With Loki coming to an end in less than a week, Marvel has dropped the latest trailer for its next Disney+ outing, What If…? The animated series explores various alternate realities in the MCU where small changes have huge impacts on the heroes (and villains) fans have come to love. Right out of the gate, the latest trailer recreates the opening of the first Iron Man movie, but with a critical twist: Black Panther‘s Killmonger shows up and saves Tony Stark before he’s hit by missile shrapnel and helped captive in an underground lab where he invents his Iron Man suit. It also marks the first return of Robert Downey Jr. to the MCU since 2019’s Avengers: Endgame. (Don’t get too attached though. The role has always been touted as a “brief” appearance.)
In a similar vein, the trailer also goes heavy on the new twist on Star-Lord. In What If…?, Yondu doesn’t come to Earth to acquire Peter Quill. Instead, he takes Wakanda’s Prince T’Challa, who becomes this alternate reality’s version of Star-Lord. Adding gravitas to this multiverse twist is the voice work of the late Chadwick Boseman, who recorded his lines shortly before his tragic passing.
The trailer also offers brief flashes of Doctor Strange having a multiverse crisis of his own, and the real showstopper is Hayley Atwell’s Peggy Carter who, in this reality, takes the super-soldier serum instead of Steve Rogers. Of course, the larger question is whether or not What If…? ties into the MCU. Currently, the cinematic universe is being torn apart in Loki, and the next Spider-Man and Doctor Strange films are expected to delve even deeper into the Multiverse. Will the animated series be a part of that reality-bending fun, or is it simply a creative exercise to prep casual audiences for the unlimited flexibility of the Marvel characters? Fortunately, we don’t have to wait long for an answer.
Marvel’s What If…? starts streaming August 11 on Disney+.
