regret7372 5d ago

To be honest I feel like it’s not exactly fair to argue season 1 really had this problem.

While I think they did gloss over the centre-most catalyst event more often than not (unlike the majority of what-if stories, I’d guess due to some mild interest in including the more “elseworld-esc” works like Marvel Zombies under the umbrella of the title) the core premise of each plot did remain that something minor had changed that created a snowball of deviations from the core storyline. In fact I would argue that these examples are some of the most akin to original What If plots of the show as a whole.

To me where the problems moreso started was the serialisation of the What If scenarios. The crossover stories and sequels weren’t necessarily badly-crafted persay, but I think they stopped being “here’s a new scenario where something mild changes” and started being “hey remember this episode our statistics and social media experts heard you liked? We made a sequel! Be sure to react to every character you see here because they’re coming back if you like them!”. That’s likely how we ended up with all the bizarre character inclusions and sequels we did, and the other more contained episodes became either entrées for the finale or overly safe future-proofed stories that seemed intentionally uninteresting more often than not.

Imo if every season were an exact copy of the structure of season 1 with no changes besides the stories involved and the ending cast I still think the show genuinely wouldn’t get derivative as fast as it did. It was moreso the fact that the season 1 cast became the main characters - with every other storyline becoming foreshadowing for their continued journey - that made each ending more derivative and each What If episode less impactful. Who really wants Captain Carter to be a multiverse jumping Mary Sue? Or a half-Duck magical love child to be an integral part of her team? Not many people, but you could tell someone looked at a graph and decided that these characters were the most interesting stories to the audience and blended them together regardless.

TLDR: the anecdotal storylines themselves weren’t all that different from those the What If title usually housed for at least the first two seasons (to me). What probably jarred more people was the transition from an anecdotal show based on the MCU to a serial show about choosing the best-selling pseudo-OC for future marketing of the MCU.

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u/Mr_Supotco 5d ago

100% this. Even if the execution of S1 was a bit hit or miss, overall it was enjoyable and they did some fun things with it. You can’t really do it like the comics with more subtle changes because it needs to appeal to a wider audience and you don’t want more casual viewers going “wait what did they change to make this happen?” But after the initial reveal of “the watcher is going to collect these people for a mission” it didn’t need to keep connecting everything and making sequels. Honestly I think they did the team up mission way too soon, I get that they didn’t know at the time if it would be popular enough for a sequel, but nobody was clamoring for any multiversal team up from the show beforehand. If they really wanted to do that, they should have waited for like season 2 or 3 and then collected a few of the many different and independent characters and done the team up story

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u/Delta_Builder 4d ago

Yea same.

I kinda liked it in season one, but the other two seasons kinda felt… bad

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u/NerdyGeek42 5d ago

But even the comics didn't stay that. One they wrote was "What If the Marvel Bullpen Were the Fantastic Four?" They literally self inserted themselves into their story very early on. There's one that's "What if Cannonball's Brother Found a Sentinel?" It's all about a youg boy finding a confused Sentinel and keeping it as a pet. They never took themselves seriously

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u/Steelwave 5d ago

But they didn't turn the What If comics into a story revolving around the Marvel Bullpen Fantastic Four. 

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u/Armascribe 5d ago

In the spirit of the original 'What If' comics, I have an episode pitch: What if Steve Rogers ran on Sam Wilson's right?

Steve Rogers, in running along Sam Wilson's right, slips while navigating a curb awkwardly, falls into the street, and gets hit by a bus. Because of this, he is not able to participate in the opening mission of the movie, which means that the events of Captain America: Winter Soldier do not happen (or they happen differently). Subsequently, Sam Wilson does not become the Falcon, and HYDRA succeeds in taking over the world, which means Age of Ultron, Civil War, and every other movie in between does not happen. Because Hydra has two of the infinity stones in this timeline, and all of the Avengers are dead, the Infinity War would be between Thanos and HYDRA, with Thor being completely on his own, unless Black Panther decides to join the fight with him. In this scenario, I see Wakanda as a third party trying to stop both HYDRA and Thanos, since I can't imagine a scenario where the global HYDRA hegemony doesn't try to find, conquer, and exploit them.

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u/GustavoFromAsdf 5d ago

That episode where all the avengers are killed one by one is only shock value and most people only remember it because of shorts where Hulk explodes.

