The third season of Marvel Studios' ambitious and star-studded animated venture What If...? is well underway with the first two episodes of the batch having now been released for viewers on Disney+. The primary outing fared a bit better than its successor in our eyes, yet neither managed to fully caoture the magic that unmissables like What If... T'challa Became A Star-Lord\? and What If...Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands? flaunted when cementing themselves as prime viewing content for the inter-connected multiverse of stories.
In fact, the initial two episodes of this season didn't even manage to stack up to sucvh mediocre offerings as What If...Happy Hogan Saved Christmas? or What If... Peter Quill Attacked Earth's Mightiest Heroes?, spotlights from a particularly low point early in the second season. Even the no-stakes fun of What If... Thor Was an Only Child? outclassed the secondary offering from the third batch of anthology selections.
Interestingly, both of these episodes seem like decent enough ideas when approached "on paper" yet somehow were seen executed with little more than a dud effect. Premiering, What If... The Hulk Fought The Mech Avenger? posited a scenario in which The Hulk went full on Kaiju with his own legion of monsters in a situation that allowed for application of a Voltron-like super-assemblage. On paper that sounds incredible, but what we got was a missed shot at a bromance storyline between two of the characters most suited for it, replacing Bucky and Tony for one another, with Bruce and Sam being voiced respectively by their big-name Hollywood A-Lister counterparts. Bringing to the table the acting prowess of Anthony Mackie, Mark Ruffalo, Teyonah Perris, Sebastian Stan, David Harbour, Oscar Issaac, and Jeffrey Wright, a proper ensemble was set to hit the gate running with star power, but someone must have lost the spark before it's follow-up release.
On that note, the voice power of the secondary episode paled in comparison to that of the premiere - although the balance may have been struck by casting more small timers in the primary offering and fewer, bigger names for the second, with the latter offering no more in ther way of voice talent than Agatha Harkness actress Kathryn Hahn, Kingo actor Kumail Nanjiani, and two Agent Carter alums in the form of Howard Stark's Dominic Cooper and Jarvis's James D'arcy, leabing mainstay narrator Jeffrey Wright to round out the minimal cast.
What's even worse than the actor display in the second episode is the story itself. Two characters no one cares about could have made a decent story work but there wasn't one in sight. Doubtful that droves of die-hards kicked down the door when they heard Harkness and Kingo would duet. What was presented to fans in the form of What If... Agatha Went to Hollywood? had little more to offer in the way of substance than it did star-power and proved the general audience wrong in thinking the all-time-low Eternals had set the bar for in the MCU could in fact be matched. Thanks, Nanjiani.