With that in mind, let’s dig into ‘What If…? The World Lost Its Mightiest Heroes?’…
Required viewing
You’ll likely need to have seen pretty much all of the Phase 1 Marvel Cinematic Universe to fully understand this episode. And Ant-Man. Oh, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but I’ll get to that.
Voice cast
Jeffrey Wright is of course Uatu The Watcher. Returning to reprise their MCU characters are Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, Michael Douglas as Hank Pym, Tom Hiddleston as Loki, Clark Gregg as Agent Coulson, Frank Grillo as Crossbones, Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner and Jaimie Alexander as Lady Sif.
Stepping in for Scarlett Johansson is Lake Bell, who voices Poison Ivy in the spectacular DC animated series, Harley Quinn. Replacing Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark is Mike Wingert, and it’s not the first time – he played Iron Man in Avengers Assemble, Spider-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy and Marvel Future Avengers. Stephanie Panisello (Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness) is Betty Ross, and General Ross is Mike McGill and not William Hurt.
What’s different?
Circa Iron Man 2, Nick Fury and Natasha Romanoff begin their attempts to bring Tony Stark into the SHIELD fold, but instead of helping him fight the poisoning symptoms of the palladium core in his arc reactor, they appear to accidentally kill him with the same injection. Natasha is arrested by Brock Rumlow and his henchmen, but easily escapes.
Out in the desert, Agent Coulson finds Mjolnir, but as Hawkeye trains his bow on an approaching Thor his finger “slips” and he kills the God of Thunder dead with a single arrow. Hawkeye dies soon after.