Are you on the look out for a different take on the superhero genre? How about “What If?” a animated series which will take different key moments in Marvel Cinematic Universe and flip the script on it.
About
“What If” is a series that flips the script on the well known Marvel Franchise movies. The series look to re-imagine those events from the films in new and unexpected ways. This first Marvel studios animated series will focus on different heroes from around the MCU.
We will focus on Episode 1 – all about Peggy Carter.
When Steve Rogers is seriously injured, Peggy Carter becomes the world’s first Super Soldier.
Word of Warning – Spoilers ahead.
Episode 1 – What if… Captain Carter were The First Avenger?
From the beginning, you are brought back to the Film Captain America: The First Avenger.
Here are a few highlights (whilst avoiding some spoilers):
The crucial scene where Steve gets injected to become Captain America is flipped with Peggy having to take his place. It seemingly works with the animated art style drawing your eye in the right places.
The Tesseract becomes the second arc of the first episode. Like the The First Avenger Film, Peggy has to battle to get an opportunity to fight.
Peggy learning to fight with the shield took us out of the action a little. Her acting/ dialogue is a little off (it might be the Brit in me). She felt a little too gobsmacked at her abilities at times – which does not work.
Steve is now a secondary shorter dude in a “Hydra Stomper”. He is ok and again, it does pull us out when the acting/dialogue is a little off. In the middle of a fight scene both Steve and Peggy were talking about Dancing.
Where Bucky becomes the Winter Soldier is also changed, with Steve now taking the fall. This scene was terrific and a good surprise. It worked well and keeps the original film’s dynamic.
The final battle against Red Skull takes a few interestingly different turns. Red Skull unleashes a large monster and has both major men in Peggy’s life playing a role in the conclusion. This brought a fitting end to the episode, with it clearly giving nods back to the original film.
Overall
A good episode that takes the MCU in a different direction. The art style works to a point, only on one occasion it took us out of the action. In one key scene, main characters were painted brighter than background characters.
The voice acting was fine, we were expecting different voices. However the scripting of some scenes was poor. With us being British, we tend to notice when Peggy changed her nature a little too much (In the same way we know Dick Van Dyke had a terrible accent in Mary Poppins).
We still think it did the source material justice, all it did was inject a bit more of the light side in the script. It made a darker world with Nazis and Hydra Agents – a little lighter and more family friendly.
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