What If…? Season 3: Kevin Feige Wasted a Golden Goose By Not Exploring an Alternate Avengers: Infinity War Scenario 

SUMMARY

• What If...? managed to fumble its brilliant premise, leaving fans wanting for more.
• Had the show gone ahead with more Avengers based storylines, with divergences that were more massive, fans would have stayed invested with characters they enjoy.
• What If...? could have been much more of a spectacle had it not gone out of it's way to limit itself.

What If…? might have started out as a great concept to explore alternate realities and story arcs in the MCU, but there has been a sharp decline in that concept due to multiple reasons. While it introduced some brilliant characters into the Marvel multiverse, such as Captain Carter, T’Challa Star-Lord, and Sinister Strange, it sort of fell off the table of interest when it decided to pursue an overarching narrative instead of the multiple stories that the series could have explored. 

What If…? || Credit: Marvel Studios

One such story that fans would have loved to see is a grander take on key moments in the MCU history. Such as, What If The Avengers Lost to Loki, What If The Other Half was snapped in Infinity War, or even more cerebral takes, like What If The Avengers Won Against Thanos the first time around? 

Avengers winning Infinity War would have had a lot of ramifications in the Marvel Universe

Avengers: Infinity War was the beginning of the culmination of the Infinity Saga | Marvel Studios

Had The Avengers won during the events of Infinity War, the team would probably have reassembled under a single banner, but still operated separately. The loss to Thanos was instrumental to Steve and Tony reconciling, which was also aided by the loss of Peter Parker on Titan. This would also probably get Steve Rogers and his team pardoned, if not, they would make Wakanda their base, making them privy to threats like Namor, and possibly also saving T’Challa from dying (what with people like Vision and Wanda readily available). 

Further, this could also have been played as a narrative with a twist, as Thanos, using the Reality stone, could have made them believe that they had won when in reality, he had trapped them in a pocket dimension that just makes them believe so. In reality, Thanos would have implemented his plan universe-wide, winning the battle with the Avengers, without having to worry about their time traveling. 

What If…? could have been quite the spectacle for the MCU

Frost Giant Loki (Tom Hiddleston) in Marvel Animation’s WHAT IF…? Season 3, exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Marvel Animation. © 2024 MARVEL. All Rights Reserved.

As What If…? comes to its end, there have been some parts of the fandom that are really not happy with how the story played out. Instead of exploring the already limited, but potentially wild What Ifs that have come out of the Marvel Universe, the characters were further limited by an original overarching story, that mostly seemed like a rip-off of better stories that have been told in Marvel Comics.

However, with the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, and others making their way into the MCU, it might make sense if Marvel would revive the show with a loser plotline, which could further explore the multiverse without having to wrap the entire story together. This could allow Marvel to go up against the slew of Elseworlds stories that DC could be cooking up, especially given that the MCU is thinking of taking its animation into theatres.

What If…? is streaming on Disney+.

Written by Anuraag Chatterjee

Articles Published: 1191

Anuraag Chatterjee, Web Content Writer
With a passion for writing fiction and non fiction content, Anuraag is a Media Science graduate with 2 year's experience with Marketing and Content, with 3 published poetry anthologies. Anuraag holds a Bacherlor's degree in Arts with a focus on Communication and Media Studies.