What if...? Season 3

“Time. Space. Reality. It's more than a linear path. It's a prism of endless possibility. Where a single choice can branch out into infinite realities, creating alternate worlds from the ones you know. Each a reflection of what could have been. Some heroes will rise, others will fall. And nothing will be the same. I am the Watcher. I am your guide through these vast new realities. Follow me and dare to face the unknown, and ponder the question... What if?”

I’ve talked about this series before now, both the comic and the cartoon, but allowing for the possibility of new readers...

Debuting in 1977 from Marvel comics, What If… is an anthology series whose stories explore how the Marvel Universe might have unfolded if key moments in its history had not occurred as they had in the mainstream continuity. It was intended as a space to allow for the exploration of crazy ideas, or interesting tangents, and it regularly featured alternate versions of often well-known characters as they walked different paths from the ones we already know, paths that more often than not ended badly for the main characters.

I love everything about that whole idea.

After all, it's a given–especially when you're reading superhero fiction–that the hero will win eventually, that even the darkest moment is just an inevitable and necessary step towards victory. This is just reality, which is why it's never really about "how the story ends" for me, but the journey it took getting there.

And that is why I always loved this series as a kid. Much like with Game of Thrones, I love the unpredicatable danger when it comes to the main characters, the removal of their safety net. I'm a sucker for when none of the characters–yes, even the ones you love–are safe, and probably won't last til the end, and if they do make it out the other side, they probably won't be whole. I like that nervous feeling while you're reading that there's a good chance the heroes could lose. That doesn't mean that I want to see my darlings get killed, of course, but hey, look... the story has to go the way that it has to go, y'know? Even if that means the coin flip doesn't go the heroes' way.

That's the key to alternate universe stories for me: "What if bad shit had happened instead?" That, and I like these stories to be more organic, to be based on a fork in the road, a moment that went one way, when it could've gone the other, a "What if they had missed?" kind of thing, and then a far different result grows out of that moment than the one we already know.

That's what I like.

Which is why I generally do not like the kind of alternate universe stories that seem to be more common with fanfic on-line. I'm talking about the cozy stories, or maybe you know them as "coffeeshop" stories, they're stories that take familiar and beloved characters, and instead of their usual setting, they're, for example... coffee shop employees. These stories usually like to remove any conflict, and instead, opt to highlight cutsey moments or silly banter that happen between the characters as they go about the day-today business of a coffee shop, in tales of coy, hesitant, and often most importantly, unconsummated love.

That's cool, if that's your thing, but it's not mine.

I've just always leaned more towards the "Oh crap, everything has gone wrong" alternate universe stories instead of the "touching hands by accident and blushing while bussing a table" ones, and What if gives me what I want.

Because there’s definitely certain kinds of stories that will always get my attention… heist stories, riffs on the Seven Samurai, post-apocalyptic stories too, or rebels in Dystopian societies, Wild West Space stories too. And a good place to find a fun mix of all of these are in alternate universe stories. I love those familiar, but strangely different worlds, places where maybe one small thing is different, or maybe everything is. I’m a sucker for the redesigns of familiar characters and their relationships. What strange mix of heroes and villains are now on a classic team? Are any enemies now friends? Are any former friends now enemies? Who is now wearing an eyepatch? Who has a goatee? Does someone have a robotic arm?

That's the great thing about What if stories from Marvel comics (and the DC comics version, Elseworld), with their myriad of possibilities, you never know what you’re going to get. Plus, it's just nice to have a space where you can see characters get fucked up, but they're still fine and safe and having adventures over in the "real" universe.

The connecting thread of the whole What if… anthology is that all of these stories are narrated by a mysterious alien being known as The Watcher.

Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1963, and first appearing in Fantastic Four #13, the Watchers are a race of seemingly immortal humanoids from a planet that was only known as Planet T-37X. They‘re giants with unusually large melon heads, who wear togas, flowing robes, sometimes with sandals, and sometimes with knee-high boots. Along with the alien race known as The Builders, The Watchers are one of the oldest and most advanced races in the cosmos, as they were among the first to receive sapience from the Celestials.

