Our Thoughts on Marvel’s What If…? Season 3 ⋆ Brite and Bubbly

Our Thoughts on Marvel’s What If…? Season 3

By: Vanessa D'Elia | 0 comments

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This holiday season brings the third and final season of Marvel’s What If…? Last year, Disney Plus dropped an episode a night for season 2 and the same release strategy is being applied this year. The episodes are 8 in total with a focus on characters and stories from the phase four and phase five eras of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

(L-R) Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani), Howard Stark ( Dominic Cooper), Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) and Ediwn Jarvis (James D’Arcy) in Marvel Animation’s WHAT IF…? SEASON 3, exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Marvel Animation. © 2024 MARVEL. All Rights Reserved.

Characters like Sam Wilson, Moon Knight, Red Guardian, Agatha Harkness, and The Eternals have starring positions in various episodes and much like previous seasons, the live action actors like Anthony Mackie, David Harbour, Oscar Isaac, Katherine Hahn and Kumail Nanjiani are reprising their roles in this animated series. The animation style and quality have not changed and neither has the episodic format or length of each episode. Likewise, the concept of each episode being its own style/tone/genre has not changed.

(L-R) Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) and Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani) in Marvel Animation’s WHAT IF…? SEASON 3, exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Marvel Animation. © 2024 MARVEL. All Rights Reserved.

The use of the episodic and anthology storytelling format for the series remains its strength into this final season. Romantic comedy for Howard the Duck getting married, buddy cop for Red Guardian and Winter Soldier, and kaiju/mech genre for the premiere episode in which The Avengers wear mech armor and battle gamma radiated kaiju monsters. The constant changing of the genre style is fun and works with the style of animation.

The only time it seems live action might be better served is a musical number in Agatha Goes to Hollywood. The animation style still isn’t quite there in terms of fully capturing the fluid movement of dance and rhythm.

Much like previous seasons of What If..?, the episodes expand on the idea of a multiverse and how it works without having a hardline connection to the MCU’s Multiverse. Ideas from What If…? may casually pop up in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but those will be more likely easter eggs and nothing that is required watching material. So while there is no obligation, to non-completionists, What if…? remains a fun trip into a different kind of Marvel with a little more leniency in being able to tell a different and more far out story than the films may allow.

I would suggest checking out What if Red Guardian Stopped The Winter Soldier? It is my favorite of the bunch released because the actors Sebastian Stan (Captain America and the Winter Soldier) and David Harbour (Black Widow), again reprising their roles from the live action MCU films, have great chemistry in animation which I hope carries over when they both appear in 2025’s Marvel’s Thunderbolts. The story also shows how friendship was the real power which broke Bucky from the Winter Soldier programming. It has heavy moments of sentiment and cheese, but that is exactly what makes Marvel Comics and their adaptations work; their lack of fear of showing and reveling in some cheesy sentiments.

(L-R): Wong (David Chen), Okoye (Kenna Ramsey), Ying Nan (Michelle Wong), Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) in Marvel Animation’s WHAT IF…? Season 3, exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Marvel Animation. © 2024 MARVEL. All Rights Reserved.

Marvel’s What if…? in terms of accessibility to younger Marvel fans is on par with the films. If young viewers have been exposed to films like Captain America The Winter Soldier, Black Widow, and Avengers Endgame, then they are more than fine being able to watch the third and final season of Marvel’s What If…? Fun and perfectly enjoyable for existing Marvel fans.