Marvel's New What If…? Series Explained: What, When, and Why It's Exciting
Marvel just announced its new Multiverse experimental novels in collaboration with Random House Worlds, and it sounds intriguing. Here's what we know so far.
The release of three brand-new novels is planned for 2024, and Marvel is working with Random House Worlds (a division of Penguin Random House) to publish them.
Each of the three novels will focus on a certain "What If…?" situation involving two original characters from the Marvel Universe and exploring a possibility.
Here are the titles and the synopsis of all the "What If…?" novels.
March 2024: What If… Loki Was Worthy? A Loki and Valkyrie Story
Madeleine Roux's What If… Loki Was Worthy? novel kicks off with a prank gone wrong: Loki accidentally gets Thor killed in his attack on Midgard, and this sets in motion a series of events.
Loki is banished from Asgard and together with Valkyrie, he tries to find the new heir to his passed brother's hammer, Mjolnir.
At the same time, Tony Stark is infuriated with what he presumes was an Asgard's attack on Midgard and declares war on Odin and his fellow gods after crafting himself a special armor for this conflict.
Loki and Valkyrie try to follow through with Thor's last wish and save both realms from destruction at the same time.
July 2024: What If… Wanda Maximoff and Peter Parker Were Siblings? A Scarlet Witch and Spider-Man Story
Seanan McGuire's What If… Wanda Maximoff and Peter Parker Were Siblings? is pretty self-explanatory.
While officially, no details have been disclosed yet, this novel will obviously take us to a universe where Scarlet Witch and Spider-Man are siblings, even though we can't be sure whether it's via adoption or even biologically.
For the time being, there are more questions than answers with this novel: we don't quite understand how Quicksilver and Magneto fit into the world where Wanda and Peter are siblings and what the main conflict of this story will be.
But we're pretty certain that this What If…? entry will brilliantly fuse fantasy and urban stories.
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October 2024: What If… Marc Spector Was a Host to Venom? A Moon Knight and Venom Story
Mike Chen's What If… Marc Spector Was a Host to Venom? is exploring the possibility of the Venom symbiote attaching itself to Moon Knight, which is bound to raise interesting mental health topics as the Dissociative Identity Disorder that Spector canonically has is quite similar to what a symbiote's host experiences.
No further details are yet known, and we can't even be sure if Spector will even be Moon Knight in this novel or if Venom will prevent him from ever going down that path.
If we had to guess, we'd say that the symbiote will find him when he's already Moon Knight since the author is known for his works in the sci-fi genre.