After the great chapter “What If … Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead His Hands?” (1×04) by What would happen if…? (AC Bradley, since 2021), animated tv series of the Marvel Cinematic Universe on Disney Plus, because of his particular approach and inspired realization, we believed that it would be very difficult for someone else to surpass him later. And we are not wrong because, after the disastrous “What If… Thor Were an Only Child?” (1×07), came the great “What If… Ultron Won?” (1×08), but he fell one step behind the tragedy with the Supreme Sorcerer as the protagonist.
And now it has come “What If … The Watcher Broke His Oath? ” (1×09), which continues with the narrative ends exposed in these two upper episodes. Or that was the idea that we harbored out of a pure sense of continuity. But the writers impress us again by also bringing together characters from the other seven for the multiversal mother of all battles.
What the Marvel Cinematic Universe has always done
This approach is not only intelligent, but also transforms what we considered an animated anthology in a series with a common thread. It could already be guessed from the brief interactions with the Vigilante (Jeffrey Wright), he appeared at the closings of “What If … Thor Were an Only Child?” and “What If … Ultron Won?” and is confirmed by exploding in the last chapter of the season, the equally mentioned “What If… The Watcher Broke His Oath?”.
Thus, it could be said that the self-concluding episodes, with or without an open ending, were only the purpose of giving him a suitable context for the group of superheroes who play it now on What would happen if…? and his little tricks. But it’s not about nothing new because the origin stories of our marvelitas friends serve exactly the same thing when it comes to the four feature films of The Avengers (Joss Whedon, Joe and Anthony Russo, 2012-2019) or a Captain America: Civil War (Russo Brothers, 2016).
A satisfactory resolution of ‘What if…?’
The jokes in which they insist on involving Thor (Chris Hemsworth), a custom since the beginning of the franchise that has been intensified in Thor: Ragnarok (Taika Waititi, 2017), in Avengers: Endgame (Hermanos Russo, 2019) and in the aforementioned chapter “What If… Thor Were an Only Child?”, they work at times. But what is, without a doubt, absolutely spectacular about “What If… The Watcher Broke His Oath?” viewers find it in Marvel’s strong point: the action and the way they compose the choreographies and the visual apparatus of their sequences.
What includes some ingenuity to propose an imaginative variety of resources to attack, frenetic movements within the frame and, at the same time, a scene in which they are out of focus and point to a specific object as in the great first sequence with the protagonists in Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 (James Gunn, 2017). Director Bryan Andrews Thing (The Bottom 3: Tales of Arcadia).
The blissful Infinity Stones are reluctant to disappear and return to the heart of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in What would happen if…?, and they do it with a dynamic that reminds us of the planet Titan with Thanos (Josh Brolin) in Avengers: Infinity War (Russo Brothers, 2018). The climax of the long confrontation sequence in “What If… The Watcher Broke His Oath?”, which lengthens the tension through its slow motion, is very satisfying.
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And the subsequent twists, as much as its resolution, coherent with the bet for the not entirely happy endings and the work that awaits. So there is no doubt that, in the future, we will see season two when they premiere on Disney Plus. Hopefully it won’t take long.