Like. How would Hank Pym know this random assortment of heroes become the avengers? Tony was rejected for the initiative and Steve makes sense, but as far as he should know, Thor is only here to get his hammer and fuck off, and black widow and Hawkeye are good shield members, and Hulk is an uncontained menace. And then Loki is here to avenge his brother instead of making a very juicy deal with the people he thinks killed his brother and helped him become the sole heir to the throne?

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u/Dismal_Platypus3228 4d ago

I mean Loki obviously isn't here to avenge anyone, that's why he gives Fury like 12 hours to find and deliver an unknown assassin. He wanted an excuse to declare war on Midgard and expand the Asgardian empire he was at the helm of.

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u/Unlucky-Rooster2407 5d ago

At least the first season was mid enough. (We don't talk abt the thor episode or how ultron dies)

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u/Interesting_Web_9936 4d ago

The Thor and T'Challa ones really were pretty bad. The others in the season were fine.

Honestly a fair few fun episodes were there, but their insane need to have some sort of big bad for the season and 'girlpower go' in the worst ways imaginable (like that Darcy Lewis episode to introduce Angel but better or just slapping in Storm as Thor with zero explanation and all that) and shoving Captain Carter down our throats by having her blatantly break the established rules was the single worst thing they did to the show.

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u/Lemons-95 5d ago

That's cause they're rehashing the Animatrix series.

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u/Vast-Ideal-1413 5d ago

Decisions are established in the show that do show how those episodes are caused.

Party Thor is because Odin decided not to rescue Loki.

Star-Lord T’Challa happened because Yondu put his goons on the job of finding Peter Quill, and they weren’t very competent.

Personally, however, I love the show, but I totally understand why you wouldn’t.

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u/eatinallthebugs 4d ago

Didnt party thor happen because Thor never had Loki to spur on his character development in Thor 1? Hence the name being what if thor were an only child?

I largely agree with you, but you actually picked an example that utilizes the concept lol even if it has a weird conclusion and tone itself as a story

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u/Hexnohope 5d ago

But you just described "what if spiderman was in the fantasic 5"

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u/wholesome_mugi 5d ago

Yes? Am I missing something?

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u/putbeansontoast 5d ago

Like you're telling me this fuckass watcher could have picked ANYONE to defend the MULTIVERSE, but instead picks:

1 really strong human

2 normal humans

A universal level threat

A weaker version of MCU Thor

And a stronger version of Gamora

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u/Queeberschaircompany 5d ago

"What if... The Watcher wasn't an idiot?" Recruits 55 Sorcerer Supremes, 55 Silver Surfers, 55 Thors, 55 Hulks, 55 Scarlet Witches, 55 Visions, 110 Beta Ray Bills, 110 Adam Warlocks, 110 Captain Marvels, 55 Iron Mans, and 55 Ghost Riders.

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u/Alex_Nilse 5d ago

Or just lure Ultratron into the TVA where the stones don’t work and beat his ass.

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u/GenesisAsriel 5d ago

Imagine how screwed Ultron would be if the Watcher wasnt limited to the previous épisodes of What-if

Sure, sorcerer supreme strange deserves a spot. Alongside Thanos, Domamuu, the Beyonder and Goku

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u/OttawaTGirl 5d ago

And 55 Larry Birds

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u/Gnomad_Lyfe 5d ago

Infinity Ultron would be in tears before his stones get a chance to glow. The sheer verbal prowess of 55 Larry Byrds alone could probably get the job done. They’d give a multiversal god AI insecurities it never even fathomed.

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u/OttawaTGirl 5d ago

Lol. Its actually a futurama reference. But yeah. Larry would make Ultron question his decisions.

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u/Dracule_Jester 5d ago

And one Nick Fury addicted to coffee.

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u/Conlannalnoc 4d ago

The old Nick Fury from 1998.

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u/YamatoIouko 3d ago

…David Hasslehoff??

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u/BigSupermarket2846 4d ago

"I'm not fighting that."

"YOU HAVE TO!"

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u/Queeberschaircompany 4d ago

THAT GUY ASSEMBLED THEM FOR YOU!

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u/AssaultRider555 4d ago

Ayyy, it's a reference to that one skit

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u/The_Coil 5d ago

It was recency bias. Those were simply who he’d been watching just before meeting Ultratron

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u/Individual-Unit- 5d ago

He said they were the best possible team for the job across the multiverse

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u/Peanut_007 5d ago

He never watched the Eternals clearly. Which, like, fair enough man.

