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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
According to Vulture, one of the reasons behind Scarlett Johansson's lawsuit against Disney is that there are no more Black Widow appearances planned for Phase 4. Depending on how the lawsuit plays out, this means that Black Widow won't reappear again, not even in the Multiverse. Kevin Feige really wanted to work with her again and this lawsuit could scuttle these plans for good.
Edited by Chrononaut70 on Aug 4th 2021 at 9:49:17 AM
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From what I can tell only the most recent one and even then that's because it explicitly cribs off Secret Wars. It's only really been in the last decade that Marvel's actually gone in on multiversal collisions between that, Spider-Verse, and several video games.
Yeah I'll be honest I'm surprised at how ugly this whole lawsuit is turning out to be. I presumed this was just usual Hollywood millionaire hoopla but it really seems like the new Disney management under Chapek has no problems with bridges burning if it means saving money. Not that I expect this to completely derail the MCU train but Feige has clearly run an overall better ship once he was given autonomy and this better not screw it up.
Johansson once said that she had no plans to return as Black Widow in the post-Infinity Saga MCU though she really wanted to work with Feige on multiple projects, including bringing numeroys unadapted stories to the big screen. As mentioned before, the other reasons why she filed the lawsuit is that there were no more Black Widow appearances planned for Phase 4, so she might have had different thoughts.
Edited by Chrononaut70 on Aug 4th 2021 at 11:46:53 AM
The one really big "what if" I remember Marvel doing is that time they punted everyone back a few hundred years into the Baroque period.
Usually it's more still like "what if the world was mostly the same, but X hero they joined this team or fought this bad guy or were born in this fantasy locale instead of where we're used to." Slightly altered histories, basically, or characters in places you wouldn't expect. Even Marvel Zombies was explicitly a "the main timeline, but everything goes horribly wrong."
Edited by KnownUnknown on Aug 5th 2021 at 1:26:24 AM
They've had a few other Recycled In Space takes that were interesting. I remember Secret Wars (2015) had a bunch of limited-run parallel dimensions, including the 1872 subseries that was pretty similar to 1602 in concept, except this time it transplanted a bunch of characters into the Wild West period instead.
Edited by AlleyOop on Aug 5th 2021 at 5:07:11 AM
There was a sort of What If where Steve was Iron Man
It was called Bullet Points and it was What If Erskine was shot early and also a bunch of other stuff is different because the government instead asks Steve to become the pilot of Iron Man, a government built power armor thats too small for a beefy boy and also once you’re sealed in you’re in for the long haul
Also other stuff was different. Peter Parker was both Rick Jones and the Hulk
Forever liveblogging the Avengers![]()
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Don't forget the true star, random BMW from the ensemble poster
! (Not mine)
Edited by EmeraldEmperor on Aug 5th 2021 at 8:33:14 AM
Y'know, I gotta wonder if What If..? will give us some Early Bird Cameos from future MCU stars. Maybe one of the Eternals or the aforementioned Shang-Chi will show up and comment on something that'll foreshadow what will happen in the prime timeline.
Edited by MatthewWayne on Aug 5th 2021 at 8:50:46 AM
"I'm Mr. Blue, woah-woah-ooh..."DC's attempt at a 'what if' series should be called 'What the hell?
have a listen and have a link to my discord serverWhat-If Bruce Wayne was shot in the alley?
Which we already know the result due to Flashpoint. Thomas Wayne becomes Batman and Martha becomes the Joker.
You can easily do a reverse, Martha becomes Batwoman and Thomas the Joker.
Edited by slimcoder on Aug 5th 2021 at 9:20:28 AM
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."

They can make new stuff with the characters, but the versions we saw in the Netflix shows belong to Netflix, not Marvel Studios. This means that we can get Luke Cage or Daredevil or Jessica Jones in upcoming projects, but they can never ever directly reference the events of any of the Netflix shows, so they're effectively Exiled from Continuity and it's more cost effective for Marvel Studios to just reintroduce them with retold backstories instead.
I never really thought about it but it actually does make sense that they'd effectively be forced to go Broad Strokes. After all even though the character rights have lapsed Netflix still has the actual shows themselves...and of course they would, they produced the damn things.
Here's a real Mind Screw for ya: people have compared the MCU's time travel to DBZ's but the Tournament of Power clearly establishes that DBZ also has a DC-style multiverse.