The following contains spoilers for Marvel’s What If? Episode 4
A brand new episode of Marvel’s animated series What If…? has arrived, and this one features the smallest voice cast yet. Episode 4 of the Marvel Studios show, titled “What If… Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?,” is a Doctor Strange-focused episode, but it has a relatively contained ensemble as it tells the story of the Sorcerer Supreme trying to change the past.
In this timeline, Jeffrey Wright’s The Watcher watches over as Dr. Stephen Strange gets into his car accident with a companion – Christine Palmer – with whom he’s in a relationship. She dies in the accident while he survives, and it’s her death that inspires him to seek out The Ancient One and become a sorcerer himself. Once he’s trained, he tries to turn back the clock and change the past, only to realize that Christine’s death is a “fixed point” on the timeline and is thus immovable.
While previous episodes of What If…? have featured some pretty significant recastings, Episode 4 brings back all the major players. Here are the MCU actors who reprise their roles in animated form in this episode:
Doctor Strange – Benedict Cumberbatch
Christine Palmer – Rachel McAdams
Wong – Benedict Wong
The Ancient One – Tilda Swinton
Christine Everhart – Leslie Bibb
No doubt it was easier to sign Cumberbatch, McAdams, and Wong on because they were renewing their contracts to return for the feature film sequel Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which completed production earlier this year. And Swinton, who first appeared in Doctor Strange and reprised her role in Avengers: Endgame, probably had at least one more option on her contract to reappear in a Marvel property. Heck, they even got Leslie Bibb to reprise her role as reporter Christine Everhart from Iron Man and Iron Man 2 – that’s a pretty significant callback.
As for new additions, the only major new character in this episode is O’Bengh, who is voiced by Ike Amadi, a voice actor whose credits range from Trollhunters to the video game Spider-Man: Miles Morales. The character of O’Bengh comes from the Marvel Comics and, as seen in this episode, is the keeper of the Lost Library of Cagliostro.