TV Talk: ‘What If…?’ imagines alternate scenarios in the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week.

Animated Marvel series “What If…?” is a bit of a detour from the ongoing story in the Marvel Cinematic Universe but for die-hard fans it offers some tantalizing alternate scenarios featuring some of the MCU’s favorite players.

Some might consider it Marvel-sanctioned fan fiction but the series does introduce a key player from the comics, The Watcher (voice of Jeffrey Wright, “Westworld”).

“He plays somewhat of a Rod Serling role here,” Wright said in a virtual press conference earlier this month, comparing The Watcher to the host of TV’s original “Twilight Zone.” “He’s kind of narrating and in some ways he’s maybe the biggest Marvel fan there is watching all that transpires and dealing with certain temptations to involve himself but at the same time just living vicariously through these characters, these stories, this mythology and taking it all in. He is the fans. The fans can relate to him.”

Streaming Wednesday on Disney+, “What If…?” imagines a different scenario in each of its 10 episodes. What if Peggy Carter got the super soldier serum instead of Steve Rogers? What if T’Challa became Star-Lord instead of Peter Quill?

“ ‘What If…?’ head writer AC Bradley (“Trollhunters”) said the writers came up with the idea for the T’Challa episode two years ago while looking at a poster of all the MCU characters. They realized T’Challa and Peter Quill are roughly the same age.

“What if Yondu takes the wrong kid? All humans look alike to him, so that’s where that one started,” she said. “T’Challa’s an interesting character because he’s not a character that arcs himself. He’s a character that changes the world around him. He doesn’t go through a transformation, he transforms the world. So taking a step back would be, well, how would T’Challa transform outer space?”

The T’Challa episode marks the last performance by the late Chadwick Boseman, who died in August 2020 from cancer at age 43.

Wright said George C. Wolfe, director of the filmed-in-Pittsburgh “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” invited Wright to join the cast of “Ma Rainey’s” alongside Boseman — Wright didn’t specify in what role — but he couldn’t do it because of a prior commitment to another project.

“I didn’t have a chance to work with Chadwick on that so it was a lovely surprise to find that we would have the opportunity at least to be in the same space with ‘What If…?’ ” Wright said. “These are films about heroism and all the complications of that. And what we all discovered was that the mythic quality that he brought to these performances paled in some way to the mythic quality that was his life in terms of the way that he was going about doing this work: The grace, the dignity, the power. So I’m really pleased to share a little bit of time with him on this.”

As to how “What If…?” will play into future big-screen Marvel stories, director Bryan Andrews wouldn’t spoil much.

“It’s no coincidence that the show picks up right after ‘Loki’ where – spoiler alert — the multiverse is now erupted in every possible direction. ‘What If…?’ gives us a chance to explore that. I think we can tell that in this next saga, the multiverse is going to be crucial,” he said. “ ‘What If…?’ as a project, as a story that exists in the MCU, is as important as any other. It’s woven into that same tapestry.”

So might Marvel fans see Wright play The Watcher in a future live-action MCU project?

“ ‘What If…?’ is very much about the idea that all things are possible,” Wright teased. “So that’s a reasonable question and I guess the answer to it is, well what if? I’ll leave it at that.”