Among all the shows announced for Marvel’s upcoming slate of Disney+ programs, the clear outlier has been What If…?, an animated adaptation of the company’s long-running and beloved series of comic book hypotheticals. Marvel Studios shed a little light on the show’s mystery today, in ways that are intriguing both in an obvious and compelling way—which is to say, Jeffrey Wright is voicing Uatu The Watcher, and that’s excellent—and also in more conceptual terms, because, hey, look at this cast list:
It’s worth clicking through to read all those names, because it’s impressive—especially in light of the show’s stated purpose of reprising and twisting major moments of MCU history. That’s the sort of thing that makes Michael B. Jordan an incredibly exciting get, for instance, because few characters went out with more untapped potential than his Black Panther villain Kilmonger. (And hey, we see you hiding over there, Chadwick Boseman.) Or take the Thor: Ragnarok team of Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Taika Waititi, and Jeff Goldblum—plus recently resurgent series star Natalie Portman. That’s to say nothing of eventual digital bad guy Toby Jones, or Captain America’s benefactor Stanley Tucci, or the space pirates from Guardians, or…really, unless you’re talking Chris Evans or RDJ, the possibilities here are pretty much endless—and endlessly intriguing.
Agent Carter! They’re doing an Agent Carter one, apparently, complete with Hayley Atwell, Neal McDonough, and Dominic Cooper as young Howard Stark. Sure, it’s fanservice, but at least it’s the good, strong stuff, the kind that kicks you in the back of the teeth and gets the fan-fiction juices flowing. Also, and we can’t really over-state this Jeffrey Wright as Uatu The Watcher.
What If…? arrives on Disney+ in Summer of 2021.