Current Events > Can someone explain to me the purpose of "What If...?" ?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Canon is like the scoring system in sports; it's what gives it purposes. If you took points and victories out of sports, it would just be a bunch of people passing around a ball. Canon is the thing that gives a story meaning, the thing that says, "Yes, this was worth your time."

I've read a few of the What If? comics. They basically amounted to, "Oh, this character would have totally died if things had been different. That's right, your favorite hero is dead. (But not in the main continuity.)"

If they're using it to test the waters for an actual movie, that's smart. Let's have Captain America's girlfriend as his successor in a series of World War II era movies. But if it's just a cash-grab, I fail to see the point. You risk over-saturation of your product something that, by its own admission, contributes nothing to the overall story.

bad take

entertainment fun

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https://youtu.be/qOXCAcduo3A

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Bananana posted...

bad take

entertainment fun

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Bananana posted...

bad take

entertainment fun

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FortuneCookie posted...

Canon is like the scoring system in sports; it's what gives it purposes.

I feel like this is the take that you end up having by accepting mediocre writing in comics. Nobody is looking at a Stephen King novel and measuring its worth around whether it is or is not explicitly connected to the dark tower. I guess when the stories are bad the only thing you can fall back on is the knowledge that said story might connect to something later.

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Bananana posted...

bad take

entertainment fun

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Also, not every story has to contribute to an overall canon or worldbuilding. What happened to just enjoying a story for what it is?

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FortuneCookie posted...

Canon is like the scoring system in sports; it's what gives it purposes. If you took points and victories out of sports, it would just be a bunch of people passing around a ball. Canon is the thing that gives a story meaning, the thing that says, "Yes, this was worth your time."

This is a really fucking stupid sentiment.

If you enjoyed experiencing it, it was worth your time. It isn't made better or worse because it has more interconnection.

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Non canon has some perks

It allows folks to jump in and out without commitment. Like if I only watch or read one "what if" that's fine. If I'm not interested in one, I can just skip it. If I was originally uninterested or intimidated by getting involved in like a decade of the material, that's fine too. I can just watch agent carter be Captain America for a half hour without much other knowledge because it doesn't matter.

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You're taking this far to seriously TC. If you're not interested with material outside of the main universe then just ignore it all.

This is why oversaturation is a non issue for what ifs or elseworlds in comics. If fans really liked the storys, setting and characters they can return to it/them for more storys, and if not either discard or ignore them.

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What if.The X-Men lost Inferno is one of my favorite stand alone issues of a comic book ever.

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