Random TV Season Review - Marvel's What If (Season 2)

 

Yeah, last year was not a good year for the MCU. So many films that were bad, forgettable and just didn't make much money for Disney. With the only good things last year being Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and season 2 of Loki (at time of review, I still haven't seen The Marvels), it's probably very clear that Disney overall, isn't giving much of anything, breathing room and well you already know how I feel about that. But anyway, we have season 2 of the show that gives us some pretty unusual scenarios, deciding what would happen if something played out a little differently. Now animation aside, which still feels a little weird, it's definitely a show that can probably go on for a long time if Disney were willing. The episodes were released over the course of a few days during the Christmas period, which would've made more sense if it was one ongoing story. But it's actually just multiple stories with a character arc that focuses on one of the Guardians of the Multiverse. So let's answer that question once again and see what Marvel thinks we want to see happen:

So the stories this time have us see Happy Hogan (reprised by Jon Favreau) turn into a Hulk like creature, the Avengers being formed in 1602, Hela (reprised by Cate Blanchett) coming across the Ten Rings, Iron Man (voiced by Mick Wingert) going on a "Planet Hulk" like adventure and Ragnarok causing the Tesseract to land on Earth and grant magical powers to a Mohawk tribe. These among other scenarios that can range from interesting to weird and more.

While I think the scenarios from the first season are still the best, I will say this selection is pretty good too. In fact, I'd say some of the scenarios have a comedic tone, and the animation works well on that part. I really liked the Mohawk tribe story as it felt very fresh, bold and new and definitely a welcome change to having the familiarity of the MCU which has been struggling in recent years. The Christmas themed one was quite entertaining and the character arc involving one of the Guardians of the Multiverse is good, but does lead to what feels like a rinse and repeat finale, but with lower stakes. So not a perfect second season, but one that does better with the animation and gives us some more interesting scenarios which, for the most part, are probably ones we didn't really beg for. But still OK all the same. 7/10