Marvel’s ‘What If…?’ concludes with multiversal war

The animated series from Marvel Studios ends with a bang that echoes across all universes.

For a franchise now as expansive as the MCU, it was inevitable that animation would be a branch that needed to grow in order to tell more stories, and now we have it.

Season one of What If…? brought about the alternate realities to the prime MCU timeline as we know it. When Steve Rogers was meant to become Captain America, Peggy Carter stepped in and became Captain Carter. A wrong turn led Yondu and the Ravagers to take a young T’Challa from Wakanda instead of Peter Quill, leading to the prince becoming the most revered and loved thief in the universe.

All of that eventually folds into a battle for the multiverse (or one of many) when an alternate universe sees Ultron defeat the Avengers and Thanos, leading to him acquiring the six infinity stones and granting him the ability to move between realities and wipe them out.

The animation throughout the entire season has been crisp, clean and blends a comic book aesthetic with fluidity that is rarely seen in animation. A lot of shots were framed so beautifully that it almost felt like a single frame of art as opposed to a frame from a larger show.

The voice cast for the show did differ from their live action counterparts for some characters, but it rarely detracted from the series. A lot of returning cast members included Benedict Cumberbatch, Hayley Atwell, Mark Ruffalo, Samuel L. Jackson, Chris Hemsworth, Chadwick Boseman and Josh Brolin. Using the core actors from the live action films helped the episodes keep continuity and explore new stories in familiar worlds.

The voice actors who did step in to tackle characters like Tony Stark/Iron Man, Peter Parker/Spider-Man or Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel certainly held their own against the MCU veterans.

When it comes to the show’s primary voice actor Jeffrey Wright (who plays Uatu, The Watcher), the show is introduced weekly by his deep, contemplative voice which gives us the sense of a higher power watching over us. Throughout the show, Uatu becomes more and more present and visible which allows Wright to flex his voice even more.

What What If…? also brings to the table is the ongoing and endless possibilities for stories to be told in the MCU moving forward. While Phase Four of the franchise is set to tackle the multiverse as we’ve seen with Loki and soon-to-be-releases of Spider-Man: No Way Home and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness; What If…? can showcase stories that are too far out of the playing field.

We saw Avengers: Age of Ultron, but we never saw Ultron if he had won and now we have. We’ve now seen Marvel zombies and a distraught, murderous Hank Pym – all things we don’t have time for in live action.

That’s the beauty of what the MCU has become – a huge sandbox of terrific characters and stories with endless possibilities.