The review embargo for Marvel’s What If…? has passed, and the latest Marvel Studios is earning rave reviews from critics. Though it’s not getting the early attention of the studio’s live-action fare, What If…? has already earned the Certified Fresh badge from Rotten Tomatoes. As of this writing, the review aggregator has received 36 reviews, and just four of those have been “Rotten.”
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“What If…? may not add much to the larger MCU narrative, but surprising takes on belvoed characters and some of the best action sequences in the entire franchise make for engaging viewing,” the review-gathering site writes.
#WhatIf: Season 1 is now #CertifiedFresh at 88% on the #Tomatometer, with 33 reviews: https://t.co/WGgBDzuhj0 pic.twitter.com/nijUMSWjXR
— Rotten Tomatoes (@RottenTomatoes) August 10, 2021
Keep scrolling to see what the critics are saying.
ComicBook.com
“The sandbox What If…? gets to play in is large and shows intriguing promise. The first three episodes just hardly scratch that surface. We’ve gotten plenty of trailers that show us the stories to come and they show more initiative than the three episodes Disney sent out for review, episodes most might consider to be too safe. It’s a solid start, but this first batch of episodes leaves a lot to be desired. Luckily for us, we know that the craziest stuff — Doctor Strange vs. Doctor Strange, Zombie-Hunter Spider-Man, and others — are on the way, so it’s still worth hanging until that comes around.”
CNN.com – Brian Lowry
“Marvel has already enjoyed considerable success mining its roster for Disney+, but in a way “What If…?” might be the shrewdest effort yet. With series like “Loki” or “WandaVision,” the studio needs to entice the actors to squeeze back into those costumes. Here, as the Watcher notes, the possibilities are indeed endless.”
The Hollywood Reporter – Angie Han
“As it stands, what stands out is not the series’ ambitions or its potential, but its limitations. What If…? promises to be a space for the kinds of weird or challenging or just-plain-silly ideas the live-action properties will never touch — but then, presented with these playful hypotheticals, it can hardly muster enough curiosity to wonder what happens next. Moment to moment, it’s occasionally successful as fan service for diehards. (Again, I maintain that Peggy deserved to be a top-tier Avenger all along.) But for a series set in the infinite vastness of a multiverse, What If…? is dreaming awfully small.”
Empire Magazine – Ben Travis
“Not that the series is entirely inconsequential — while its entire raison d’être is to explore alt-universe stories, the recent cracking open of the Multiverse thanks to a certain other Marvel show on Disney+ means that all of this can be considered, in the infinite possibilities of Multiversal storytelling, somewhat canonical. If the MCU does continue to follow the Star Wars playbook, it’s easy to pinpoint who should get the Ahsoka treatment and receive their own live-action spin-off: we’ll take more Captain Carter, please.”
Rolling Stone – Alan Sepinwall
“In that way, Disney+’s insatiable demand for as much MCU content as Feige and company can provide may wind up serving this new What If…? very well. The comic book wasn’t designed with spin-offs in mind, even if some of the ideas it introduced later filtered into the main continuity. It could afford to be conservative, since its stories weren’t meant to last more than one issue, two at the most. If the plan is to use the TV version of What If…? to beta-test future Marvel shows, though, then the biggest and most audacious changes are in its best interest.”
io9 – Charles Pulliam-Moore
“Though it feels inevitable that What If will eventually play into the live-action space in a direct way, what’s exciting about the show is how Marvel seems keen on keeping it around for at least one more season. Regardless of what goes down with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, What If exists in a space of pure possibility where basically anything could be on the table and explored from a variety of angles. There doesn’t seem to be any one “right” way to watch What If, which might make it one of the easiest of Disney+’s Marvel shows for newcomers to try out, but it also makes it the sort of endeavor one can easily imagine Marvel plans to keep going well beyond the near future.”
Chicago Sun-Times – Richard Roeper
“More often, though, the humor hits the spot, as in Episode 3, when Tony Stark resists Nick Fury’s overtures by saying, “I told you, I don’t want to join your super-secret boy band.” But things take a dark turn in this particular episode when someone assassinates a number of Avengers before they even become Avengers, and that someone turns out to be …”
*****
Marvel’s What If…? is set for release on Disney+ beginning August 11th.
What What If… storylines do you hope to see in the series? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section or by hitting our writer @AdamBarnhardt up on Twitter to chat all things MCU!
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