What If...? (Disney+)

[Raguel]

In other news Coulson and I use the exact same password. 

(but seriously CA has always been my fave, going back as far as when the comic was called Captain America and the Falcon. IDC what people say.)

[Teleku]

Captain America has also been one of my most favorite hero's in both comic and film, so you are not alone.

Just wish they'd done the hand off better.  I don't care that they gave it to Falcon/Mackie in principle, but that series was pretty rough in terms of plotting/writing/acting....

[Threash]

Captain America has also been one of my most favorite hero's in both comic and film, so you are not alone.

Just wish they'd done the hand off better.  I don't care that they gave it to Falcon/Mackie in principle, but that series was pretty rough in terms of plotting/writing/acting....

There was very obviously extensive editing done to change the plot due to current conditions.

[Endie]

Didn't stop Marvel itself from having Spider-Man kill Mary Jane in an alternative future with radioactive cum.

Seriously?  Was this before or after Kevin Smith has Brodie discuss that very scenario, albeit with Superman and Lois Lane?

Edit: I'm saving this up to watch with my wife and I'm utterly meh about them killing Falcon but if they kill off Hawkeye I swear I'll be so grateful I'll go legit and subscribe to watch it. If they do a crossover and kill off his Green Arrow avatar I'll throw in some Hail Marys and a stint as the Mouse in Florida.

[schild]

Benicio somehow forgot how he played the collector. He was TERRIBLE.

[HaemishM]

I think that's right, actually--I've been kind of surprised at how "is that actually that guy?" the voice work has been. Turns out you have to be good at it to do it, who would have thunk it?

It may also be that some folks are just phoning it in.

[Sky]

The writing and acting is pretty awful at this point, and the clever bits aren't.

This would work better as an art book of the keyframes. Because there are some dope goddamned keyframes, this show looked great on the table, for sure.

[Father mike]

Wow, and you thought Ep. 3 was dark ...

[Velorath]

This one was ok taken on its own. Trying to reconcile it with the already convoluted rules of time travel and alternate timelines makes my head hurt though. Why is the death here an absolute point in time when we have a seen a timeline where it doesn't need to happen in order for Stephen to become Dr. Strange?

[Khaldun]

Yeah, once again, it's not playing entirely by the rules. What's the different choice here? The lesson I guess is that Stephen needed to be personally humbled by the damage to his hands in order to accept that he can't do everything--but then, that's why Mordo turns against him at the end of Dr. Strange, that he really doesn't accept that (nor, it turns out, did the Ancient One).

[Samwise]

All I got is that maybe there's a difference between "parallel universes" and "alternate timelines". 

Or maybe what we saw at the end of that episode is what happens when a variant timeline gets "pruned" from the perspective of everyone else living in that timeline.   

[Threash]

The interesting part for me was that messed up Strange survived.

[eldaec]

It seemed entirely in line with the 'rules' as per avengers and for that matter Loki.

The rules are you can't materially change your past or everything will likely go to shit.

All the talk about absolute points is just Tilda Swinton's way of saying that.

The MCU has been pretty good about this.

The only time I noticed them breaking the rules is in endgame when Thanos goes to the future to get killed and is therefore not around to do the snap. But even that one you can just argue that Stark fixed it with the gauntlet.

[HaemishM]

There may have to be an explanation that "the multiverse" isn't a set of variant timelines but actual different universes where even the laws of physics can be different. Each universe can have multiple divergent timelines. ::shrug::

[eldaec]

There may have to be an explanation that "the multiverse" isn't a set of variant timelines but actual different universes where even the laws of physics can be different. Each universe can have multiple divergent timelines. ::shrug::

I'm fairly sure Disney have said these episodes are canon alternate timelines in the sense that Loki defined them.

What we saw in this episode is just what an irreversible paradox looks like from inside a variant timeline.

[schild]

yo this show fuckin sucks lol

[Velorath]

Ep 1: What if character x actually became superhero y.
Ep 2: What if character x actually became superhero y.
Ep 3: What if the Avengers died.
Ep 4: What if everybody died.
Ep 5: What if the Avengers and almost everybody died.

[eldaec]

That wasn't great.

[Samwise]

It's amazing how bad you have to fuck up to make me feel meh about a zombie apocalypse story.  But they did it.  The mad bastards.

[Khaldun]

I hated it. But I've always hated Marvel Zombies. I hated this worse.