Eons ago, the Watchers tried to share their knowledge, in order to benefit the Universe’s “lesser” species (people like us), but their first attempt ended with that species destroying themselves in a nuclear war (because they were just like us). The Watchers (rightfully) blamed themselves for this, and vowed to never again meddle in the affairs of other species, and to only observe and record the myriad events of the multiverse, for the benefit of those who will come after its eventual and inevitable end, whoever they may be.

Uatu is the specific Watcher tasked with observing Earth and its reality. Every story he tells is basically like “Remember that thing that went well that one time, well, in other universes it went really fucking badly… let me tell you about it.”

He very clearly laments the cruelty of the Universe.

The tone and set-up of the cartoon is a lot like the comic, but y’know… it’s understandably softer for the Disney crowd, so it doesn’t quite deliver the same goods I got from the comic. There's a lot less deaths, for one, and a lot less tragedy, and more often or not, these alternate heroes still triumph. That’s fine. That's fun too. I still love it, but it definitely doesn’t have the same wild unpredictability, the same dangerous stakes, the same thrill as the comics.

But that said, the What If… cartoon is still my favorite MCU show, and so I was both sad and happy to begin its third and final season.

Episode 1: "What If… The Hulk fought the Mech Avengers?"

“Bruce Banner attempts to cure himself of the dangerous and uncontrollable curse of the Hulk, which backfires wildly, leaving the Avengers just one option in order to stop a raging kaiju Hulk… giant mech battle suits.”

This was a fun episode, full of the classic mech vs kaiju kind of battles, and you can’t really go wrong with that. Plus, my main complaint with last season was that there weren't more characters from Phase 4, so it was good to see some of the new names, as Sam Wilson and Monica Rambeau are joined by Bucky Barnes, the Red Guardian, Melina Vostokoff, Nakia, Shang-Chi, and also Moon Knight, each one driving a giant mech that somewhat resembles their superhero costumes.

But while I love seeing all those characters show up, it kind of highlights the main problem with this particular type of What if story. Obviously, the main reason for doing this story is that the Avengers are piloting giant mechs, so when Sam Wilson shouts the Avengers’ classic rallying battle cry of “Avengers Assemble!” the mechs then literally “assemble” Voltron-style into an even larger robot called The Mighty Avenger. It’s fun, sure, a classic bit from giant mech stories, but other than those characters, it has no real connection to the MCU.

Narratively, it just doesn’t feel like an organic situation.

Granted the whole point is that some of these universes have minor differences from the main one, while others are wildly different. But like I said earlier, I prefer the ones that have a more believable point of divergence.

On top of that, there’s no real reason why the Avengers’ suits are all specifically themed to each pilots. I get that this is also a trope of the giant mech genre, but the mechs don’t seem to have specific powers similar to their pilots, so… why bother? Plus, the attempt to link the resolution of the whole conflict to Sam Wilson’s other job as a PTSD Counselor was pretty weak. Overall, this one was not one of my favorites, and definitely the weakest opener of all three seasons.

Episode 2: "What if... Agatha went to Hollywood?"

"Agatha Harkness' quest for power led her to discover that there is a Celestial growing deep within the Earth. Looking to claim its cosmic energy as her own, she sets out to design a spell that will siphon its power, but pulling off a ritual of such scale requires an equally large production. To aid her in making this spell a reality, she turned to the dream-makers, a blossoming young industry with a wide reach... Hollywood, and an upstart young movie mogul by the name of Howard Stark."

I love the hook of this one.

Agatha Harkness needs the magic of the movies, because her magic spell will require a lot of power to work. This means she needs a large, lavish production to bolster her spell, if she wants to steal the cosmic energy of the celestial gestating in the Earth’s core, the type of production that only a Golden Era Hollywood Musical can muster. Even better, there’s only one actor with the kind of superstar wattage capable of putting an already over-the-top poduction even more over-the-top, and that’s the biggest movie star alive… Kingo.

After that, it's just time to dance, and all while Howard Stark does his best Howard Hughes too.

