What If...? review: Marvel at its middling worst; even a Chadwick Boseman tribute can't save it

opens up a world of possibility for Marvel, which it explores with enthusiasm, but also, in an act of hubris, with one hand tied smirkingly behind its back. A third-act resolution in this episode is described as ‘classic Star-Lord’ by one character, but to anybody who’s seen Race 2, it’s actually classic Abbas Mustan. This is the episode that presents the biggest ‘what if’ of the first three: "What if each of the six original Avengers died And Then There Were None-style, before they could do any avenging?" No comic book reimagining, for example, can be as blisteringly brilliant as Mark Millar’s Superman: Red Son, which asked the question, “What if Superman had been raised in the Soviet Union instead of a Kansas farm?” Or, more recently, the Peter B Parker version of Spider-Man from Into the Spider-Verse, compared hilariously by prod Phil Lord and Christopher Miller to The Karate Kid’s Mr Miyagi, ‘if Mr Miyagi doesn't know anything’. Marvel has a captive audience that isn’t going anywhere — they didn’t even complain much about Black Widow, a movie so bad that charging $30 for it warrants CBI intervention.