What If We Could Give The Marvel Cinematic Universe a Little Do-Over?
10 Scenarios the MCU should explore and learn from in its new show
13 min readAug 10, 2020
When it comes to the Avengers and the MCU, it’s hard to deny that the studio got a hell of a lot right: from their legendary casting to the characterisation and development, to the witty dialogue and adaption of beloved comic content, the list of successes goes on and on. Indeed, it’s a testament to the film's popularity that they continue to set box office records worldwide and prove that despite all the struggles similar franchisers have suffered (DC & Star Wars), it’s more than possible to make a universe of interconnected characters work.
It would be stupid then, after so much success, to suggest the films need to change in any way. I mean what idiot would even bother trying? Well, Marvel Studios themselves apparently, because this is exactly the area their new animated TV show, What If, will be looking to explore next year. As its title suggests, the show will delve into alternate scenarios to major MCU events we’ve seen up to now; an admittedly strange yet intriguing premise, and one that begs the question, why would the studio do this?
Well, despite its groundbreaking franchising the MCU is about as mistake-free as the Iron hero who kicked it off. After all, you can’t reach the peak of the biggest studio in the world without tripping over a few ill-placed stacks of cash on the way. This and the fact they’ve now breached into the multi-verse — the ultimate do-over device thanks to Endgame — means the studio can address some of their own blunders from a comically creative standpoint and pursue such fantasised theories as:
What if Ant-man had been awesome? What if Quicksilver hadn’t been a one movie wonder? What if Natasha hadn’t died, or Bruce never turned into Professor Hulk or every movie featured a unique villain without a disposable CGI army? And, of course, the ultimate question posed by Tony to Bruce in Ultron, What if you were sipping marguerites on a sun-drenched beach turning brown instead of green?
Needless to say, the answers to these hold potential just begging to be explored. And because I’m probably far more idiotic than Marvel, I’ll not only be looking to address some of the above what if’s, but also challenge the misfires and deeper issues the MCU has made so it can improve going forward. Thus, without further adieu here’s my list of what if’s, assuming I could give the MCU a little do-over:
- What If Ant-Man Is As Crazy and Brilliant As An Ant Sized Superhero Should Be — It’s kind of ironic that the MCU’s smallest hero turned out to be its biggest missed opportunity. If you’ve seen the film you’ll know it suffers from being another passable, but forgettable superhero flick. What’s missing is that unique factor necessary to elevate such an unknown yet interesting concept of a film. Enter, or should I say exit, Edgar Wright. In 2015, with only 2 months left before filming, Wright stepped down as writer/director of Ant-man citing creative differences between himself and the studio. Now while elements of his vision made it into the final cut, the film does lack his very unique style and flourish that would have made what ended up as a standard Marvel outing far more innovative. Joss Whedon, director of the first two Avengers films, even took to Twitter to convey his dismay at the loss, saying ‘the script was not only the best script that Marvel had ever had but the most Marvel script I’d read’, immediately selling him on the tough concept of an ant-sized hero.
Ever since fans have lamented the film that could have been. Just imagining Wright’s flashy cuts, transitions and directorial quirks, which work so well in Scott Pilgrim and the Cornetto trilogy, in a standalone Ant-man origin where the character by his very nature, is as silly as its premise suggests, and it’s hard to deny that one wouldn’t complement the other. In the end, Wright moved on and so did the MCU, however, this serves as the studio’s first case of sacrificing quality for proven yet formulaic storytelling. But it sure wouldn’t be the last… - What If We Toss The Play-It-Safe Formula Out The Window — Ant-man was hardly the lone offender here and more than a few films suffer the studio playing it safe and steady with their characters in order to build them up for the future (Doctor -not so- Strange and Captain -Less than- Marvel-lous). However, as long as certain criteria are met, it would be so interesting to see writers and directors unleashing their full creative passions on characters who are begging to be explored. The worry the studio no doubt had with letting them do this was not only risking the overall quality of the films but the continuity not syncing when the team-up happens and jeopardising the big money-maker.
Now, while there are good counter-arguments to be made here, the thought of what we could have been if Marvel had given directors and writers a bit more slack leaves the mind drooling: What if Ant-Man and Doctor Strange were as visually dynamic as its material begs? What if Thor had been allowed to embrace his wackier side earlier on? What if Iron Man 2 were allowed to be its own film rather than an Avengers advert? What if Captain Marvel had been less…empty?
I get it’s not easy for Disney to relinquish control over such high earning and delicate franchises, nor should they totally relinquish it either — look no further than The Last Jedi and the DCU for examples of blunders there — but if they continue to place their trust in talented and unique directors such as Waititi, Gunn and Coogler then the rewards might far exceed their expectations: Black Panther’s 1.3 Billion dollar return serves as definitive financial leverage on this one, as well as Waititi and The Russos much-needed reimagining of Thor from a character standpoint and that’s all the argument you’ll need. Thankfully, it seems the MCU is learning with Sam Raimi helming Doctor Strange’s next film, the Multiverse of Madness, a sequel that promises to be just as zany as its source material. - What If The Iron Man Sequels Were Good — Oh man. The hype going into these films was, at the time, unparalleled. The first film had been such a huge hit critically, among the fans and at the box office that it literally launched the MCU. The trouble was Marvel needed a sequel and fast. And this time, they weren’t shy about getting involved in the overarching story they wanted to shape.
