Marvel's 'What If': An Anthology Series of Missed Opportunity

Marvel's What If Season 3 sparks a fascinating discussion on the balance between comedy and depth in storytelling. While some episodes shine with strong narratives and character growth, others fall into the trap of diluted themes and cluttered plots.

• Explores the challenges of an anthology series 
• Highlights engaging moments in stories like Mech Avengers 
• Examines the narrative blend in Agatha Goes to Hollywood 
• Discusses the light-hearted yet significant Howard the Duck episode 
• Analyzes the serious stakes in the Emergence Destroyed Earth 
• Reflects on historical perspectives in What If 1872 
• Reviews the emotional weight of the two-part season finale 
• Critiques the series' balance between humor and substance

Chapters

• 0:01 Marvel's What if Season 3 Review
• 10:46 Marvel's What if Season 3 Finale
• 21:22 Marvel's What If? Series Review

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hey, what up? It's Jet Black Extreme and I'm back at it again with another episode of the Zone Podcast. Today's episode is Marvel's. What If let's go ahead and zone in on that? Now, this is mainly towards Season 3, but I might as well mention the whole series.

Speaker 1: 0:16

How I feel about the whole series, where it just feels like an anthology series. That betrays itself. Because when you're thinking of an anthology series, each episode is supposed to be a one-off, like it is what it is in that particular episode. But even though I don't hate the series on its own, it just defeats the principle of having an anthology series. Outside of that, I mean it's all right, like it was decent. But then again, at this point with the MCU it seems like they try to shoehorn in as much comedy bits as possible, I guess to entertain a family setting, and that's nothing wrong with that per se. But at some point it's like you just don't want to add too much comedy and things where it could have been really good if you just played it straight. But it's not one of those shows. But with season three, for the the most part there were some moments, or maybe like one or two episodes, that I really liked, particularly the first episode.

Speaker 1: 1:36

What if the whole part of mech avengers? Essentially it was a matter of um, the whole, bruce Banner. He gives birth accidentally to this monstrous version of himself called apex. And it's mainly because banner trying to receive therapy thanks to Sam Wilson trying to, you know, come to peace and whatnot. But things took a bad turn and essentially the avengers had to create these giant mechas to combat the gamma beast that's been created because the apex and spawned more creatures. And with the surviving heroes there there was Sam Wilson, there was Monica Rambeau, bucky Moon, knight, red Guardian, iron Maiden she's known as Melina in the MCU right now, but if you know comic book lore, she's Iron Maiden Shang-Chi and Nakia from Wakanda Shang-Chi and Nakia from Wakanda, and essentially they're fighting off the Gamma Monsters for 10 years. And when Apex comes back, sam Wilson decides to go seek out Bruce Banner, who's been in hiding, because you know the whole situation with what he got going on, and Sam was kind of reluctant because he was thinking oh well, it was what's up in the first place. But come on, y'all friends like. Anyways, banner decided to give them the mighty Avenger protocol and essentially what happens? That they combined to a Megazord and even though they were doing pretty good at first, but apex was too too much for him. So banner was like you know what? I decided to help y'all after all, and I'm gonna use this gamma bomb to infuse myself with so much gamma radiation that I become this godzilla like version of myself. Quote-unquote mega hulk, mega hole kills the apex, eventually becoming the new apex, pretty much led the army out of new york and they just decide just hang out on this island from now on, so that way they'll leave everybody else alone as long as banners their new leader. It was pretty good, it was pretty solid. I like this one.

Speaker 1: 4:16

Uh, episode two, what if agatha went to hollywood? Okay, I kind of like this one too, but it was like yeah, you know, yeah, uh, essentially, agatha had this plan to do this magical ritual to siphon the power of Tiamat you know that celestial that was buried in the Earth's core from the Eternals movie. And in order to do so, she decides she had this plan. You know what? Let me become an actress during the golden age of Hollywood. How long ago was that? About 1910, 1920. Yeah, about that time. And, believe it or not, the film director was Howard Stark, because he was like yeah, I know I got weapons and whatnot, but cinema, baby, that's the future and he's not wrong To understand, he's not wrong.

Speaker 1: 5:06

Anyways, agatha decided that she needs a co-star to make the spell as effective as possible. So she looks up, kingo won the final eternals. Um, because you know they the rest of them got killed off, I guess they. No, they weren't really killed, always molly, they were like detained somewhere, I don't know. They were like not exactly clear about that, but they get released anyway, so it doesn't matter. Anyways, the whole thing was that kingo was already on to agatha's true plans but decided to help her anyways If she Agreed to let go of the rest of the Eternals. That she's siphoning power from Once the ritual is complete and she pretends to Agree to that. But you know, typical Agatha fashion. But realizing that Kingo betrayed him, arsham decides to go to Earth to destroy it. But that motivates Agatha and Kingo to enact the ritual, to do the celestial ritual, and with the help of Stark and Edwin Jarvis that's right, Jarvis, you know the AI voice. Yeah, in the human form. Essentially they were successful and having agatha, uh, absorbed tia muck's power, becomes a celestial, the agussi some folks were saying on the internet uh, you, you understand when you see the scene if assuming that you already seen the series now, after defeating arsham, kingo tried to convince agatha to give up her celestial powers and vapor, joining him in the movie business for real, and they do. Uh, you know, agatha absorbed arsham too and she was like you know, you're right. So during the premiere of their movie, cosmic queen, uh, kingo knows that the turns were released. Uh, arsham's defeat was gonna, um, draw in the celestial's attention. And agatha was like, and don't worry about it, they can be saved for the sequel, but there's not gonna be a sequel.