My family folks liked it, for whatever that's worth (to my puzzlement, honestly).

[eldaec]

If you hadn't seen all the things it kept referencing in really direct and unoriginal ways, it might have been more fun.

The only idea that seemed to have any real potential was the reverse wandavision. But that didn't have room to breathe and Vision's ultimate decision was ridiculous.

I'll be honest though Happy saying 'blam' made me chuckle.

[Threash]

Any talk of a cure when the zombies are clearly rotted corpses is just dumb.

[schild]

Ep 1: What if character x actually became superhero y.
Ep 2: What if character x actually became superhero y.
Ep 3: What if the Avengers died.
Ep 4: What if everybody died.
Ep 5: What if the Avengers and almost everybody died.

Episodes 1 - 5: what if every single thing in the mcu revolved around a stark and what they did

[Threash]

Getting more of a What if... fuck hank pym? vibe myself.

[Samwise]

yeah, I'm struggling to think of how any Starks were significant in any episodes after the first one.  Pym on the other hand seems disproportionately powerful/important compared to his role in the movies.  I guess they got a good deal on Michael Douglas and wanted to use him as much as possible?

[Setanta]

I didn't hate it. As zombie movies go, it followed a formula, but the Wanda vs Hulk battle fell flat and I'm so sick of Spiderman being positioned as the posterboy of the MCU.

Pity they didn't go all Train to Busan or Snowchaser with it. Snowchaser style with Evans as a protagonist instead of the hero would have been a nice take.

I'm still enjoying the series.

[HaemishM]

I have never been a fan of the Marvel Zombies stuff - it was a cute idea for like a one-off poster, but not nearly enough of an idea for a mini-series or a full-on universe in the Marvel Multiverse. As a result, I was already inclined not to like this one and it did not disappoint. Over reliance on Zombie movie references, nothing really original done with super powers on zombies, or even any thought to weird things like "who keeps making explosive arrows for zombie Hawkeye?" The voice work continues to be extremely inconsistent - Spider-Man wasn't Tom Holland but Happy Hogan was Jon Favreau and if you'd asked me blind, I'd have said both of those things were the opposite of what they were.

"Blam" was kind of funny.

[schild]

yeah, I'm struggling to think of how any Starks were significant in any episodes after the first one.  Pym on the other hand seems disproportionately powerful/important compared to his role in the movies.  I guess they got a good deal on Michael Douglas and wanted to use him as much as possible?

It's not that they're significant, so much as they're used as a hook or make a little decision here or there that tweaks the whole thing. They're the nail, and for whatever reason, Pym has been a hammer.

[Sky]

yo this show fuckin sucks lol

I made it through 2 episodes before I gave up.

I dig having Didney+ shows every week to look forward to, but crappy cartoons don't cut it for me. I was more hopeful for the Bad Batch, but then they put in a plucky goddamned kid. Goddamned Star Wars IP version of Eight is Enough for crissake.

[eldaec]

Like a few of them, no. 6 made me think this might work better as arcs of a few episodes at a time.

[Velorath]

Like a few of them, no. 6 made me think this might work better as arcs of a few episodes at a time.

From the mid-season trailer they put out yesterday I get the feeling some, if not all of these stories are going to intersect somehow.

Also the new episode is pretty bad.

[Khaldun]

It was kind of so-so to poor, yeah.

Part of the problem is that once again it doesn't follow the premise--a single choice made differently producing a different outcome.

They're basically doing What If? as DC-style "imaginary stories"--what if Superman had a threesome with Lana Lang and Lois Lane? What if Batman and the Joker got married? What if Gorilla Grodd was struck by the lightning that made the Flash but the Flash was also a gorilla?

[Samwise]

Part of the problem is that once again it doesn't follow the premise--a single choice made differently producing a different outcome.

That does kinda hit the nail on the head.  In a well-executed version of this show, you'd have that one different thing, but everything else that followed would feel consistent with the established world and characters and you'd be nodding along with it.

Instead everything just feels like someone's weird-ass fanfic.  The characters for the most part don't act like themselves.

[Khaldun]

Yeah, that's pretty much it--"hey killmonger fans who wanted him to win, here it is!"

[Rendakor]

This is all reaffirming my decision not to watch this, despite being a huge fan of the MCU. I'm hoping none of this shit shows up anywhere else, so I don't have to watch it to understand.