The result? Upon release, both films were met with medium to fair reviews, nothing bad and nothing unique, just more fun superhero romps. But over time, they’ve slipped behind in people’s rankings and even memories, existing now as entertaining but forgettable sequels: ‘too passable to hate and too meaningless to love’. This is such a shame, especially as the acting talent on offer for the villains alone should elevate the films through the roof! Combine this with RDJ’s larger than life performance and the passion of both its directors and the films could have surpassed even the original. Instead, we’re left asking: What if the villains had more meaning than simple one-hit wonders? What if The Mandarin were as dangerous as his comic counterpart? What if the studio allowed Jon Favreau more time and creative freedom?
Instead, we’re left thinking Iron Man works best in team-up movies where he has other superheroes to bounce off. Which sucks because, Iron Man’s origin film showed that doesn’t have to be true, you just need a studio with the correct agenda. - What If We Solved Marvel’s Villain Problem — Go on, just try and name the bad guy from Thor 2, or Doctor Strange or Ant-man…difficult isn’t it. That’s because they’re as bland and passable as store brand soup. It’s another issue stemming from the formulaic plots and play-it-safe mentality that a certain range of villains can be generously defined as one time stand-ins.
Thankfully, in more recent films, villains have taken on a much more memorable tone with Killmonger, Thanos, Vulture and The Grandmaster among them. But imagine if we could reinvent the likes of the Mandarin and Whiplash to give them a much more threatening and personal touch to their schemes. Arguably, this is why the former villains work so well (if they’re not Jeff Goldblum). But more than just this it would elevate the films, as well as the hero in them, if the threat they face was unique and challenged our heroes in ways we haven’t seen before, forcing them to grow to be better. Now that would be something we’d love to see! Well, that and… - What If A Villain Took The Spotlight — Now I know Thanos was the first villain to have his own movie (even that was shared by a ton of Avengers) and Killmonger very nearly stole the show from Black Panther, but ultimately we haven’t seen a movie lead by a ‘bad guy’. Within Marvel, we get this in the frame of anti-heroes such as Blade, The Punisher, and we will see it further explored in Loki’s spin-off TV show: which don’t get me wrong, is great. But imagine if we got to see a real bad guy inhabit their own movie. Doctor Doom, The Mandarin and Red Skull to name a few would make brilliant additions to the MCU as explored in their own origin stories. Then when they come face-to-face the Avengers in later films, they have a huge build-up and leave us questioning who is right and who will win?
And if the studio still has reservations, we need look no further than the Joker. If the clown prince of crime’s first solo outing proved anything, it’s that if you shift perspective then even as bad a guy as him can be, at the least, sympathetic and at most a highly successful film. It begs the question, what else could be conjured if we could have a do-over on the villain front? - What If We Dispose Of The Generic CGI Armies — Superhero films have come a long way in the last 20 years and are now dominating what it means to be a Hollywood blockbuster. But one way they haven’t evolved is in their third act, where the final fight almost always boils down to our collection of heroes fighting a disposable, unemotional and forgettable computer-generated army of substitute stormtroopers. Particularly when you look at the Avengers movies, this problem persists and has proven to be a difficult creative challenge for the writers to overcome. I mean when you think about it, it’s hard enough involving all of your heroes in meaningful ways within the screen time, let alone dishing out enough time to get to know several worthwhile villains to match them.
It seems that the way to solve this one is simply to keep on putting your faith in your creative teams to come up with new and interesting ways that our heroes and villains can come to a head without simply retreading the same territory. The Guardians films offered unique versions of this and they paid off enormously, What if we introduce a small unit of villains for our heroes to individually combat? The Sinister Six for example? Or What If the finale didn’t have to be an all about brawl, but a matter of wills and intelligence? — Is the battle of wits from The Princess Bride too cheesy an example? - What If Ultron Had A Take-Two — On the surface as well as underneath, there’s a lot to like about the Avengers sequel. James Spader and Andy Serkis’ casting, a script with great dialogue, slower scenes, and deeper themes as well as exploring new areas of our characters, all chief among them. But something about the film just didn’t have as much of an impact as the others in the anthology. Sure the first is the iconic team-up, the last is the dramatic conclusion and Infinity War is explosively Thanos’s, but what happened to Ultron? Well, a good indicator is that after filming Joss Whedon, a self-proclaimed workaholic, completely dropped off the map; the pressures from a studio to fit an insane amount of story into one movie were apparently too much and the creator hasn’t really been seen since (except for a brief stint trying to rescue Justice League). And on rewatching Ultron, you get a sense there is a great story and worthy sequel to the Avengers here.
