Friday, August 27, 2021

Take Three: What If…?

What If: Season 1, Episode 3 “What If... The World Lost its Mightiest Heroes?” (B)

I think the most appealing part of watching this show is recognizing the voiceover acting since animation isn’t as exciting as the real thing (though I’m sure some would beg to differ). I wasn’t sure if all of them were the main actors who have previously played these roles, though I would recognize Michael Douglas’ voice anywhere. That said, I haven’t seen either Ant-Man movie, so I’m a bit lost on who he is and how much this diverged from reality. Also, Black Widow was very central to this episode but she was voiced by someone other than Scarlett Johansson, while Samuel L. Jackson, Clark Gregg, Jeremy Renner, and Mark Ruffalo were all back as Nick, Colson, Hawkeye, and Hulk, respectively, along with Tom Hiddleston, whose Loki has his very own Disney Plus MCU series. While it wasn’t clear how and why all of the future Avengers were alternately dying and being framed for someone else’s death, I did enjoy that Loki appeared with his army that Colson described as from Middle-earth rather than Earth, and that Fury thought to negotiate with him since he was there to avenge Thor’s death, a mystery that S.H.I.E.L.D. very much wanted solved too. Ending with Loki duplicating himself to make it look like Fury was everywhere was clever, and Loki managed to get what he wanted, which was the willing subjugation of the human race. I like that all of these episodes end with a teaser of how things might still change, like Captain Marvel showing up for the fight after all the action has happened, ready to take back Earth from Loki in whatever future lies ahead.

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