Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing well. Today I'm here to review "Captain Carter", the first episode of the latest Disney+ Marvel series, Marvel's What If...?. This will be a non-spoiler review so if you haven't had a chance to watch it yet you can still get my thoughts on the episode. So let's get into it.
I'll be honest with you, this was one of the Marvel Disney+ shows that I really wasn't excited for just because I am not a fan of the "What if?" premise as I find that question in general to be a waste of time. Look, we all have things in our lives that we wish we could change and the question, "what if?" comes about because sometimes we even have an idea has to what we would change those things in our lives to. Especially if it's something we wish hadn't happened to us. The problem is that almost 100% of the time we can't change things to suit us better and it takes up alot of time wondering what might've happened if just one tiny thing changed during pivotal events in our lives, so what would be the point of even thinking about it?
What if? originally began as a comic book series in 1977. The basic premise of the series was one shot issues that examined alternate versions of particular events that happened in various Marvel Comics publications that been released over the years up to that point. For example, one issue of the original series explored what might've happened if Spider-Man had saved Gwen Stacey from death at the hands of the Green Goblin in The Amazing Spider-Man #121 and The Amazing Spider-Man #122. The problem that I have with this series is that every issue ends badly. And by that I mean that the writer of the issue goes with the worst possible outcome for the scenario they're writing. In Spider-Man's case, the issues that deal with him almost always end up with him dead, or sent to jail because his identity was outed by someone or one of his loved ones gets killed.
A second volume of the series began in 1989 and ran until 1998. This is the series that introduced Mayday Parker, which I'm currently reading about in The Amazing Spider-Girl. This is actually the only issue of the second What If? series that I've actually read as I have a reprint of the issue. The issue is different from the usual formula, because it set up an entire universe, known as Marvel Comics 2.
I also had the first issue of the 2004 series, which showed what might've happened if Jessica Jones had joined the Avengers after her ordeal with the Purple Man. In this story, Jessica is able to realize that something was wrong with Wanda Maximoff and helped her before "Avengers Disassembled" and "House of M" happened. At the end of the story, she married Steve Rogers. Which was a bizarre twist. It was still a good story though.
"Captain Carter" was actually a pretty solid start to the TV series. It's basically an alternate version of the 2011 film Captain America: The First Avenger, except with Peggy Carter getting the super soldier serum that made Steve Rogers become Captain America in the original movie. Honestly, I thought that worked pretty well. Almost the entire cast from the movie returned to reprise their roles. Except for Chris Evans as Steve Rogers, Hugo Weaving as Red Skull, and Tommy Lee Jones as Colonel Phillips. Phillips doesn't appear in the episode at all, it's a different character, but you'll have to watch the episode (if you haven't already) to find out who it is. I don't know how I didn't notice it on the poster, but Peggy's shield and costume have the British flag on them instead of the American flag, which is fitting since Peggy isn't actually an American.
I thought it was weird having Sebastian Stan play a pre-Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes again after ten years. It was cool though because we really didn't get to spend much time with Bucky before he became the Winter Soldier. It was also cool to have Dominic Cooper returning to voice Howard Stark, since we haven't seen the younger Howard since Agent Carter ended in 2016.
The animation style, actually reminded me of the animation used in the Batman: The Telltale Series games that were released for the PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. And like with that first game, the style works extremely well for the action scenes, but it's a little clunky for the other scenes. It's still gorgeous looking though and I actually quite like it despite the clunkiness of it outside of the action scenes.
Overall this was a great episode. It also works great as a series opener. However, I'm probably not going to watch the entire rest of the first season. There are episodes like Doctor Strange and Marvel Zombies that I just do not care about, and I don't really feel a need to watch the whole season. Just the ones I do care about like Iron Man, Black Panther, and Guardians of the Galaxy, because those are the movies I like the most and am interested in seeing what would happen if certain events from those movies happened differently. That's the beauty of an anthology series like this, you don't have to watch every single episode to understand the show because every episode is different. But if you are an MCU fan, particularly one who is more of a fan than I am, I would highly recommend checking this episode out AND checking the season out on Disney+. Episode 2 comes out next week.
Now if you'll all excuse me, I'm going to go patiently wait for the season premiere of Lower Decks to start...and yes, I realize I have five and a half hours left to go before it comes on. I will be back tomorrow for my review of said season premiere. So until then have a wonderful evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.
No comments:
Post a Comment