Bringing characters together from Captain America, the saga of Wanda Maximoff, and of course, the Eternals, and set in a time before the Dominic Cooper version of Howard Stark became the John Slattery version of Howard Stark, all while also featuring a big musical number, this episode was an embarrassment of riches. It also feels like more of a potential alternate universe than the last one too, so thumb’s up to that.

I really enjoyed this episode.

Episode 3: "What If… The Red Guardian stopped the Winter Soldier?"

"New York, December 1991. The night the Winter Soldier assassinated Howard and Maria Stark. But in this universe, we get to see how this night, a night that was so pivotal in the lives of the Avengers, an event whose ramifications would be felt for decades, could have gone so differently..."

A little Thelma and Louise, and a little Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, episode four has Alexei Shostakov, the Russian super soldier known as the Red Guardian, and Bucky Barnes, the infamous brain-washed assassin known as the Winter Soldier, have a little road trip adventure in the year 1991.

This was a fun one. Alexei Shostakov is a fun character to let ramble around. I also enjoyed seeing Bill Foster in a more prominent role. And who doesn't love Bucky? But after all the running around and breaking stuff and good times was done, this episode kind of ended weird. This particular type of alternate universe story is the kind that tries to slot itself into the existing continuity, rather than forge a whole new path. It's more like it takes a slight detour before getting back onto the main road. Y'see, in the main timeline, as seen in Captain America: Civil War, Bucky assassinates Tony Stark’s parents, and then due to Zemo’s masterful machinations, when Tony finally discovers this, he and Captain America come to blows, and in the end, the Avengers break up.

Basically, the only villain to truly beat the Avengers.

But in this universe, Alexei stops Bucky from killing the Starks, which then sends them running across the country in an effort to avoid the cops, SHIELD, and also some superheroes too. The problem is, not only do we not get to see what happens in an MCU where Howard Stark lives, which is maybe the most interesting story that could be told out of this situation, but in the end, Bucky gets recaptured and returned to the Winter Soldier program, and Alexei stays in America and joins the Avengers. And the weird part is, apparently he doesn’t go save his buddy Bucky? That seems weird. Especially for Alexei. Also, meanwhile, in Russia, Bucky tells the KGB that Alexei is dead, so that they won‘t try to hunt him down and kill him, but… Alexei joins the Avengers, so wouldn’t they just see him on TV?

This one felt a little rushed, and it clearly didn't know how to end itself. To be fair, it’s kind of an unavoidable problem for What if stories to end up feeling a little bit incomplete. Most of the time, hopefully, this is simply due to time constraints, they just don't have enough time to fully explore their alternate worlds, but this one just felt a little more incomplete than usual.

Still, it was fun. I liked it.

Episode 4: "What If… Howard the Duck got hitched?"

“Darcy Lewis and Howard the Duck met while Prince Thor was throwing a raging party that engulfed the entire planet, and soon after, fell in love. Having recently laid an egg, a journey that begins on an intergalactic pleasure cruise ends with the galaxy’s most powerful forces attempting to steal their baby.”

Continuing a story from Season 1, where the unlikely duo first met, in the time since, Howard the Duck and Darcy Lewis have gotten married, and have recently laid an egg. But being young parents is hard, so when they win an all-expenses paid, intergalactic pleasure cruise, with free booze, they jump at the chance.

Unfortunately, this leads to them discovering that Darcy laid their egg during a cosmic event known as The Convergence, a rare alignment of the Nine Realms that we saw in Thor: The Dark World. This means their child will be a powerful entity, destined for great things. This also means that several different factions now want possession of their egg-baby, including the Grandmaster from Thor: Ragnarok, as well as Yondu Udonta, the Ravagers, and the Collector from the Guardians of the Galaxy, and also Malekith the Accursed from Thor: The Dark World, Zeus, King of Olympus from Thor: Love and Thunder, Laufey, the Frost Giant King from the first Thor, Kaecilius, from the first Doctor Strange, and of course Thanos and his Black Order too. Even Nick Fury and SHIELD want it. A veritable cornucopia of selfish intent is hot on their heels.