Speaker 1: 7:27

Episode three what if the red guardian stopped the winter soldier? This was the episode where, okay, what if the red guardian stopped bucky from killing howard and maria stark? But, um, it simply became this whole oh, how can I put this this old buddy rogue agent type thing going on. And it was kind of a fun adventure, I can tell you. I mean I liked it, with the whole idea of Bill Foster being Goliath. Obadiah Stane you remember Obadiah from the first Iron man movie? He was the rook and it was all this rigmarole to kill either Red Guardian or both of them for failing the mission. And it was all this wild ride that led up to Red Guardian joining the Avengers during the Battle of New York. Because, you know, bill decided you know what, you're alright after all that. So yeah, like, keep in mind, this was back in 1991, december 16, 1991, specifically so fast forward to the Battle of New Yorkork, red guardians, one of the avengers, so yeah, it was a pretty okay episode.

Speaker 1: 8:57

Uh, episode four what if howard the duck got hit? Now this is the one people have problems with, because the whole thing with howard the duck and darcy getting hooked up during Thor's power on Earth, you remember in season one and essentially their egg baby was born during the convergence and because of that the baby's gonna have some really strong power. So, everybody, from the Grandmaster, yondu, nick Fury and Shield Kylissus whatever her name is I'm going to say Loki, because he was being cool, but he kind of got involved with his father and whatnot Lothi, that was his name. Uh, malik gives zeus even thanos and his black order. Everybody was all after this egg and eventually the egg hatched and known as birdie, and you'll see birdie later in the um season. That's crazy, it's like not even a season later we see her again. So I mean same thing with cohort to where we saw in the last season, but she comes back in this season. But yeah, not, I did not like it. I don't completely hate this episode, but I can't see what people are talking about where I'm like. I don't really care for this episode.

Speaker 1: 10:46

Episode five what of the emergence to destroy the earth? Okay, now this one got really serious to where? Imagine the emergence with tia mutt. Uh, actually happened, but it was like way before the avengers even assembled. Essentially quentin becky, remember mysterio. From far from home, he overtook stark industries, created his army of drones, even, I guess, hijack vision or whatnot. Um, you know white version of vision and called it the iron federation, subjugated all the surviving Members of Earth Society and in present Time of that episode we have Ironheart. Riri Williams Before she's known as Ironheart but you know, got recruited by Wong Okoye, valkyrie and Ying-Nan To join their alliance and it was this whole thing.

Speaker 1: 11:48

The whole thing was, um, the watcher, he saw this where it played out so many times and usually, um, ironheart. I'm not calling, I don't know this, it just kind of like it doesn't roll up the tongue for me that much, but I'm just gonna stick with ironheart for now. So the thing was the watcher was kind of thinking like, oh yeah, no, she's gonna fail, she's gonna fail, she's gonna fail up until the. The vital odds, and even up to the was Mysterio trying to stop him, but at it got to a point where the Watchers had to intervene because he actually wanted her to fight back and he didn't actually show up but more like just spoke to her and essentially through the power of determination, ironheart was able to absorb Mysterio's nanites and defeat them, killing them off and destroy their federation and the it restores hope to the remaining survivors. But also the other three watchers was like, eh, we don't like that you're interfering with this shit, so we're going to have to deal with you.

Speaker 1: 13:20

Episode 6, what if? 1872? This is where we have like okay, in the 1860s things weren't good for people who were like you know, had some color to their skin. You know what I'm saying. Uh, especially with the Chinese immigrants. This was back when a version of Shang-Chi and Kate Bishop going by Hawkeye is like this tag team duo taking revenge on the hood for killing. Well, here's the thing. Shang-chi was looking for Xiaoling, her sister. You remember the sister from the Shaunti movie. She went missing trying to go after the hood, but she never came up again. And then, meanwhile, kate is under the impression that the hood killed her family. But you find out later that one of his enforcers, sonny Burch, was the one that killed himself. And they were also joined by this boy, kwai Tsun Fong, who at first it didn't catch on to me until Taunton said at the end of the episode that this is Iron Fist. You know Iron Fist from Marvel Rivals, by the way. Way, he's still broken, but I still like him. Yeah, this is the young boy version of him.

