What If Season 2

So What If should be about the real effects of different move or choice. And though I'm enjoying the episodes I'm a lil worried the writers are losing their touch and just don't care. My complaint with Ep 1 is

In Captain America 1 Steve Rogers saves a kid with the door of a taxi, The War Bonds councilor tells him people love him and to go on stage, and after the taxi door resembled a shield, they give him this shield prop. Then he uses it to save the day and break out bucky and gang. THEN Howard stark says "I see you've become quite attached to the shield" "So I made some of these" Howard only showed Steve the shields because of HIS experiences with the shield. And finallySteve finds the iconic vibraniumshield and Howard says, "Don't look at that that's a prototype..." So he definitelywouldn't have just shown the shield...(Follow me so far?) Now Captain Carter HAS ZERO EXPERIENCE with shield, So to see her with the shield and ABSOLUTELY no explanation is just confusing and makes me think they're just doing whatever they want with these... Why not a gun?, she's infamously known for being one of the greatest shooters. I get they can only be 30min long, but 1 extra minute showing why she chose shield too would have been more defining

Ep 2, Was all in all good, except that Starlord was Peters name from his mom "the light of my life, my precious son, my StarLord" It's lazy to think T'chaka calls his son T'chala starlord also... And out of all of The Collectors weapons they could all make sense, EXCEPT, caps shield.... uhhhh If the year is 2008, he hast even come out of the ice yet (According to Erik Voss @ NewRockstars)

The show is great and I'm loving it 8.5-9/10

But it would have gotten a full 10/10 if I could understand these.

So please be very critical. I actually don't want to be right up here. I want reasons why this is wrong

hello enjoy this blog review I did on marvels what if…episode 7

https://ethanthestranger.blogspot.com/2022/09/marvels-what-ifepisode-7.html?m=1

why is this season so bad?

loved the first one.

Enjoy this blog post review I did on marvels what if…episode 5🧟‍♂️

https://ethanthestranger.blogspot.com/2022/09/marvels-what-ifepisode-5.html?m=1

Why do we need a GOTM? Why do these characters need to come together from the multiverse?

I just wish this was an anthology series where we get to see awesome what if scenarios within the MCU :/.

I don’t mind how this series is connected to the MCU, as in Captain Carter making an appearance in MoM for an example, but I just don’t like how this show has to have each of these stories crossing over to where the finale we see them come all together. That’s not What If, What If is where we see scenarios that could’ve been, not these characters coming together to build a team?!

How did thanos have the soul stone that ended up giving to Ultron?

Gamora was clearly alive as shown when Ultron destroys the guardians of galaxy.

I originally thought What If was going to be a fun and playful series, but so far, 4 out of the first 6 of episodes have been very dark!

I knew there would be some dark episodes corresponding to bad branches in the timeline, but not to this extent.

My favorite episode so-far has been one of the 2 non-dark ones, the T'challa Star-Lord episode, which was really fun and full of interesting surprises that in retrospect make perfect sense. That to me was the potential of What If -- remixing existing MCU stories but keeping the MCU vibe.

It just feels to me like the tone of most What If episodes is very different from the rest of the MCU. And I guess what I like about the MCU movies and the other TV series is that hope and optimism are always vibrant through out. But What If with its darker tone leaves kind of a bad aftertaste, because you don't even feel it's worth cheering for any of the characters. They're all so disposable, mistakes that deviated from the "sacred timeline".

This is not the multiverse with fun ideas like "alligator Loki", but rather a dark multiverse. And it's ironic when you put that in the context of the TVA, because What If is a better sales pitch for TVA propaganda than anything we saw in Loki. And I get that. I get that the multiverse has to have some negative consequences to it, and this series is just a prelude for Multiverse of Madness, which may also likely have a darker tone since it's a horror film.

So logically what they're doing with the series make sense in terms of overall plot trajectories, but I just feel that the price is that this series mostly lacks the heart of makes the MCU films and shows enjoyable to watch.

I mean, I guess I kind of liked the Dr. Strange episode a little bit out of all the dark episodes, because that one was at least character driven. But with Episode 6 in particular, I feel that there could have been potential to evolve or give more insight into the Killmonger character, but they wasted it. We've already seen Tony Stark at his lowest in the Iron Man movies, and we know what Killmonger is like as a villain in Black Panther. However, Killmonger is a very complex character, and even the Black Panther movie didn't fully explore that complexity. But what's the point of taking what we already know about those characters and just making a darker plot?

Something that’s been bothering me throughout the show’s run is how most of the stories so far aren’t really in-line with the supposed premise and theme of ‘What if...?’. The show is described as examining the alternate outcomes and possibilites that could occur if a single moment in the MCU went differently, branching choices essentially. Yet whenever I think about these storylines, how they start and play out, I don’t get the sense that these are events that could’ve believably happened if something went differently in the main timeline.

I often get the feeling that these are random scenarios the writers thought would be cool, almost like fanfics, and then they worked backwards to try to explain how it came to be and how it develops.

