What If? Season 3 Review: What If a Marvel Series Was Bad?

comingsoon.net:

The Marvel Cinematic Universe continues with the third season of  This Disney+ series began in 2021 and allowed us to look into the multiverse to see what if some famous moments from the MCU happened a bit differently.

With a new season comes new scenarios, like the season premiere titled “What If the Hulk Fought the Mech Avengers?” But this title is actually a misdirection. We never actually see Bruce Banner’s Hulk fight the Mech Avengers. That’s not exactly a good harbinger of what’s to come. This ended up a disappointing season that again speaks to the wasted potential of an MCU show that could have explored many better ideas.

This review will not spoil any episodes but will give a few story details based on the episode titles. This season has managed to be an underwhelming instance of wasted potential. The first episode touches on something the live-action MCU should have done, which is to explore Bruce Banner’s struggles with the Hulk. Banner’s development with the Hulk has always been largely offscreen, so this show offered the perfect opportunity to give a new look at the character. But for some reason, this episode only lightly touches on it. It features Sam Wilson befriending Bruce instead of Steve Rogers, and Sam is the main character. Sam is not an interesting character to view this story through. Although they become friends, seeing Bruce’s struggles on screen is a missed opportunity.

Much of the exposition happens through the Watcher’s narration at the beginning, and that does not allow us to feel for the scenes. The pacing feels off because there’s so much to cram in a half hour. There are a few fun ideas with this episode, particularly a kaiju battle, but it doesn’t work because even though the battle is set in a city, we don’t see any of the civilians. It’s a major difference from the 2012 Avengers, where we could see the humans impacted by the danger. They could be fighting in an empty field for all we care. The story is also exceedingly