But after running halfway across the galaxy, forced to seek shelter with Loki in the icy wastes of Jotunheim, the couple find themselves with nowhere else to run. At this point, there’s only one person in all the universe who can save them, their unborn human/duck hybrid egg-baby.

They’ve named her Byrdie.

This story is pure fun silliness. It’s a classic What if farce, which means that it’s basically a Looney Tunes story, but with a good amount of double entrendres from Darcy and Howard. There’s also a lot of running around, and crashing into things, and falling down. Loved it.

Episode 5: "What If… The Emergence destroyed the Earth?"

“On a decimated Earth, in a universe where the Eternals never stopped the Emergence, the tyrant Mysterio holds the shattered remnants of the planet in an iron fist, and it’s up to a group of freedom fighters to break his grip.”

I love a lot of things in this episode. I love a good dystopian setting. I also love Marvel’s new legacy characters, which I think Marvel needs to focus on more in general, not just in the shows and movies, but the comics too, but that aside, Riri Williams is great. I also kind of like that Sharon Carter is a real piece of shit in the MCU. Plus, in a larger sense, I really love all the Eternals related things happening this season. It's probably because the new Captain America film coming out this Friday finally directly addresses the dead and turned-to-stone Celestial that is sticking out of the Indian Ocean. Plus, I love the whole idea of a slowly dying Mysterio, slouching and sneering on his throne, kept alive by a web of machines, using the Iron Legion drones, as well as the White Vision to subjugate the last bits of humanity on an Earth that was shattered by the emergence of the Celestial Tiamat? I definitely love that. Finally, I love how, like all good dystopian stories, it ends on a small piece of hope thrown up into the sky by a new generation of heroes, who bring with them the promise of a brand new day. Also, it was fun watching them showcase how incredibly powerful the Vision is.

So much good stuff.

That said… I wonder if the fact this story happened “years before the Eternals could unite to stop the Emergence,” but also features Riri Williams, implies that the Blip never happened in this world? And if the Blip didn’t happen, that would mean that Thanos was defeated before he could gather the Infinity Stones, right? But if that’s true… then how did Vision become his all-white version?

It's not a big thing, just an incongruent piece.

At least, it is to me.

Also, in our first inkling of this season’s over-arching story, in the 5th Dimension… three Watchers stand at the edge of the Multiverse. They are displeased by Uatu the Watcher's continued interference.

Episode 6: "What If… 1872?"

“In the year 1872, Shang-Chi and Kate Bishop are cowboys hoping to protect the innocent from a low down dirty varmint known as The Hood.”

This episode is basically just the tv show Kung Fu, but set in the MCU. I’m not a fan of these “dress-up” alternate universe episodes. Not only are they not organic potential worlds at all, which always annoys me, even worse, these different time period ones only ever seem to exist because “it’s the characters you know, but this time, they’re in cowboy hats!” That said, this episode gives us a quick glimpse of a handful of wildly variant universes, such as Throg (A frog version of Thor) battling Alligator Loki, or Crossbones as a pirate, or Ultron singing showtunes, and they do this as a way of explaining that out on the far fringes of the multiverse, things can often get weird.

Which it does in this episode…

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first significant U.S. law restricting immigration into the United States. Passed by Congress, and signed by President Chester A. Arthur, it was an absolute 10-year ban on Chinese laborers immigrating to the United States. It was the first major US law that was intended to prevent a specific national group from immigrating to the United States, specifically because of white racism, and it probably won’t be the last either, given the fact that a White Christian Nationalist regime currently holds power in the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court, carried there by the long-simmering racial resentments of its white citizens, and protected by legions of either complicit cowards or by willing Brownshirts in Law Enforcement, the very same rotten corruption that drove white people in the 1880s to pass the Chinese Exclusion Act in the first place.