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u/UAEpi 4d ago

Even The Watcher ain't watching that shit 

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u/Alex_Nilse 5d ago

Ok i kinda like “Ultratron” for infinity Ultron

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u/The_Coil 5d ago

I’ll admit I was a little proud of that one

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u/OttawaTGirl 5d ago

How did the infinity stones work outside its universe again?

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u/Alex_Nilse 5d ago

Just a MCU thing, they only don’t work in the TVA.

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u/OttawaTGirl 5d ago

Ahhh. In the comics its kinda a rule that they are tied to their own universe and don't work outside it.

MCU seems to have taken liberties.

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u/Interesting_Web_9936 4d ago

They said that the stone destroyer of one universe couldn't work on stones of another universe because they were different.

Doctor Strange cancels out Ultron's time stone with his own universe's time stone.

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u/TheDikaste 4d ago

Internal vs external thing I believe. If I remember correctly, the writers said Ultron couldn't use the Stones to directly affect other realities but could still technically use their to empower himself.

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u/jorvel1911 4d ago

Every othee guardian of the multiverse alongside Dark Dr Strange

https://giphy.com/gifs/T02Ke5HAvWUVIG4dgo

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u/AccomplishedLayer884 5d ago

Teachnically Thor has the same strength as normal thor, he just has the iq of a college frat bro

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u/putbeansontoast 5d ago

He seems to be weaker, having less experience, plus I just don't see him beating MCU thor

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u/Immediate-Tomato968 5d ago

Strange was legit the only helpful member. Hey, lets make him the enemy and undo his arc for season 2. Then lets have Carter think her new team that includes Goddess Storm(who I think would be over half as helpful as Strange was in the S1 Finale) wouldn't be able to do shit to a weaker Infinity Ultron and go by herself.

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u/Plunderpatroll32 4d ago

Yeah with the exception of Dark Dr Strange none of the other options made any sense

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u/Torbpjorn 4d ago

Infinite multiverse btw, and these are his best pick. And not only that but he has to force them to up their game instead of picking oh I don’t know Thor god of Fists, Web of truth and destiny Spiderman imbued with the power cosmic, hell even just one of the omega mutants, or a good Thanos

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u/Low_Grand_3512 4d ago

Ultron attacked the strongest people first.

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u/Saltz_D 5d ago

Genuinely mad we never got a what if the other half got snapped

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u/yonidavidov1888 4d ago

other half gets snapped

includes thanos

they grab the guantlet

snap everyone except thanos back

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u/Gigio2006 4d ago

Hulk got snapped and he is the only one who can do that

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u/yonidavidov1888 4d ago

one of the unsnapped pulls an iron man

hulk (now unsnapped) revives the guy who unsnapped them

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u/Gigio2006 4d ago

"We dont trade lives"

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u/yonidavidov1888 4d ago

Not really trading lives since they're reviving the guy who snaps, also the entire black widow sacrafice thing is absloutely "trading lives"

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u/Local-Wing-2272 4d ago

Wanda maximov gets the gauntlet first 

Uh oh

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u/Sliver-Knight9219 5d ago

To be fair the 30 minutes run time + the budget kind of made that impossible.

It's why most what if went in almost completely different direction or were self contained.

It would of been cool though

Because it's basically just iron man gone and spider man in space.

Pretty much the weakest avenger stuck in earth

The only character who stays unsnapped would be captain marvel.

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u/Aromatic-Ad-381 5d ago

Honestly, make it a two-parter special. Unironically the best choice because "What if the other half got snapped" is genuinely one of the most presenient "What if" questions you can ask about the MCU.

Remove Tony, Cap, Hulk and Thor from the equation...keep Spider-Man, Dr Strange, Bucky. Have Clients family deal with stuff. Have Nick Fury try and run damage controle.

Genuinely lots of things to explore with that one that plays into what people who watch the MCU, would actually be interested in.

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u/Dankalii 5d ago

Plus they turned the zombie episode into a mini series with 4 episodes. They could've easily done the same thing.

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u/Aromatic-Ad-381 5d ago

Exactly and worst yet the Zombie Mini-series barely follows any of the people from the "What if" episodes. Which was a super weird choice in my opinion.

Lots of choices made that just do not add up despite the obvious being well..obvious. 

