THE PATHS NOT TAKEN

THE ANTHOLOGY COMIC SERIES WHAT IF…? COMES ALIVE, AND IS APPLIED TO THE MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE, IN A NEW ANIMATED SERIES

- TARA BENNETT

ACROSS MARVEL Studios’s previous 24 theatrical films and three streaming series, the narrative and characters have been everywhere, from Knowhere to Madripoor, the Quantum Realm and the farthest reaches of the universe. And all of those stories have been told in live action. However, with the arrival of What If…? – the fourth Marvel Disney+ series – the MCU enters the realm of animation.

In case you’re not familiar with the concept of What If…?, in 1977 Marvel Comics introduced the anthology series to explore storylines not taken in the regular books. The TV series is a riff on that, with season one consisting of 10 standalone episodes which present a myriad of paths not taken in the MCU, from Tony Stark getting saved by Erik Killmonger in the opening minutes of Iron Man to T’Challa inhabiting the role of Star-Lord.

While telling stories with animation was certainly a distant goal for Marvel Studios, long-time executive producer Brad Winderbaum (Ant-Man, Thor: Ragnarok) tells SFX that it wasn’t until they were tasked with creating original content for Disney+ that it became a serious endeavour.

“The idea of using animation was definitely born from the material,” Winderbaum says, explaining that