Marvel's "What If...?" (Episode 3)

Episode 3: “What if one superhero fought a different superhero?”

At last, an episode that answers the timeless question Marvel fans have been pondering for years—what if Marvel made a show about the Avengers?

Truly groundbreaking stuff.

This is one of those episodes that is all about superhero X getting into a fight with superhero Y because, c'mon, Marvel has never been that great about creating villains so having the heroes fight each other is about the only way to generate any excitement or tension. Of course such fights always have to be justified with a bit of narrative magic, so first we get The Pledge where it seems like we’re getting a replay of the first Avengers movie, then The Turn, in which all the Avengers suddenly start dropping dead in various unlikely scenarios, then The Prestige, when it turns out to be some guy I don’t know about because I never watched the Ant-Man movies.

All of this is therefore leading up to the goofy fun of Loki beating up some old man who is by turns extremely small and then extremely large.

There are some jokes along the way about Chris Hemsworth having great hair and smelling like lavender and sight gags like one superhero doing an impression of the exploding ninja in “Big Trouble in Little China”, all of which kind of undercuts any sense of seriousness or tension when superheroes start keeling over faster than anti-vaxxers at a biker rally. Marvel is as quick as ever to reassure you this is all just a bit of fun and not to take it too seriously.

Q: What if one of the actresses asked for too much money to use her likeness?

A: Then Black Widow would stand out as the only one that looks or sounds nothing like her live action counterpart.

Q: What if it was super-easy to kill all these superheroes?

A: That’s the only thing that really stuck with me about this one to be honest. Like man, Marvel villains must be incredibly incompetent. One old dude wiped the whole team out in less than 30 minutes.

Q: What if you did a comedy episode in which a bunch of people die?

A: Huh. Then the way they die better be pretty amusing or darkly humorous, otherwise the jokes are going to seem wildly out of place. Poisoned? Shot with an arrow? Um, hate to tell you show, I ain’t laughing yet. Ironically the Hulk popping like a giant grape was about the only funny one AND THAT WAS THE ONLY DAMN ONE WHERE YOU HAD PEOPLE REACT WITH HORROR AND SADNESS.

Q: What if two superheroes fight?

A: Then you’d better have a damn good build-up to that fight or lots of fun interaction between the characters, because as a plot that’s about as tired as it gets. This one doesn’t do a half-bad job of it—the cracks about Chris’s pretty-boy image aren’t bad even if tonally bizarre—and Tom Hiddleswagger is as waggishly charming as ever. But it is, in the end, still just two guys fighting, and “who would win” questions are the dullest possible ones to ask in this genre.

Q: Okay but what if Wolverine fought the Hulk?

A: Did you even read … I can’t believe you … Wolverine, and it wouldn’t even be close.

Q: What if entertainment properties generally face a choice between Exploring their concept and Exploiting their popularity, and the more the concept gets tired and played out the more they lean on Exploiting it, such as by endlessly rehashing old story lines with minor tweaks or bringing back Alfred Molina?

A: What are you implying.

Q: What’s not an answer.

A: That’s not a question.

Q: Fair point. Maybe it’s time to stop.

Marvel's "What If...?" (Episode 2)

Episode 2: “What if Chadwick Boseman was awesome?”

Well, any discussion of this episode is probably going to be overshadowed by the fact that it was the last performance of beloved actor Chadwick Boseman, appearing here as the beloved superhero T’Challa, prince of the beloved fictional kingdom of Wakanda.

While I remain deeply suspicious and cynical about the type of person who has the, hm, immense self-belief it must take to become a famous actor, I won’t try to deny the online outpouring of love that met the news of Mr. Boseman’s death. Again, the Internet does love to go crazy over its Keanu Reeveses and Brendan Frasers, its Bob Rosses and Steve Irwins, so I take the flood of messages with a grain of salt, but I figure there’s still gotta be a grain in there somewhere, and that’s no small thing.

It does mean that T’Challa, the character, has been utterly overshadowed by Chadwick Boseman, the actor, probably to the detriment of the character. T'Challa is awesome because Chadwick Boseman is awesome. To be anything less would be an insult to the dead, but honestly, that does not make for interesting writing or a great character. T’Challa cannot fail or be afraid or get angry or make mistakes or doubt himself, because he isn’t T’Challa he’s Chadwick Boseman.

