MCU: 10 Comic Stories We Want To See In Marvel's What If...?
A lot of the craziest comic book stories could soon be coming to the MCU.
Back when Disney+ was announced, we knew we were getting a Marvel What If...? series but we weren’t sure exactly what that meant. There was a strong chance it would take inspiration from the comics of the same name, but as for what stories Marvel could tell? That part was pretty much left out - until last weekend.
Revealed as a part of Marvel's Hall H festivities at SDCC 2019, the show will be animated and include several of the major Marvel cast reprising their classic roles. Jeffrey Wright will be playing a Watcher to guide us through these narratives.
Though some story will likely offer minor tweaks to the MCU storylines with bigger butterfly affects, here we’re tackling the full on alternative dimension stuff. Not just ‘What if Bucky was a super soldier, not Steve’, because, cool as that is, an animated show really allows things to go hog wild.
It would be fantastic to see those smaller scale stories too, but a world of possibilities are now open. It’s natural that a lot of fans are wanting them to dive in with the most extreme stories that we’d never, ever be able to get in the core MCU.
These stories all come from the comics, either through multiverses or by retconning drastic changes to the source material the MCU made.
10. Marvel Zombies
Spider-Man: Far From Home gave us a tiny taste of Marvel Zombies in the MCU, with Mysterio’s illusions causing an undead Iron Man to rise from his grave and claw at Peter Parker. As cool as that was, it’s likely the only time we’ll ever see it happen on the big screen.
This is what makes the What If series so genius though; it allows Marvel to use their MCU versions of beloved characters in narratives that would never in a million years feature in their established arcs.
Although Marvel Zombies isn’t taken from the actual What If comic book, it’s still a storyline so far removed from both the MCU and Marvel’s core 616 universe that it really might as well be.
The story, written by The Walking Dead’s Robert Kirkman, features an unknown superhero crashing on Earth, infected by ‘Hunger’. The blood borne pathogen is passed on through biting, primarily, and soon spreads through the Avengers, the X-Men and the Fantastic Four.
What If might stick with just Avengers seeing as neither of the other two groups are established in the MCU so far, but that would still make for an amazing episode.