Anyway, this is the era of U.S. history that this particular episode is set in, and it sees Shang-Chi and Kate Bishop riding the frontier, righting wrongs, and putting down evil whiteys, all while Shang-Chi searches for his missing sister, and Kate Bishop seeks revenge on the criminal known as the Hood, who killed her family. Along the way, the pair rescue a young Kwai Jun-Fan, a boy destined to become the Iron Fist of the Old West. The three of them chase a high-tech train across the Plains, only to find at its end point, that Sonny Burch, a lesser bad guy from the film Ant-Man and the Wasp (played by the always welcome Walton Goggins), has been brainwashing and kidnapping Chinese immigrants, and forcing them to work for the Hood. They also discover that Shang-Chi’s sister Xu Xialing killed the Hood a while ago and took his place, but herself was corrupted by his demonic cloak.

After that, everybody is kung fu fighting, and they are fast as lightning.

Maybe the most notable part of this episode is that it features the first appearance of The Hood in the MCU… kind of.

The Hood, real name Parker Robbin’s, is a supervillain created by writer Brian K. Vaughan, and artists Kyle Hotz and Eric Powell. First introduced in his own self-titled limited series, he’s based on the idea that Peter Parker gained super powers due to an accident, and decided to become a hero, but… what if he had decided to become a villain? And so, Parker Robbins was born.

A petty criminal who had a run-in with a demonic entity—the ruler of the Dark Dimension, Dormammu—Parker managed to steal the demon’s hooded cloak and boots. When he put on the boots, he discovered that he could walk on air, and that while he was wearing the cloak, and holding his breath, he could become invisible. Also, being that the hood and boots were magical item, he found he could perform magic spells, and can transform into a super-strong demon when under duress. Parker is now damned, of course, as using the cloak and boots will eventually kill him, and are already consuming his mind, body, and soul, but that’s the rub, power is addictive, and Parker only wants more. With these abilities, Parker took over the criminal underworld, and became the Godfather of the supervillain set.

He will soon be appearing in the MCU, as the villain in the series Ironheart.

That stuff aside, I wasn’t a huge fan of this episode, but one thing I did like, is the way it starts out rooted in an era of one of the lesser known moments of racism and white supremacy in this country, but then, by having Shang-Chi’s sister turn out to be the Hood, it turns into a parable about how trying to attain the same privilege and power that white people enjoy in America, when you aren’t white, will ultimately only lead you to one place… death.

Finally, as we head into the final two episodes of this season, this episode shows the Watcher once again interfering in the story. At the end of the tale, the other three Watchers we saw in the previous episode show up, angry at Uatu’s continual breaking of his oath, and they fight. In the struggle, three shards of reality are broken loose, and they tumble off into the multiverse…

Episode 7: "What If… The Watcher disappeared?"

“For continually breaking his oath, The Watcher is put on trial by his fellow Watchers. With his fate hanging in the balance, the Guardians of the Multiverse race to save their friend.”

I’m a big fan of “Getting the Band Back Together“ stories, so obviously, I love a gathering of heroes from across the multiverse, and this one does just that. So, as is now tradition with this show (although definitely not one with the comics), at the end of the season, there is always an over-arching story line that unites heroes from the various stories of that particular season, all with the aim of saving the whole of the Multiverse from some massive threat.

In the first season, the threat was Infinity Ultron, an out-of-control AI robot created by Tony Stark and Bruce Banner. A creature of immense power, one that had been able to download its consciousness into the body of the Vision, and then bedazzled its chest with all six of the Infinity Stones, he wiped out all life within his entire universe. And in one particular universe, he then discoverd a way into the Multiverse, and seeing how it teemed with life, he vowed to cleanse all life from all universes. To stop him, the Watcher assembled heroes from across the Multiverse, the super-soldier Captain Peggy Carter, Stephan Strange, a Sorcerer Supreme that broke bad, and T’Challa, the intergalactic thief known as Starlord, and Killmonger, the King of Wakanda, and Thor Odinson, the party prince of Asgard, and Gamorra, the slayer of Thanos, and finally, the Black Widow, the last survivor of the universe that had been wiped out by Infinity Ultron.

The Watcher dubbed them the Guardians of the Multiverse.