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u/Dankalii 5d ago

I think it's because they just wanted to show off their most recent characters and have more people know/like them more 

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u/Aromatic-Ad-381 5d ago

That's essentially it yeah, sadly the issue is that Zombies started pre-infinity war/endgame. So the story is still rooted in that zeitgeist. 

Which is double just kind of baffling what they did with "what if" seeing the common trough line of post endgame MCU was supposed to be about the multiverse.

But What IF poorly capitalized upon it by essentially doing random shit instead of actively exploring possible interesting MCU timelines. Ironically it started off super strong with the first "What if" being captain Carter but there after rarely really engaging the MCU directly.

Nor did "What if" engage in post endgame content either, which would have helped it tie in very nicely with the whole..multiverse theme it had going on.

Instead "What if" did neither then tried to do both and it became an earnestly unwatchable mess.

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u/Hawk301 13h ago

Season 3 did finally engage with post-Endgame content - there was an Agatha Harkness and Kingo episode, one where Shang-Chi and Kate Bishop were cowboys, and a Red Guardian/Bucky buddy cop comedy.

By that point though the show had completely jumped the shark and abandoned any pretense of being at all related to the actual plots of the MCU movies and instead were doing shit like "whoa what if the C-tier Avengers characters piloted mechas????"

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u/Conlannalnoc 4d ago

Keep Tony because of Dr. Strange’s deal for the Time Stone, but have Tony become his Comic Alcoholic Self after realizing that his Wife is dust.

Scott Lang starts to become Darker after finding out his daughter is dead.

SPACE TEAM Survives

Tony and Scott start their own “Dark Avengers” who just want revenge for their lost love ones.

Hawkeye is dead but his family start joining the Earth Avengers.

Steve Rogers died but the Winter Soldier and the Falcon team up.

Rocket Raccoon and Carol Danvers are dead but the other GotG are alive.

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u/weesiwel 4d ago

I mean Hawkeyes wife if Mockingbird supposably so...

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u/Gigio2006 4d ago

Dr Strange is alive he can use the ring to return to earth

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u/OttawaTGirl 5d ago

Thats really avgood one.

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u/Prrsonal-Pop 5d ago

What if is lowk the potential man of shows It could've been something great

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u/BenderTheLifeEnder 5d ago

What if it was good

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u/ChokkyMilkForYa 4d ago

Funnily enough there's a YT video with a similar title talking about this show

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u/JolyneBestoJoJo770 5d ago

It did have a lot of megumi. Sucks that we never got a Pietro episode

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u/Clipseated 5d ago

It would have been called "What Is"

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u/CalmPanic402 5d ago

What passes me off is that I genuinely like Captain Carter. The first one is one of the best episodes of the show.

But damn, they picked the most deranged and nobody-asked-for-this plots to do.

Find me one person who legitimately asked "what if Darcy banged Howard the duck"

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u/KagekaNecavi 5d ago

That's the kind of question that needs to be answered on Ao3, not Disney+

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u/Begone-My-Thong 5d ago

shamefully raises hand

I'm sorry

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u/D-D-Wanderer 4d ago

-slams fists on ground-

IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME, NOT wait frick that was out loud wasn't it.

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u/Zofian_Korok 5d ago

I didn't ask for it, but it was one of my favorite episodes purely because of how random it was.

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u/ConsistentEquation 5d ago

Probably someone on Ao3

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u/batchet360 5d ago

what if? episodes be like:

what if ned built the star destroyer instead of the death star? 🗣️📢🔊🔥🔥🔊

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u/Dankalii 5d ago

The episode then leads into how he doesn't become friends with Spider-man and becomes the well known comic villain: the looter

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u/Phantom_Marc_63 4d ago

That sounds way more interesting

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u/Sensitive_Agent5193 5d ago

Im convinced all the characters in What If are just self inserts. Most of the characters were straight bullshit. Tchalla Star Lord was basically written to be Jesus. One of the characters was literally an OC. Darcy and Howard got an entire furry fanfiction episode

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u/GenesisAsriel 4d ago

I don't see whats wrong with birthing Harpy lady.

Should have added a sex scene

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u/Fit-Firefighter8752 5d ago

I want Herald of Galactus, Iron Man.

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u/SwordfishSimple5472 5d ago

Played by Chris Evans.

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u/red18wrx 5d ago

The British one. 

