1 Marvel Project Shows Everything That’s Right (& Wrong) With the MCU

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The What If…? series finale delivered a cosmic spectacle with the kind of moral lesson Marvel Comics’ stories are best at delivering. What began as a fun romp with familiar characters ended in an over-the-top battle to defend the idea that everyone matters. The show is a perfect Marvel Cinematic Universe microcosm. Overall it’s very good, with stellar high points and storytelling choices that the world’s most successful shared universe should know to avoid. But there are drawbacks as well.

The expanding universe risks both alienating long-time fans and discouraging new ones from even bothering to catch up. As mostly an anthology series, What If…? is the perfect antidote for that problem. The show tells wild stories that typically stand alone, without any reliance on MCU canon. More than even Deadpool & Wolverine, the realities the Watcher observed delivered on the full promise of the multiverse. While a lot of the storytelling is very clever, the series finale both looks familiar and, for a time, lacks any significant stakes.

How What If…? Delivers an Overall Fantastic Final Season on Disney+

The Series Deftly Balances Episodic and Serialized Storytelling

Perhaps the most directly fun element of What If…? is the return of characters whose stories have long ended. Actors like Clark Gregg as Phil Coulson and Michael Rooker as Youndu returned, despite dying in the MCU proper. Technically, they are different from the characters fans know, but the actors imbue them with enough familiarity it’s like finding a Phase 1 or Phase 2 story that fans have never seen before. Each episode can be as absurd or bleak as they want, as the ramifications of these adventures are mostly limited to their universes.

“When you spend so many eons looking down on everything, it becomes hard to imagine something you’ve never seen before…to understand that, you will need to do more than simply watch. You must learn to see.” — Uatu to the Eminence.

Not only is each episode gorgeously animated, but the freedom the form allows helps viewers buy into the more outlandish concepts.The finale even makes a series rewatch more enticing, because viewers now realize the Watcher’s narration also tracks his personal development. It hearkens back to The Infinity Saga, where each individual movie captured the imaginations of fans, while weaving a subtle web of connectivity that elevates the series closer to the full potential of the What If…? comics.

Despite the tonal shift underway, Phase 4 of the MCU meditated on grief and loss with powerful, moving stories. The downside is that this kind of heavy emotional drama isn’t always fun. A few What If…? episodes depict realities facing the end of the world, but mostly each episode is a fun romp populated with familiar characters that can still surprise the most dedicated fan. Now that the series is over, these are the rare MCU stories where audiences will yearn for more because it’s over.

What If…? Showcases the Best of What Marvel Can Be

Experimenting With Unexplored Concepts Makes the MCU Thrilling Again

Despite appearing in The Thunderbolts*, Red Guardian and Winter Soldier make for an unlikely team-up. They perfectly complement each other in a story that is equal parts thrilling and fun, making it the best promotion for their forthcoming live-action film. Popular characters from these episodic stories can return for either a new chapter in their own reality or a big, multiversal crossover to save everything, everwhere all at once. Given the massive budget live-action Marvel Studios projects require, What If…? is ostensibly a test kitchen where producers can do tryouts for future films.

Kevin Feige says Eternals 2 is in production, but it’s been years since the first film debuted. Kingo also showed up in Season 3 for a cosmically epic story with Agatha Harkness. Similarly, outside a brief appearance at the end of The Marvels, Kate Bishop has been missing for three years since Hawkeye ended. Shang-Chi fans have waited just as long for his sophomore adventure. “What If… 1872?” introduced a fan-favorite alternate reality too late, but it brought back these characters and showed how nicely they work together.

Other episodes, like “What If… Howard the Duck Got Hitched?” is the series at its strangest, but it also cracked the code about how to make the crass waterfowl sympathetic and heartfelt. Originals like Kahhori or Byrdie (Howard and Darcy’s odd hybrid daughter) are new characters who could seamlessly blend into live-action beyond Avengers: Secret Wars. Rather than investing years of time and hundreds of millions of dollars, What If…? could be a trial run for risky, new concepts to introduce in the MCU with minimal risk.

What If…? Rarely Fell Into Common Marvel Studios Narrative Pitfalls

Some Episodes Felt Like Missed Opportunities for Further Storytelling

Marvel Studios often takes a cards-down approach to its stories. Honed by 15 years ofhiding secrets, spoilers and big revelations, holding back too much from viewers can alternatively erode their excitement or emotional investment. What If…? made this mistake by not revealing the larger society of the Watchers until the final few episodes. While Uatu’s mission is easy to understand, its purpose and the larger group who empowered him will forever remain a mystery. By ignoring those details, the climactic battle in the What If…? series finale lacked significance.

Sam Wilson (to Bruce Banner): I know you can’t get past the things that scare you if you don’t face them.

A climactic battle that becomes tedious the bigger the destruction gets is not unique to this show. Everything from Ant-Man: Quantumania to Secret Wars on Disney+ ended with a big, messy and visual effects-laden throw-down. It’s a superhero staple, which means audiences have seen it all before. What If…? devoted nearly 13 minutes of the finale to a fight between the Watchers, who seemed to be invulnerable to whatever hit them. The absence of physical danger and any understanding of the emotional stakes turned what was supposed to be an epic finale into tedium.

Counting films and series debuting or going into production in 2025, there are 65 shows and films in the MCU, which is an impressive number for any storytelling universe under 20 years old. Still, viewers have seen enough big, CGI destructions to last a lifetime. Storytellers have to find fresh, creative ways to realize these conflicts visually beyond just bigger, colorful explosions. Yet, the Watchers are supposed to be timeless and omnipotent beings. One would think they figured out a better approach to conflict resolution than uselessly blasting and punching each other.

What If…? Also Represents the Short-sighted Impulses of Disney Management

A Limitless Multiverse Could Support Stories Forever, Continuing to Expand the MCU

Canceling What If…? is almost certainly less about the series and more about Disney’s accountants demanding reduced MCU output. This kind of shortsightedness highlights how many executives simply don’t understand the creative process. Whether it was in-the-works from the beginning or not, Captain Carter’s popularity didn’t hurt her transition to live action. Even with these episodes taking place in branch timelines, they can still serve to signal which characters resonate with fans.

Still, over its short run, What If…? did everything it was supposed to do. It honored a longstanding comic tradition, and it deepened fans’ appreciation for these characters. The short runtime meant people didn’t have to invest a lot of time (or re-watch six or so movies) to follow along. It remains one of the rare on-ramps to the larger MCU the studio needs. As it’s on Disney+, the canon adventures of their favorite characters from the show are a mere click away. What If…? should have never been canceled, but — like the MCU itself — that it existed at all is a small miracle.

The complete What If…? series is currently streaming on Disney+.

“}]] The final season of What If…? on Disney+ is a perfect microcosm of both the best and worst aspects of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s storytelling.  Read More