The problem is it’s hiding below about a thousand other things the studio required to be in the film. I mean I could try to name all of the plot, let alone character origins, crammed into the film, but that would take up the rest of the article. In fact, it’s a wonder the film was left with any heart at all: we can thank Whedon for fighting to keep scenes like the party and Clint’s home life to give the film some much-needed breathing space to ground us. So if we could, then giving Ultron a little less stuffy plot and a little more character exploration moments would hopefully help to make the film a more well rounded Avengers adventure. And one of those aspects is… - What If Quicksilver Lived To Die Another Day — Pietro ‘Quicksilver’ Maximoff’s all too brief existence in the MCU left a bitter taste in fan’s mouths. This had as much to do with the fact that his character wasn’t nearly as endearing as his comic book counterpart, as to how great we all know he could have been. We need look no further than the same character’s debut and iconic scene in X-Men: Days of Future’s Past for proof that you can indeed make that character work, and very well at that. In this vein, it’s a shame the MCU’s version died before he could grow into his own, largely because he has one of the funniest, coolest powers available. So if we could go back, changing his character to make him a more likeable, fun and quirky hero would go along way towards developing a lasting impression in the MCU, and one in which his eventual death would have a lot more impact than it originally did.
To be fair, if we now have a multiverse to play with then perhaps just bringing X-Men’s awesome version of Quicksilver over to the MCU would remedy the hole left by what could have been here. - What If We Recommissioned The Netflix Series…Namely Daredevil and Punisher — Okay this one is controversial and difficult to build a case for because they don’t overly belong in the continuity of the MCU. And that’s okay, they don’t need to. The thing is Daredevil is a near-perfect representation of the character and is easily the stand out highlight of the Netflix shows. I could go on and on about how good its gritty storylines are and how well it presents its villain, but I would rather focus on why they should be brought back. Punisher because Jon Bernthal is the punisher…fact. His casting is the RDJ of the TV series, meaning I can’t imagine replacing him, ever! He’s so perfect he makes what amounts to a pretty okay TV show, pretty damn cool. And Daredevil, because it’s just very well made and offers a new realistic alternative to the galaxy travelling world-ending Avengers storylines.
Now I know the Defenders, Netflix’s small scale Avengers replica, wasn’t the best by a long long shot, and that probably contributed to the show's cancellation, but a remake of such could function as the Iron Man of that universe, launching a whole new collection of unique heroes and villains alike. I mean, come on, who doesn’t want to see Bullseye and Kingpin return to wreak havoc? And that’s without the Punisher blasting them to smithereens. - What If We Considered Diversity — Arguably this is the most important issue plaguing the MCU’s past and future when seen from the now. Diversity, as explored here, is split into two topics: the first concerns race and gender and is an issue the MCU has taken more seriously over the last handful of years, with two of the last four films being female-led, and the next phase including a new female Thor in Natalie Portman, an Asian hero in Shang-Chi, as well as Blade, Falcon and the Eternals all boasting greater ethnic representation. Which is a great start towards a much needed more diverse universe. But it is fun to consider alternatives looking back for a more diverse cast. For instance, What if instead of Peter Parker, who we’ve seen twice already on the big screen, we saw Miles Morales as Spider-man interacting with Tony and Cap? What if Storm had her own film to go along with Black Panther’s? Hell what if we just had more gender and racially diverse films as a whole?
This leads nicely into my second point: diverse storytelling. Now, of course, with more diverse characters comes more representative stories. With all but two of the earth-born heroes in the current MCU coming from America, it really limits the potential of not only interesting stories from other places but also different styles of storytelling. Incorporating new perspectives from all forms of life provides an opportunity to tell stand-alone, compromised and nuanced stories that defy and challenge perhaps even what we would call traditional superhero movies, let alone Marvel styled ones. Adjusting for this change, therefore, allows the MCU to subvert its heavily established tropes while exploring new ground and pushing the limits of the superhero genre past where it’s been even in the comics before. And addressing both of these allows the studio and genre to atone for the under/misrepresentations of previous decades and move the industry as a whole in a positive and innovative direction, something we would no doubt all be interested to see.
So that’s my list of What Ifs. Of course, it doesn’t even begin to address all of the possibilities floating around our minds, like What if Peggy Carter was given the super-soldier serum? What if the new Avengers instead of the originals had been snapped to dust, how would they have teamed up to get out heroes back? What if Cap and Thor both reached for Mjölnir at the same time, who would be worthier? etc, but most of these are just fun one-off story alternatives that exist in their own universe (I suppose a relative term now). Plus it seems we’ll receive answers to these when the show premieres next year.
In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed and let me know what you thought or if there are some What Ifs I missed out on, and as usual thanks for reading!
