Disney is preparing to launching its Disney+ streaming service soon, and it looks like it might get a new series loosely based on the MCU.
We've long known that Disney-owned Marvel has been working on new content for the upcoming streaming service. There’s the already-announced Loki series, which is set to star Tom Hiddleston, and rumours of potential series built around other Avengers like Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Now, thanks to SlashFilm, we're learning about another potential Marvel project in the works: an animated series based on the What If comics.
For the uninitiated, the What If series was first published in 1977 as a type of one-off comics all centered around an alternate timeline of events in the Marvel Universe. They’ve been published routinely ever since. While occasionally the stories can end up being tied into the Marvel Universe, they’re mainly just standalone issues based on questions that will immediately pique the interest of any Marvel fan’s brain.
The storylines range from neat questions like “What if Spiderman’s first love, Gwen Stacy, never died?” to mind blowing ideas such as “What if Wolverine became The Punisher to fight mobsters in 1920s Chicago?” or “What if Captain America fought a proto-Winter Soldier known as White Skull during the Civil War?” (Insert the "shut up and take my money" GIF here.) So, you get the idea.
We have to admit that, being an animated series, it could certainly dull the interest for some fans of the live-action cinematic universe. However, it's been said that animation might make it more plausible for some stars of the films to "voice" the cartoon versions. It’s also worth noting that the premise of the What if series could make for a fantastic anthology series, animated or not.
It gives the Marvel team room to take some risks without doing any lasting harm to the MCU, because these would merely be episodes based around hypothetical questions. The series is reportedly being developed by Kevin Feige and Marvel Studios, which handles the MCU films, giving the series a boost of credibility. TV shows such as Agents of Shield were developed by the Marvel Television Group.
Disney+ is slated to debut later this year and will reportedly cost less than an subscription to Netflix, although the price is irrelevant if subscribing means we can watch Wolverine fight Al Capone or Captain America versus the Confederacy.