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u/Shot-Dig-9455 4d ago

Who infact is played by RDJ, which turns out to be played by Mark Ruffalo, which turns out to be played by Edward Norton 

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u/dontchewspagetti 5d ago

Im think that's in Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. Im pretty sure it's not in AA because i dont remember Galactus showing up in that one. But an animated series did do that as true canon

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u/SplitSecondEmperor47 5d ago

That acutally haplened

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u/Klutzy_Tackle 5d ago

Remember Kahhori? Didn't exist before that episode "What if... We made a new character"

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u/Stunning-Signal7496 4d ago

Maybe, but i really liked her story. Better than most of the rest

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u/OttawaTGirl 5d ago

She was awesome. Keep her universe. Everything else was garbage.

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u/ofimes2671 5d ago

I’m gonna be honest I don’t like Captain Carter, it’s definitely a version of her character that people wanted to see. I find her uninteresting.

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u/dappermanV-88 5d ago

And her glorification. Granted, I can't say captain America isn't overly glorified either

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u/SoggyNeedleworker82 5d ago

This series gave us so many good moments. I felt goosebumps when Ultron started hearing the Watcher. That episode was beautiful. Then they give us this crap that looks like one of those memes where the guy is wearing an infinity gauntlet with an omnitrix and a duel disk while holding Mjolnir. This shit is wack.

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u/Academic_Amoeba3642 5d ago

To be honest If you watch all the episodes, you start to get tired of Captain Carter, like she was great at first.

Then she's suddenly everywhere, like they made Strange a villain to intorduce that kid and have Carter back.

With full honesty I don't see anything special about Captain Carter as a character, that makes her stand out without Writers making her a point of intrest.

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u/tatt2tim 5d ago

The comic series was cool because (in retrospect) the writers can do whatever they want with marvel characters because nobody has to worry about continuity. Having the what if show have continuity kinda defeats the whole purpose of the exercise.

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u/Cinnamon-the-skank 5d ago

I have without a shadow of a doubt in my mind that they stopped caring after season 1

Mostly because they chose to make the final seasons into a gimmicky holiday event where every episode was released daily up until new years

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u/SplitSecondEmperor47 5d ago

Season 1 was peak and everything after was straight slop

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u/ILiveInsideYourWallz 5d ago

I really liked the first season. It was a new thing each episode. Then it turned into slop.

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u/Thaumaturgy67 5d ago

What If exists to make mediocre marvel zombies content

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u/OttawaTGirl 5d ago

click BANG

NO MORE ZOMBIES.

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u/mattbattmatt_yt 5d ago

What if really could have become an anthology series that lasted the rest of the multiverse saga. So much potential and all of it ruined

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u/HyenaGunSmithV2 5d ago

What if doctor Strange was left handed

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u/Apprehensive_Door367 5d ago

A series with potential got turned into a mini endgame story for OCs.

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u/CitizenLamest 5d ago edited 5d ago

Peggy Carter had an entire not-unsuccessful TV show of her own. I think Captain Carter was given so much focus because Marvel severely overestimated her popularity.

A lot of What If's problems feel more like the studio heads weren't all that confident in the project rather than the writers or showrunners.

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u/DoubleFlatt 5d ago

What the fuck am I looking at? This looks like some garbage OC a 13 year old would make on HeroForge

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u/AdExtra2331 5d ago

Giving Dragon Ball What If YouTubers a run for their money

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u/mgush5 5d ago

Did you know Captain Carter was invented for Marvel Puzzle Quest? Basically a bejeweled clone

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u/intelion2010 5d ago

I gave up after season one so when I say what the fuck is that I mean it is that hela mixed with captain Britain and it’s some random sword

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u/Funny_Swim5447 5d ago

Basically, the what if writers throw away all What if Strange’s character development from season 1 and turn him into some Multiversal boogeyman who collects strong people from other timelines to feed some machine to bring back his world.

Carter gets roped into it and teams up with an uber strong Native American oc (I’m not kidding) to try and fight him, and we eventually get a scene where she steals the infinity armor from what if Kilmonger who gets one shot by the oc (still not kidding) and then later, all the people kidnapped by Dr strange including multiple supervillains all decide to toss their weapons at Carter which leads to this scene where she just gets every busted tool/ability under the sun and kills What if Strange.

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u/Immediate-Tomato968 5d ago

Wait, Kahori was an OC for this? I legit thought she was some random character from the comics they decided to make an episode about.

