Top TV Memes: The Best Formats From Marvel's 'What If...?'

Marvel’s What If…? is an animated anthology series where characters from the MCU face very different timelines. From Thor as an only child to T’Challa as Star-Lord, there are a lot of changes to the hypothetical Marvel realities, both huge and small.

While most fans love the series, it’s also become a controversial talking point for some who greatly prefer the other Disney+ shows following the main storyline and universe. Regardless, it’s become a huge part of internet culture in the past three months, especially in memes.

What If…? deviates from the typical Marvel lore that we’ve studied up on for years. It’s also got some very, very strange changes no one was anticipating. We’ve spent hundreds of hours figuring out what the MCU really entails, and now it’s completely different. For some, that’s refreshing. For others, that’s just more of a reason to make memes. These episodes were some of the best out there in terms of meme creation, so here's where to find the best What If…? memes.

Most Popular Memes: Episode 1: "What If…Captain Carter Were the First Avenger?"

This episode follows Peggy Carter if she were the one to become Captain America rather than Steve Rogers. While this concept did gain a great deal of notoriety and acclaim from viewers, that’s not what everyone’s making jokes about. We’ve had a lot of notable memes come from this show, from the audience’s approval of the new Star-Lord to the fact that Black Widow was still in this series despite the lawsuit between her (original) actor and Disney raging on at the time. But none of these memes were as big as The Watcher.

The Watcher is basically an omniscient being that watches every possible reality of the Marvel universe. He’s first introduced in this episode as a sort of narrator, kind of like how Rod Sterling, carefree and detached, talked over scenes of haunted children murdering and enslaving entire continents in The Twilight Zone. However, at the end of the series, he takes on more than a passive role, but really we’re less concerned about him and more interested in his overdramatic dialogue.

In episode one, he says, “These are my stories. I observe all that transpires here, but I do not, cannot, will not interfere. For I am The Watcher.” This immediately became the most widespread meme from the show, and none have rivaled it since the first episode.

Most Meme Potential: Episode 5: "What If…Zombies?!"

This one got weird fast. It seems like there’s a unanimous understanding that zombies don’t belong in the MCU. There’s already enough weird drama going on there, and zombie Thanos isn’t really something we can effectively wrap our minds around when we’re still recovering from WandaVision. Honestly, no one’s really said a lot about this episode, which is most likely because there’s just way too much to unpack, and we don’t know where to start.

Since everything in the MCU that they don’t know how to explain can somehow be resolved by blaming the "quantum realm," that’s where the zombie virus is picked up. It then takes over Earth and apparently the whole universe, eventually hitting a point where the aforementioned zombie Thanos (complete with the Infinity Gauntlet) is a thing, and he really shouldn’t be.

It’s difficult to see why we aren’t making more memes about this. There’s a weird Harry Potter reference, a bunch of scenes of zombie superheroes using their powers while simultaneously existing as braindead monsters, and basically, it’s what Infinity War would look like if the writers had "imbibed" backstage and churned out a brand new script for the movie in three hours.

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