What If…? s1

This review by Tom Jorgensen includes spoilers for Season 1 of What If…?, which is now streaming on Disney+. Similarly, the success of What If’s art style wavers depending on the story being told. It’s a mix of modern 3D Disney animation and the MCU’s cinematography that wholeheartedly favors cosmos-set episodes over earthbound ones. The bright neons of Star-Lord T’Challa’s Knowhere heist and the brain-breaking Watcher/Ultron multiversal melee both explode off the screen. The terrestrially set premiere episode, taking place in 1940s New York, was a terrible first visual impression, with the SSR’s dingy headquarters and HYDRA’s low-lit base signaling trouble for episodes that don’t have the benefit of magic or space lasers to brighten