In the second season, the threat came from the Stephan Strange that had broken bad, the former hero and Guardian of the Multiverse.

In his continuing quest to resurrect his home universe, as well as the woman he loved, Strange had been capturing and imprisoning not just Universe Killers, but Universe Saviors as well. He has been holding them in his pocket universe known as the Sanctum Infinitum, and was planning to feed them into The Forge, a great machine capable of creating whole new realities. But he was stopped due to the intervention of the super-soldier Captain Carter, and the young Mohawk woman known as Kahhori, a World Shaper empowered by the Space Stone, while they were both armed with weapons from across the Multiverse.

Now, with the Multiverse once more under threat, the Guardians of the Multiverse are needed again.

Still led by the super-soldier Captain Peggy Carter, this time the team is made up of Kahhori, as well as Howard the Duck and Darcy Lewis' grown-up Child of the Convergence, Byrdie the Duck, and also Ororo Munroe, the weather-controlling mutant Storm, a variant who, as the current wielder of Mjolnir, is also Thor, the Goddess of Thunder.

The Guardians are busy stopping the tentacled horror Captain Carter has been fighting since the first season from devouring the universe of Earth-625, when the three broken shards of Reality suddenly fall at their feet, and they decide to find the Watcher, assuming that there is trouble afoot.

Meanwhile, in the Fifth Dimension, Uatu the Watcher stands trial before those other three Watchers we’ve seen. They are known as the Eminence, the Incarnate, and the Executioner. They are not happy with Uatu, and the trial definitely seems like a formality that will end in his death. However, in order for the Guardians to get that far outside of the multiverse so they can save him, they need help from an old enemy…

Infinity Ultron.

The particular version of Infinity Ultron they find is one that wiped out his entire universe, but never discovered a way into the Multiverse. Now, covered in a thick layer of dust after thousands of years, of standing, alone and powered-down in a desolate universe, he has realized that there is no peace without life, and concludes that his quest to extinguish all life in the universe in the pursuit of peace was a mistake. He agrees to help the Guardians, understanding that, though it is too late for redemption, it is never too late to atone for one’s actions.

This is good news, because the Watchers have snatched Captain Carter…

This episode is the Part One of a two part story, so it’s got some action, but for the most part, it’s all set-up and techno-babble as the Guardians try to find out where Uatu the Watcher is, and how to save him. It’s fun, but mostly because of the lead up for whatever the next episode has in store.

The downside is that while Kahhori was a good character created for this show, one who will hopefully show up elsewhere in the Marvel Universe, either in shows, movies, or comic books, Byrdie the Duck is a much less interesting and appealing character in general, despite the fact that she is voiced by Natasha Lyonne.

Episode 8: "What If… What If?"

“At the end of everything—including the show—It’s the Guardians of the Multiverse and Uatu the Watcher, versus the Watchers known as the Eminence, the Incarnate, and the Executioner.”

In a flashback, we see the moment that a young disciple named Uatu becomes a Watcher, having been recruited by the Eminence, the Watcher who is now placing him on trial for his repeated interference in the multiverse. Here, it is revealed that Uatu has saved, and interferred with, more than just Captain Carter and the other Guardians of the Multiverse, but a multitude of others, like Riri Williams, Kwai Jun-Fan, Nick Fury, and everyone’s favorite Madisynn (with two Ns and one Y, but not where you think), and also maybe Reed Richards—which makes you wonder if this will lead into the FF movie, especially as the recent trailer for the film hinted that Reed will build The Bridge, and as a result, meet The Council of Reeds. Is this disruption in the multiverse the impetus that leads to the Fantastic Four and RDJ’s Dr. Doom Entering the main MCU universe?

I guess we’ll see.

Anyway…

Soon enough, the trial is interrupted, as the Guardians and Infinity Ultron storm the 5th Dimension, freeing Uatu and Captain Carter, and that’s when the shit hits the fan. There’s explosions, universe smashing, and performative power-ups, but ultimately, the Eminence, the Incarnate, and the Executioner have the heroes outclassed, even with Uatu sharing his powers with the Guardians.