That said, this was a fun episode, at least at the start, as it kind of leans into the meme of Chadwick Boseman’s awesomeness with a replay of the opening scene of the first “Guardians of the Galaxy” movie between Star-Lord (now Chadwick Boseman instead of Chris Pratt) and Djimon Hounsoun’s character: When Star-Lord introduces himself, instead of asking "Who?" Djimon instantly recognizes him and falls over himself fangirling over Chadwick. “Should we be bowing? I feel like we should be bowing.”

Similarly, there’s a kind of cute scene where we learn Thanos the Mad Titan decided to give up his plan to wipe out half of all sentient life in the universe after talking to Chawick Boseman for five minutes. Ha ha. Chadwick Boseman is awesome, am I right?

The rest is just kind of filler, tbh. Once they’ve set up and made the joke about how awesome Chadwick Boseman is, there isn’t much point to the rest of it except to reiterate how awesome he is a couple more times.

As a tribute, it’s nice. Touching. Just the right send off probably, as fitting a curtain-closer as one could hope for. Raul Julia's last film was "Street Fighter" and if I had to choose between going out as a martial artist who is awesome and a martial artist in a 90s video game, I pick the awesome. As entertainment, the episode is, well, it’s not really answering any of the questions it appears to raise.

Q: What is more important, your nature or the nature of your environment?

A: Your nature.

Q: Wow, you didn’t even hesitate. Which is odd because this is an ongoing and complex debate within a number of scientific fields such as psychology, genetics, and neuroscience. Are you sure?

A: Yep.

Q: Oh come on, not even a hint of doubt?

A: Nope.

Q: So you’re saying that a man raised as the son of a king, accustomed to authority and obedience, pampered in comfort and luxury, destined for absolute rule over a peaceful and highly advanced kingdom would have turned out exactly the same had he been an orphan raised by space pirates?

A: Exactly.

Q: Well, that’s, ah, very. Okay, explain.

A: Easy. He’s Chadwick Boseman.

Q: And?

A: That’s it. That’s all. He’s Chadwick Boseman.

Q: So, the original Star-Lord (Peter Quill, played by Chris Pratt) was kind of a roguish asshole in the Han Solo mode not because Peter Quill had been raised by a single mother crazier than a sack full of weasels who then died of cancer leaving the young boy wholly and utterly bereft and alone and then in that single moment when he was at his lowest he was kidnapped by space child traffickers who intended to sell him to a godlike planet-being as psychic food, not any of that, but because Peter Quill was a dick?

A: Well, he was no Chadwick Boseman, am I right?

Q: I see. Okay, try this then: Is there any conflict or tension between one’s loyalty to the family one creates through friendship and shared experiences, and loyalty to one’s genetic family, who have not shared those experiences?

A: No.

Q: So if you lived most of your life believing your family was dead, then 20 years later found out they were still alive, you would not feel torn between staying with the family you had built for yourself on the one hand, and returning to a family you barely know or remember on the other?

A: Nah. They'd love each other.

Q: Because…?

A: Because he’s Chadwick Boseman.

Q: Uh huh.

A: Chadwick Boseman is awesome.

Q: Not to disagree here, but it seems to be we’ve set up two juicy sources of potential conflict that might actually explore the concept we’ve introduced here, then immediately resolved both of them without even the slightest pause because …

A: Chadwick Boseman is awesome.

Q: … because Chadwick Boseman is awesome, exactly. And—not to take away anything from Mr. Boseman’s state of awesomenity, awesomeitude, awesomeosity—perhaps also because Marvel is nervous about its viewers being even slightly uncomfortable or conflicted or thoughtful for even a sliver of a nanosecond?

A: These are kids’ shows, you know.

Q: The way children’s entertainment has gradually overtaken more and more of the market as western society psychically retreats for the hellworld we have created into comforting nostalgia and fantasy has not gone unremarked, no. Nor has the fact that the actual target audience of such entertainment is most definitely and emphatically not kids entirely escaped notice. Yes, these are fun little throwaway morsels designed to do nothing more than distract us for a moment and fill the idle times in our lives, but I think it’s fair to sigh over the way they steadfastly refuse to even hint at any kind of conflict that does not involve punching things.

A: Chadwick Boseman punches Benicio del Toro in this one.

Q: He sure does. He also exhibits an awareness of the history of slavery in the United States despite never having visited there, being raised in a position of incredible privilege from a young age, and then spending the overwhelming majority of his life hundreds of lightyears away from Earth.

A: What are you talking about? Chadwick Boseman knows all about the history of the United States.

Q: We really have conflated the character with the actor haven’t we?

A: Chadwick Boseman is awesome.

