Marvel’s What If…? episode eight included something similar to literally breaking the fourth wall as our keen observer friend the Watcher (Jeffrey Wright) decided to witness a reality where things went terribly wrong more often than not. In this universe, Tony Stark’s highly developed artificial intelligence (A.I.) used extreme measures once more to achieve its goals, but this time it was much more successful: as the episode’s title indicates, Ultron defeats the Avengers and then attacks the Watcher because it has advanced to a level of consciousness where it is aware of the existence of other multiverses and the Watcher himself.
James Spader, a ’80s legend and prolific film and television actor, provided the voice of the titular killer robot army in the movie Avengers: Age of Ultron, on which this episode is based. The actor who stepped in to play Ultron has a very special set of experiences when it comes to playing characters that were originally portrayed by other actors. It’s possible that Spader was too busy with The Blacklist or that he wasn’t asked. However, when that show did a quasi-animated episode at the beginning of the pandemic, he did manage to find the time to play his character in that.
A seasoned film actor best known for playing zombie apocalypse survivor Aaron on AMC’s The Walking Dead, Ross Marquand is also a well-known voice actor for series including Robot Chicken, Invincible, and Family Guy. However, he made his MCU debut by filling in for Hugo Weaving when he was unable to reprise his role as the Red Skull in Avengers: Infinity War. Red Skull, who is now the being in charge of guarding the Soul Stone on Vormir, played a significant role in both that movie and Endgame, meaning that Marquand had work in both of them as well as What If? He co-starred as Red Skull in episode one, “What If… Captain Carter Were the First Avenger?” (albeit in his earlier, more Earth-bound state).