Speaker 1: 14:47

The whole point being is that turns out, the hood was, uh, sean lee, who defeated the hood but also stole his powers, and now she feels as though she can use these powers to exact justice. You know all that other shit, but she was going about the wrong way. But even though Shanti tried her hard to convince Jean-Luc that this is not the way she was, I would say she almost gave in. But kate did shoot her down. Yeah, she did shoot her down and she didn't know. Uh, sean lee was the hood, so it was an accident. But sean t was like it's okay, you didn't really kill her. The hood did, okay, sure. So they rode off into the wind, jun-fon, you know, proving that he does have martial arts skills so he could be Iron Fist one day.

Speaker 1: 15:54

And while this was happening, the watchers was watching. But then the other watchers showed up to, you know, cast judgment on him for interfering. So, yeah, it was all right. Episode it was pretty good. Like it got a little tense at the end, but I'm like, okay, I like this episode All right here.

Speaker 1: 16:15

Seven and eight Uh, what if the watchers disappeared? And what if the Watchers disappeared? And what if? What if? I'm just going to combine them, because it's pretty much a two-parter season finale type thing, even though all these episodes and season 3 came back-to-back day at a time, ever since the 22nd and concluded on the 29th. So 7 and 8.

Speaker 1: 16:38

Essentially, the Guardians of the multiverse showed up again, but this time instead of the cast from last time. I'm assuming some of them got killed up. But in this show, with these variants getting killed up, it's like kind of don't matter, because there's always like a bunch of, you know, like Rick and Morty type logic. But this time is, uh, captain Peggy Carterter, uh, we got storm goddess of thunder, which was the best part of this whole two-parter. Uh, kahori, a grown-up birdie, I think. I don't know, maybe with her physiology, but she grew up really fast, or it's like some sort of time jump thing, I don't know. I guess it's just to show that, okay, she served a purpose in the grand scheme of things, even though this anthology series shouldn't have Keystone episodes they're all supposed to be one shot, see. You see what I'm saying.

Speaker 1: 17:35

So the whole point is these ladies was trying to rescue the Watcher from the eminence and the other two I keep forgetting. I know one of the, the executioner, but the other, mcconnell, uh, the incarnate, that's his name. Yeah, essentially they had this whole plan to try to recruit infinity ultron to, because he's the main one that comes close to being powerful enough at the time to help them, and even though the rest of them were against it at first. But captain carter was like and you know, let's try it anyway, so went after Infinity Ultron and what not. It was this whole thing With fighting the Eminence, the Executioner and the Incarnate, and it got to a point when the only way to win was To For the Watcher, or Uatu, his real name, tell them ayo, just take the oath and you get watcher powers.

Speaker 1: 18:38

And they gained the powers and they fought back. They almost lost when the eminence pulled a Zamasu and fused the other two together and tried to erase the guardians of the multiverse from all existence and all that shit. So, yeah, like it got real crazy. But you know, power determination, uh, captain carter prevailed and essentially she sacrificed herself to save everybody else. And you know, as they mourn her death, the watcher invites Corey and the rest of them to join them and watching over the multiverse and, crazy enough, the watcher was like I feel as though somebody's watching over me now.

Speaker 1: 19:41

But uh, I know that was kind of a jump, but the whole thing was he did win, but the eminence didn't die, or the eminence incarnate or execution didn't really die, it just removed their powers. So, well on, and keep in mind, the only way to win was if she pretty much pushed them into dr strange supreme's universe, you know, the one universe where he destroyed it but recreated himself. But he became a living universe Once again, some monster type shit. And, with that being said, he's pretty much there, like trapped there or like there, and that was just the only way to win. It's like yeah, on his own I won't say it's not that bad, but it definitely was not what people were expecting. And people were really upset when they saw, like the ending cards where you know how they do the intros. What happened was they had all these different characters and it was like some interesting um concepts like man spider, a samurai, ghost rider, shuri as the punisher, thanos as weapon x, jubilee as super surfer, maestro as a sorcerer supreme. We could have had all that, but you know it was over. So yeah, it is what it is.

Speaker 1: 21:22

If I were to rate this series as a whole, it's feeling like a six, like crazy enough people, like it had potential, it could have gone somewhere, but I feel like this kept fumbling the bag on some principles, so I don't hate it, but it's kind of disappointing. With that being said, that's all I gotta say. On marvel's, what if? I'm hoping that the mcu gets better, but they really need to cut it out with trying to make everything into a comedy to some extent, like you're gonna have some hardcore fans and you're gonna need to draw them back in, otherwise your ip is not gonna make a whole lot of money in the long run. I mean, yeah, sure there's marvel rivals, but that's the closest you're gonna get to marvel gaining any money if at some point the mcu just started to become toned up to what the people want.

Speaker 1: 22:22

At the end of the day, it's like, I say, you got to give the people what they're looking for, but also it's a sweet feeling knowing that you get to tell the story that you wanted to tell. I don't know if this is a story that they want to tell, but it's not the story that was well received. That's what I can say for sure. With that being said, I'm out of here. Have yourself a good morning, good afternoon and good night, but, most importantly, take it easy, nerds. Thank you you.