Disney and Marvel’s What If

This graphic novel was an interesting read for me. While the animation feels slick and true to the style of Disney/Marvel graphic novels. I also feel that they watered down the villains/heroes in a lot of the stories. For instance, in What If Donald Duck was Iron Man?, while I like the concept of the story and how they took elements from the first movie and attempted to elevate the origin story, it fell flat because not only did Donald Duck not have the qualities of Tony Stark/Iron Man, but the villains were one-note (which granted all of the villains were one note and half were featured by the Beagle Brothers). There was so much potential this graphic novel had and for me, it fell flat.

However, there were positives. I love how the creators did integrate other characters from Mickey Mouse and Friends into the stories. For instance, a lot of the stories starred Donald Duck and Goofy. Often times, we see Mickey Mouse take the prominent role, so the fact that he wasn’t the main character in every story was a nice change of pace for me. Also love how they had female characters centered. While it would’ve been nice to see more Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck what if..stories, essentially due to the fact that Stan Lee created Marvel for a girl he liked at the time. It was nice to see them represented, especially Daisy Duck as Lady Sif, when Donald Duck was Thor. They were able to get a little more fleshed out, however the story themselves felt a little rushed and wish we got more grounding in the stories and more layers in the villains.

I was expecting more from this graphic novel, but honestly Goofy as Hulk and Spider-Man was something I did not think would work because Goofy is one of the more lovable characters in the Mickey Mouse and Friends club. I didn’t think it would work, but surprisingly it did and Spider-Goofy was a classic story. What If…Goofy was Spider-Man? Was the highlight story because we were able to bring it back to 2002’s Spider-man, though I did want to see more of the struggle Goofy goes through, similar to Peter Parker, but liked the vibe and art style of this story.

Overall, this graphic novel I would recommend to young readers just getting into Marvel. However for avid Marvel readers…not so much.