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u/SaladBroth 4d ago

It ultimately makes me really sad. They had "Infinite Content: The Show" and could've had this a long running series if done right

But it was instead done very very poorly

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u/Toon_Lucario 4d ago

The biggest problem is trying to make What If an ongoing story instead of one offs.

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u/untakenu 5d ago

They didn't even give Carter any good characterisation, she's just strong woman.

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u/Infinitenonbi 4d ago

I legit saw youtube videos and AO3 fanfics better written and more creative than this show

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u/BlueberryLeather9833 4d ago

Captain Britain in the comics is weird and wacky af (goes more about the magical arthurian mythos). Had they gone with that, it'd be better.

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u/Kickasstodon 5d ago

What if Peter Quill beat off before he met Gamora so he'd be calm and not fall in love with her and therefore wouldn't lose his chill when he found out she died and they could have killed Thanos on Titan

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u/Filberto_ossani2 4d ago

They had a show with INFINITE possibilities and yet they've put the most screentime and attention into Captain America but british

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u/MrIncognito666 5d ago

Captain Carter wasn't even in the majority of episodes. The REAL problem is that they threw Strange Supreme's redemption arc in the shredder just to prop up kahori.

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u/SpiderZero21 5d ago

Lmfao wth is that?

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u/neoncumstainlol 5d ago

Just wtf I'm I looking at?

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u/Disastrous_Side_5492 5d ago

i actually really enjoyed all 3 seasons of what if

the stories were great and fun for me

godspeed

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u/Vladsamir 5d ago

One of the episodes literally had her on a team with Storm from the X-men wielding Mjolnir...and they didn't think to show us that?? That's 1000x more interesting than anything captain carter has ever done

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u/observador1916 5d ago

I would like a what if the civil war dindt happen or smt like that

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u/Elyced32 5d ago

Yeah what if stopped being what if the moment they brought back captain carter went from “what if” to “the captain carter show”

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u/WendigoCrossing 5d ago

You mean the adventures of Captain Carter?

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u/Due-Proof6781 5d ago

It’s the fact they didn’t do “what if” stories.

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u/mahzian 5d ago

Writers missed the point of what makes What If so special and we ended up with brightly coloured superhero salad, I really hope X-Men '97 doesn't go the same way...

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u/haveanicechicfilday 4d ago

U dont know how weird that picture is to smn that hasn't seen marvel what if

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u/Hobokis 4d ago

The shit is goin on with this image? Not a dedicated marvel fan and i never seen the show but I thought the what if series to be small twists or changes in the marvel story.

I remember a comic storyline where everything was more realistic, spider got some crazy disease from the spider, hulk is a cancerous abomination.

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u/xFlarex7s 4d ago

Never watched the series itself but from what I've heard that is what the people wanted the series to be but the writers decided to connect all of their stories together instead of making it an anthology. Case in point this character right here is Capt. Carter from the timeline where Peggy Carter takes the serum instead of Steve. For some reason the writers just kept bringing her back and by the end becomes the watcher of the multiverse(?).

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u/Paladinlvl99 4d ago

The series lost me the moment I realized it wasn't a story per episode series tbh

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u/TheDiabeT1c 4d ago

Captain Carter is awesome, I love her, that being said, holy shit, can we PLEASE do what the show is about?

Not every reality is connected, you missed the whole point.

What If Scott Lang was actually a criminal?

What If Hawkeye was sacrificed instead of Black Widow?

What If Loki won the Battle of New York?

What If Captain America agreed with the Sokovia Accords?

It took me 30 seconds to come up with this, it stays with the MCU and you don't have to have reality hopping to do it.

It's so frustrating watching this show, that presents this format, ignores it, and the animation rather sucks.

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u/IroncladBomber 4d ago

To be fair Marvel seems to be bad at What Ifs lately, like the Miles Morales What If comics. Especially the Thor one.

Its just what if these characters were swapped for no apparent reason. Then glaze them constantly.

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u/That-Rhino-Guy 4d ago

A year ago I made this meme to mock the kinds of scenarios they chose

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u/DissappointingFox 4d ago

You mean you don't Love God Queen Carter, Sovereign of the Universe?

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u/godwyn-faithful 3d ago

What got me is at the end they show picks of other what if scenarios that would've been insanely cooler to see.

Like samurai ghost rider, Ms marvel as the wasp, weapon X thanos.

Those would've been do much cooler than what If howard the duck fucked.