In order to find shelter, and hopefully escape the reach of the Watchers, Uatu and the Guardians attempt to reach the sentient universe that was created at the end of previous season by the consciousness of Doctor Strange, but they are intercepted. The Watchers force the heroes to crash on an empty planet, and then start kicking their asses, and trying to scour them from the Multiverse, peeling off their myriad variations, one by one, stripping the heroes existence down, down, down, until they are entirely gone from existence.

With no other option left, Captain Carter goes super saiyan.

This series began with the super-soldier Captain Carter, and it ends with her too, as she sacrifices herself in order to transport everyone to Strange’s universe. Here, the former Sorcerer is the sentient consciousness of the whole universe, so he simply removes the powers of the Eminence, the Incarnate, and the Executioner. Now humbled and powerless, Uatu convinces the trio of Watchers to learn compassion by watching over life in this new universe.

In the end, everyone learns a little bit about themselves… and each other, as a new day dawns on a new world.

Ultimately, as far as these season-ending two-parters go, season 3 didn’t end as strong as the first seasons. It tried to go too big, and had a hard time really getting across the level of power, not to mention the stakes. There's only so many times you can watch punches shatter moons and be impressed, y'know? Because of this, the action just wasn’t very exciting, so all in all… not my favorite.

Still, I’m sad to see that the series is done.

Endings are good thing, but I do wish that they were planning to continue it. There’s certainly more stories that they could tell, and a ton of other characters they could use too. But it’s not to be, unfortunately. Still, at least we get one last fun reminder of the good stuff that lies at the heart of this series, the endless variations, the unexpected stories, the place where anything is possible.

The Watcher does one last voice-over…

“With some mysteries, sometimes the only answer is another question. You see... Time. Space. Reality. It's more than a linear path. It's a prism of endless possibility. Where a single choice can branch out into infinite realities, creating new phenomena beyond what you could possibly imagine. I am Uatu. I see all of these vast new realities. Open your eyes, dare to face the unknown, and ponder the question... What if?”

All while we get glimpses of other worlds… a six-armed Spider-man. A Samurai Ghost Rider. Riri Williams wearing War Machine armor adorned with the skull logo of the Punisher. Gamorra on her wedding day. Blade as Moon Knight. A Weapon X version of Thanos. Kingo wearing Iron Man’s armor. Ms Marvel as the Wasp. The Maestro, an evil possible future version of the Hulk, but as the Sorcerer Supreme. Howard the Duck as the Scarlet Witch. Dragonborn Hawkeye. Jubilee as the Silver Surfer. Captain America, with his Wakandan shields, but revealed as a Skrull. Dane Whitman and Sersi dancing in ballroom attire. A exaggerated Liefeld style version of Deadpool, feet obscured and loaded down with weapons. A young Hela wielding Mjolnir. Shang-Chi as Star-Lord. Loki as a Wild West Sheriff. The Scarlet Witch with the Infinity Stones. Carol Danvers as a Nova Centurian.

The Multiverse spins on and on and on…

While I still feel like it was a missed opportunity not to do something with Man-Thing, Werewolf by Night, and Elsa Bloodstone, especially if you added Blade, and also maybe Strange, and then pitted them against Dracula and some vampires, or maybe focused more on some variations of Moon Knight, or Daredevil, or why not some She-Hulk, I still enjoyed a lot of the choices they did make. Plus, even if they didn't get to these particular ones, they did use a lot of the new characters, so there isn't much to complain about there.

Mostly, I just wish they would've made more. The era of eight to ten episodes on streaming services is much less satisfying then the once full season order of 22 to 24 episodes, and I miss that. I love a good over-arching narrative, and more episodes allow a series to earn that story, while also providing multiple opportunities for one-off episodes, or short multi-part stories.

Oh, well. Alas, Babylon, as they say.

On the plus side, the What if spin-off show set in the same Zombie Apocalypse universe from Season One is still on the way, and apparently the Moon Knight version of Blade shows up there so at least there's still that to look forward to.

Can’t wait.