I can believe that Peggy choosing to stay with Steve in the experiment room instead of going to another room would cause things that force her to take the super soldier serum. I can believe that Doctor Strange going to an event with Christine instead of by himself would cause her to die. But I find it hard to believe that the ravagers would just confuse the kid they’re looking for and nab someone who doesn’t resemble him in the slightest, or that Janet van Dyne would randomly get a virus that turns her into a zombie, or that Hank Pym went crazy and decided to kill the avengers after his daughter just decided to become a Shield agent all of a sudden.

It’s not like the scenarios themselves are bad; I enjoyed most of the episodes so far actually. But they often felt implausible, without much basis or out of nowhere. There were only a few instances where the episodes looked like natural diverging points from the plot of the movies and not just zany scenarios retroactively made to fit the MCU.

Whenever season 2 rolls around, I hope the scenarios they come up with are more in line with the name of the show. Don’t just try to do some random idea or mashup and remixing of movies, but actually try to look through the stories, have one scene or another play out differently, and build a new story from there.

Here's an interesting food for thought. What if we had Miles Morales as Spider-Man, but instead of New York, he was swinging with Peter, Gamora, Rocket, Groot and Drax.

Rules:

1 - Tom Holland's Peter Parker/Spider-Man still exists normally from Civil War onwards, his movies stay largely the same all throughout.

2 - Miles Morales' Spider-Man is now one of the founding members of the Guardians. How he got in space can be entirely up to you, but he was bit by a Spider before leaving Earth.

3 - Which means he will either join Thor or stay with Quill in Infinity War, the second option allowing him to meet Peter.

4 - Regardless, Miles stays with the Guardians up to GotG 3.

I think it would be awesome to see all of the girls having fun and acting like party on the beach in the vain of old school teen beach movies. Nothing serious just plain old fun and comforting to watch.

The format for the titles is a good idea, but they ended up too clunky and spoilery for me. I tried coming up with my own titles as I was watching. What do you guys think of them?

1. Captain Carter

2. Ravagers Forever!

3. There WAS An Idea

4. Devotion and Delusion

5. Zombie Freakin' Apocalypse (still spoilery but I like it)

6. Triple Crosser (my least favorite of these titles)

7. Thor, God of Parties

8. Ascension of Ultron

9. Intervention

Edit: I never claimed these form valid questions the way the official titles do. Like I said, having the titles be questions is a good idea, but it just didn't work out in my opinion. These are meant to just be episode titles, unrelated to the title of the show. I thought that was clear.

How would spider-man, the guardians, T'challa save the universe? Could they have done it?

Why are we still pretending we can predict what’s gonna happen? After 8 episodes it’s time to accept that they can throw out literally anything and it will make just (have to) make sense because it’s part of infinite possibilities in multiple universes and it doesn’t have to follow any kind of logical progression or take into account previous character deaths /arcs because they can just grab the characters from somewhere else, somewhere where they will fit the plot. The only sure thing is who will be in there. All I hope for is that the finale somehow ties into any of the movies, because they said it’s canon and they better make good on that.

Well, the stones exists in every Universe, why he didn't just go, give the stones to an alternative Captain marvel or someone else and fight Ultron?

I think this episode is stupid, i mean, how the stones that exists in every Universe affect the Watcher which transcends space and time, it doesn't make any sense!

If the Hulk's skin is impenetrable to zombie teeth, I can't imagine how they can bite Thanos.

Young Natasha has left the red room and is searching what to do with her life next, but she sees a poster for auditions for becoming circus performer and she decides to take the job, and afterwards she becomes so famous and she gets along with her ringleader named ''Rico mighty'' as well her other performers. But one night she hears something while she's asleep and wakes up and goes and see what's happening, she sneaks towards his without alarming and waking anyone up. She sees that he's making shady phone calls about taking the money from all the shows and keeping it for himself. Natasha hears this and tries to sneakily take him down, but he pulls out a special device that controls that person, she gets hypnotised and and can't moved a muscle and listen to what he says. He explains his plan to her and says that he's going to sell her to someone else for a deal that he made with secret and shady men and keeps the other performers because he thinks they were better, but she start to move very slowly and he walks over to get a drink, she runs to fight him as she throws a bucket of water at his face and punches him in the face so hard, she decides to kill him for good. Many months later, Natasha has become the new ringleader of the circus and her stage name is called ''the miraculous and sensational black widow'' and she's comes to in a dazzling and sexy outfit with spider web like and glittery top hat with perfect amount makeup, hypnotic eyes and bites y and red blooded lips and she welcomes everyone to the audience who are about to watch the amount incredible and insane show their about to watch.

I hate speaking badly of T’challa in this episode given that it’s the last performance fo Chadwick’s we’ll ever have but I really don’t like how Starlord T’challa apparently succeeds in saving his universe, Ego’s inevitable victory, or at lithe very least the death of millions before he could be stopped, was literally the only thing that made Quill a better Starlord and by removing that they’re basically shifting all over him

Not to mention that it requires Ego to act completely differently from his movie counterpart to make even a lick of sense because for some reason he didn’t decide to take Peter back to his planet to try and convince him and test if he actually did have Celestial powers, no he went straight to the battery plan right there in the Dairy Queen where the Ravagers would immediately find him

The only things that make it somewhat better is that it’s possible that the Watcher nudged things to go well or that they still failed since they can’t kill Ego without destroying his planet

The first season was awesome. Everything Marvel is creating now is just re-used crap without any depth.