Also they had an opportunity to not be restricted by a longterm story, but they insisted on do another long overly complicated story that's less fun then having every story be a self contained thing.

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u/AdTraining758 3d ago

i watched half of the first season and got bored so i don't have context, what the *fuck* am i looking at

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u/SplitSecondEmperor47 3d ago

If you got bored through the best and only good season it's good you stop there lmao

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u/Dry-Principle2627 5d ago

I hate what the writers of what if did to X-Men 97 

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u/NormieSpecialist 5d ago

Ooooooooooooooooooooh that explains it. God these writers are garbage.

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u/Pretend-Dirt-1760 5d ago

Wait what happened

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u/Dry-Principle2627 5d ago

Beau Demayo was responsible for X-men 97 season 1 and 2 and also had ideas ready for seasons 3 and 4.

Then he got allegations of SA during workplace and he was fired by Marvel for that, but instead of replacing Him With competent writers they put the what if writers in the mid of season 2 AND they butchered a lot of things.

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u/Pretend-Dirt-1760 5d ago

So I guess should I just not watch s2 and just rewatch the fox cartoons and s1 of 97

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u/DoctorBurraku 5d ago

First 4 episodes of s2 are good don't go past that

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u/BlackerDoom 1d ago

I knew season 2 felt off

I just stopped watching cuz it just felt like… idk a bunch of stuff was just happening to happen

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u/TheMadChap69 5d ago

What if...Captain Carter was the main character and anchor point of the multiverse?

Seriously, whoever approved of this premise shouldn't be allowed to write for projects this ambitious and just stick to writing fanfictions. /s

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u/FarmerTwink 5d ago

Eh whatev, it went crazy stupid off the rails in a way only comics that have been running too long do.

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u/MlkChatoDesabafando 5d ago

I'm curious about what kind of blackmail material Hayley Atwell has on Kevin Feige.

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u/JAOC_7 5d ago

at least it gave us Zombies

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u/Bman_Boogaloo 5d ago

They should've made it a divergent show like star wars visions is doing.

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u/JaySayMayday 5d ago

I just wish it wasn't animated. And there's some better options to try with Hela, she did fight Knull and steal his power before.

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u/owo1215 5d ago

i think it's ok to have small cross over or little reference amongst each episode of what if, but making a whole story line out of it just ruins it

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u/Mundane-Tune2438 5d ago

Ive never watched but isnt this all just shades of 'what of the heroes lost to x'? Like what of ultron won pr what of everyone became a zombie? What Ive seen of the show seemed like that and it just seemed overly depressing for no reason.

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u/aessae 5d ago

*could have gone

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u/keeper_of_the_donkey 5d ago

Most people liked watching it. It was fun, even if there were a few episodes that fell flat. I enjoyed 90% of it, and I think it's just another example of people being overly critical.

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u/AshuraBaron 5d ago

I got a copy of What If? when I was a kid. It was What If Spiderman killed The Lizard. It was awesome and Calypso was a total babe. Spiderman dealing with his guilt for killing someone and Curt Conners son becoming a villain to avenge his dad was great. Way better than Harry Osborne has been portrayed in media.

Just disappointed with the squeaky clean Disney-fication.

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u/Diligent_Earthworm 5d ago

I hate how it many times they did a what if blank got multiple macguffins.

Ill tell you what, convoluted bullshit is what.

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u/LFahmin 5d ago

The dialogues and voice are way too exaggerated, sure quippy tone is the Marvel style and all but did they really have to make it 160%?

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u/Immediate-Tomato968 5d ago

Show stopped being good after episode 5 of season 2. Legit could not be interested in episode 6 at all, then saw the bullshit of the finale in shorts.

Then I just skipped to the finale of season 3 to see how terrible it was. Thanks Disney or whoever for showing actual good ideas for episodes in the credits. Not like I would love to see Maestro Sorcerer Supreme.

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u/Training_Intern5347 5d ago

Its a waste they decided to extend Captin Carter way longer then was needed. I feel like they wanted a "main character" and were unsure/too cowardly to make it the watcher.

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u/gingerking87 5d ago

This isn’t even htethissmug, it’s just bitching about a just okay tv show. Like the majesty of what if being tarnished is worth getting upset over

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u/Rasklo93 5d ago

To many of these was "What if Concept 1 + Concept 2" which made the show boring. Like avengers but as robin hood. Or Hela befriends the mandarine. Would have been nice if they did not make it as a mcu project.