What If Is Ruining The MCU’s Multiverse Opportunity After Loki

Marvel’s What If…? isn’t taking advantage of the great opportunity that Loki handed the show when it introduced audiences to the concept of the MCU’s multiverse. Though the multiverse was known to be central to the MCU, it wasn’t until Loki (Tom Hiddleston) encountered the Time Variance Authority in his Disney+ series that Marvel started to reveal how it works.

Building off the time travel rules in Avengers: Endgame, Loki established all sorts of interesting ideas about the vast number of timelines that exist in the multiverse, how they’re different, and the dangers that changing them pose. Loki brought in new MCU terms that relate directly to time travel and alternate universes, such as the Sacred Timeline, variants, Nexus events, and more. And after fleshing out the multiverse, the MCU threatened to tear it all down in one shocking twist. In the Loki season finale, Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) murdered He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors), who promised that his death would cause the creation of a multitude of timelines and the beginning of a new multiversal war. Because of this decision, chaos could ensue throughout the multiverse, with Ant-Man 3’s Kang the Conqueror being the center of it all.

While Loki did get to introduce a few alternate versions of the God of Mischief, it didn’t really get a chance to dive into any of the timelines they came from. That’s when the next MCU Phase 4 installment, Marvel’s What If…?, came into the picture. Its subject matter made it feel like the best choice for a follow-up to Loki. After all, it was a show that was to explore the corners of the multiverse that Loki talked so much about. Unfortunately, the animated Disney+ series has yet to live up to its potential in this aspect.

None of What If...?'s Questions Actually Matter

Marvel’s What If…? has asked and answered six different questions, but the material they covered actually mattered little in the context of the MCU, as they’re not derived from actual events that could have realistically transpired. Peggy Carter wasn’t a contender for receiving the super soldier serum, there was never any threat of a zombie apocalypse, and T’Challa getting kidnapped by Yondu and becoming Star-Lord came out of left field. These episodes would have made better fits for What If…? if they were actually at the risk of happening at any point in the MCU’s timeline. This is a bit contrary to the premise of the comic book series What If…? is based on. In the 1970s, What If? took meaningful looks at alternate (and entirely possible) endings to established stories, like the Kree-Skull War, the Avengers’ first fight with Namor, and the death of Uncle Ben. Some of their plotlines and developments worked so well that they ended up being reworked into Marvel Comics canon. This speaks to the level of significance that the comic had to the wider Marvel Universe. Marvel’s What If…?, on the other hand, doesn’t have that yet.

What If...?'s Ties To The Multiverse Are Pointless

Uatu raises his arms and grimaces in What If...?

Prior to the airing of Marvel’s What If…? on Disney+, it made sense that the show was arriving after Loki, but as things stand, where the series falls in Marvel’s release order seems unimportant. Unless the show is hiding some huge twist in one of its final episodes of the season, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference if the show had been released at the beginning of Phase 4 or any other time. That’s because it’s ties to the multiverse are pointless. Those involved with the series have reiterated that Marvel’s What If…? is central to the MCU’s overarching story, but at this juncture, that doesn’t appear to be the case. Furthermore, it doesn’t do much in the way of adding or expanding on concepts from Loki. Its biggest contributions to the multiverse mythos of the MCU are Uatu the Watcher and how the series defined “absolute points”, but it's unclear if these things will ever have an impact on any MCU storylines outside Marvel’s What If…?

What If...? Season 2 Should Focus On Real MCU Stakes

The Avengers standing in Wakanda waiting for Thanos' army to attack

What’s best for the future of Marvel’s What If..? is that it deliver stories that actually do have real stakes in the MCU. It could do that in a satisfying way if it revisits specific moments that fans would recognize from the MCU movies. Unlike season 1, season 2 needs to ask questions that fans have been curious about for years. The answers should be ones that affect the experience of rewatching the MCU movies.

Much more fascinating situations that it could have explored include what if Captain America didn’t get frozen in the 1940s, what if Thor was killed in New Mexico, what if Loki didn’t murder Agent Coulson, and what if the Avengers didn’t break up before Infinity War. Due to the fact that all of these things really could have occurred, they would have been stories that hold true meaning for the MCU. A fully united Avengers team facing Thanos in Wakanda, for example, is already something that’s been widely discussed, as many think that the Mad Titan might have lost if the heroes weren’t fractured. It would have been interesting to see where the Avengers would have wound up if they had beaten Thanos early. If they did, what would Steve Rogers and Tony Stark be doing right now? Possibilities like this – as opposed to ones that weren’t on the table, to begin with – would have mattered a great deal more.

What If…? season 2 would generate even more interest if it addresses Loki’s multiverse teases. After all, it would seem only fitting for there to be a connection of some kind, considering that He Who Remains did warn of new timelines and multiversal conflicts. It could be that Kang himself could even set off some of the show’s “what if” scenarios. Or, the problems he could cause could result in some of its more popular characters converging, like Captain Carter. Moving in either direction would help the deepen the importance of Loki’s ending and the link between Marvel’s What If…? and the rest of the MCU. Uatu the Watcher mentioning what happened or a time-travelling Kang variant popping up in one of the show’s many installments would help ensure that viewers treat Marvel’s What If…? as a worthwhile chapter in the MCU’s newest saga.

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Marvel's What If...? releases new episodes every Wednesday on Disney+.