# Anyone else watching the Marvel "What If" series? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** disney-hulu, cartoons-animation\ **Created:** [August 23, 2021, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-watching-the-marvel-what-if-series/949338 "2021-08-23T02:07:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2021, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-watching-the-marvel-what-if-series/949338/1 "2021-08-23T02:07:18Z")
I’m usually not a massive Marvel Cinematic Universe fan, but a good friend is a sound editor/engineer at Skywalker Sound and did the sound for the What If series, so I watched the first couple that have been released so far to give him props and see what all the discussion was about for the past several months. I wasn’t really expecting to be surprised at all. Turns out, it’s REALLY cool. They basically take a point in some story, and present an alternate timeline where something turned out very differently. It’s all animated, but for the most part, the voice actors are the real actors from the live action movies. So what do you think? Anyone else watched any of these? ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2021, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-watching-the-marvel-what-if-series/949338/2 "2021-08-23T02:08:04Z")
These folks are! 🙂 > [@What If...? (Disney+ Series) \[Open Spoilers After First Post\]](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-disney-series-open-spoilers-after-first-post/948478/81): > > …in a world where Thanos didn’t turn out to be a genocidal dictator, he turns into the muscle for a team of wannabe Robin Hoods who can’t stop telling dad jokes. Nobody believes that Thanos is being serious here. And why would they? Its just a joke, and Thanos is playing along because its funny. He’s playing the straightman. This is all elementary chaos theory at play. A butterfly flapping its wings in Siberia eventually causes tornadoes in Alabama. And in a multi-verse with billions of versio… ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2021, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-watching-the-marvel-what-if-series/949338/3 "2021-08-23T02:11:32Z")
Well crap… apparently searching for “What if” doesn’t work too well on here. ---
**Author:** ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/codinghorror/32/4242_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/codinghorror)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2021, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-watching-the-marvel-what-if-series/949338/4 "2021-08-23T02:13:22Z")
Yes, “what” and “if” are both search stopwords. Sometimes putting things in quotes to make them a phrase helps, but not in this case… What if was one of my favorite comic series back in the day. > **[What If (comics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_If_(comics))** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > What If, sometimes stylized as What If...?, is a comic book anthology series published by Marvel Comics whose stories explore how the Marvel Universe might have unfolded if key moments in its history had not occurred as they did in mainstream continuity. Since What If debuted in 1977, the comics have been published in 13 series as well as occasional stand-alone issues. > In 2021, an animated series based on the What If comics premiered on Disney+, ... ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2021, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-watching-the-marvel-what-if-series/949338/5 "2021-08-23T11:27:28Z")
[Moderating] I would merge this in with the other thread, if we had a thread merge tool here. Unfortunately, the last time I tried to use it, I discovered that we don’t, and it made a horrible mess. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2021, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-watching-the-marvel-what-if-series/949338/6 "2021-08-23T21:06:56Z")
Thanks anyway. I didn’t realize searching for “What if” even in quotes, won’t return values. ---
**Author:** ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/codinghorror/32/4242_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/codinghorror)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2021, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-watching-the-marvel-what-if-series/949338/7 "2021-08-27T21:49:38Z")
There is in fact a topic merge tool, and it works fine; I think what people were objecting to is the particular order they preferred the posts be merged in. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2021, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-watching-the-marvel-what-if-series/949338/8 "2021-08-28T00:04:33Z")
A merge would leave them in the same order they were in. There is no tool that does that. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2021, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-watching-the-marvel-what-if-series/949338/9 "2021-08-28T02:18:21Z")
Right–what you have is more of a “splice” tool. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2021, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-watching-the-marvel-what-if-series/949338/10 "2021-08-28T13:04:11Z")
I didn’t even know about the series until this thread. Now I’ll be sure to catch it. I was done buying comics by the time the What If… title came out but my younger brother still bought them and of course I’d read them. Just to make sure they were appropriate for younger bro. 😉 Anyway, I remember really liking the What If series. The show does sound cool. ---
**Author:** ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/codinghorror/32/4242_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/codinghorror)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2021, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-watching-the-marvel-what-if-series/949338/11 "2021-09-04T21:15:40Z")
The merge tool does indeed leave them in the order they were in. I suppose we could have a “pick your poison” dialog that asks people if they want the posts to be in the original order of the topic they were merged from, or if they want all the posts to be mashed together. It’s my opinion that keeping the sequence of the original topic is more important, so the posts should be transplanted together as a block, but I also feel you could make a valid case for the other “smush them all together” approach. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2021, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-watching-the-marvel-what-if-series/949338/12 "2021-09-04T21:44:16Z")
You’re arguing for keeping discussions threaded. “Keep the order the same” means that posts with earlier timestamps come earlier in the discussion, while posts with later timestamps come later in the discussion. Always do that, and you will, in fact, keep the sequence of the original topic. There will be some other posts in between, but that’s fine, because there are always other posts in between anyway. ---
**Author:** ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/codinghorror/32/4242_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/codinghorror)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2021, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-watching-the-marvel-what-if-series/949338/13 "2021-09-04T23:28:11Z")
Right. But what I think you are underestimating is the importance of sequence; in my experience most posts are replies to the post above them, whether the user indicated that (by pressing the reply button on the appropriate post, or quoting the post) or not. So when you splice a number of posts together purely based on timestamp, it could get weird for readers. At any rate, I agree with you that offering a choice here is probably better since there is no one single correct answer when merging topics together. Sometimes one method (transplant as a single contiguous block at the bottom of the current discussion) will be better; sometimes the other (transplant as a mixed splice based on timestamp).