Marvel's "What If...?" (Episode 1)

Episode 1: “What if Swole Woman? What then?”

The Marvel movies have always been children’s entertainment dressed up in their parents' clothes, and that goes double for the new “What If...?” animated series. Each episode is supposed to present a new and interesting twist on one of the established Marvel characters or movies. It’s an inherently incestuous premise for a series, doubling down on the MCU’s tendency for every bit of entertainment to point towards a different bit of entertainment rather than being content with being entertaining in and of itself.

Look, intellectually the whole MCU was about as serious as clown shoes to begin with, so there isn’t much point in belaboring the silliness of it, but then there isn’t much point to anything in this blog anyway, so why not?

I’ll say this for it: I liked the art direction and animation style. In an age where 90% of western animation seems to be deliberately crafted to be as visually grotesque as possible, it’s kind of refreshing to see something along the lines of a “Breath of the Wild” take on animation, clean and simple, almost elegant. Perhaps it isn’t overly innovative or arty, but it looks good dammit. It’s nice to watch. Nice.

Otherwise, I feel we’re not really exploring the potential of the concept. Our first episode in the series dares to ask some truly thought-provoking questions, such as:

Q: What if Captain America wasn’t American? And a British Woman? And Steve Rogers became Iron Man because this premise is pretty thin okay we needed to pad it out a little?

A: Red Skull would be really into tentacle porn.

I won’t explain further.

Q: Is there any difference between a man given superpowers and a woman given superpowers?

A: No.

Ep 1 is about “What if Steve Rogers’ love interest Peggy Carter became the superhero instead of Steve?” Well, she puts on a uniform just like Cap’s, uses a shield just like Cap’s, punches Nazis just like Cap, rescues ‘Bucky’ Barnes just like Cap, fights Red Skull just like Cap, and gets trapped in time until the modern era just like Cap.

Basically, the only difference is antagonists say something about her just being a girl before they get their clock cleaned. Which is perhaps cathartic for anybody who didn’t watch “Captain Marvel” or the Enola Holmes movie or the original “Alien” or “Terminator” movies or any one of the other movies released in the last 30 years with women protagonists. It's about as daring and original as mayonnaise.

Q: But doesn’t this show the possibilities of the multiverse now that “Loki” has opened it up?

A: Shut up. Just shut up. God damn it I despise people like this. Shut the fuck up.

First off, the idea of alternative universes existing is not something I or anyone else who is event slightly, vaguely familiar with SF needed setting up or explaining. That’s like, a default. We all just kind of assumed it.

Stop parroting the fanboy line about how great it is that the MCU is “finally exploring the multiverse” or something. Nobody blinked when alternate realities were mentioned in “End Game” or the last Spider-Man movie. It’s not a new or original concept. This incessant need to defend and praise or otherwise stan whatever niche hobby or celebrity you've decided to make a core part of your online identity just drives me nuts.

Second, as mentioned above, it’s a self-cannibalizing concept, tempting Marvel to make movies about its own movies in endless recursive iterations until it disappears up its own arsehole. Which would be less of an issue if Disney wasn’t three-quarters of the entertainment industry.

Finally, this is a hella bland way to go about exploring it. “What if we made a tiny change to look more feminist but otherwise did nothing?” Yeah. What if you fucked right off.

Q: Can we show violence in a cartoon?

A: No.

Guns fire, then we cut away before the bullets hit. Peggy/Captain Britain throws a hand grenade into a tank, doubtless turning the crew into hamburger helper, but all we see is a bang.

That said, I’ll give them a point back for the sheer over-the-top lunacy of some of the action sequences, especially the one where Captain Peg leaps off the back of Iron Man in midair, through the cockpit glass of a German bomber, beats up the crew one by one, in order from nose to tail, jumps out the back, lands on top of a Messerschmidt, kills the pilot (implied) and then leaps back onto Iron Man again.

Q: What if you never saw or don’t remember what happened in the first Captain America movie?

A: Then none of this will make any sense.

Q: What if the first Captain America movie was basically the same but just a tiny bit different?

A: The ending would be basically the same, but just a tiny bit different.

It’s the Marvel equivalent of Gus Van Sant’s “Psycho” remake, pretty much a shot for shot copy of the original. 

The sky is the limit here, we could actually do something even a little thought provoking about the superhero genre or past Marvel movies (like, maybe a British woman would use her abilities differently from an American man? Even just hint at how gender or culture affects our conception of heroism? No? Okay then). 

Comfy, easy familiarity it is.