Marvel's What If...? shares first look at an alternate animated world in twisty trailer

Marvel's What If...?, the upcoming animated, 23-episode Disney+ series, has dropped its first mind-bending, MCU-canon-warping trailer, thanks to today's Disney Investor event.

It's all about the alternatives for What If...? as each episode, hosted by Uatu The Watcher (Jeffrey Wright), contemplates a scenario that could have happened in the Marvel universe if things had gone a little bit differently. Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) could become Captain America instead of Steve Rogers, for example.

But the far-out almost-weres don't stop there, as the trailer below shows:

As the clip teases, it's "a prism of endless possibility," and we get movie-worthy looks at everyone from Tony Stark to Nick Fury to Kate Bishop, all wending their ways through storylines and scenarios they probably never could've seen coming — until now. The trailer's epic scope appears to live up to Marvel's pledge, renewed during Disney's blowout Investor Day event, that it's bringing its cinematic A-game to all its original, MCU-connected Disney+ shows.

With a cast of returning all-stars lending their voices to the series — including Atwell, Josh Brolin, Dominic Cooper, Michael Douglas, Karen Gillan, Jeff Goldblum, Sean Gunn, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Djimon Hounsou, Samuel L. Jackson, Toby Jones, Michael B. Jordan, Neal McDonough, Natalie Portman, Jeremy Renner, Michael Rooker, Paul Rudd, Mark Ruffalo, Sebastian Stan, and Taika Waititi — the cel-shaded beauty should inspire the next generation of comic creators.

Marvel's What If...?, from showrunner/creator A.C. Bradley and director Bryan Andrews, starts imagining what could've been beginning in the Summer of 2021 on Disney+.