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Marvel's What If…? Season 3 to Assemble Avengers' Robot Mecha, Voltron-Style

The "Marvel Animation Sneak Peek" panel at the D23 event screened footage from the third and final season of Marvel's What If…? animation series on Saturday. The footage teased that at least one episode will feature five giant robotic mecha that combine into an even bigger robotic mecha.

The footage showed a 2D limited-animation sequence, apparently inspired by 1970s and 1980s English-dubbed television anime, with the title Go-Avenger: Heroes of the Gamma War — an apparent reference to go or the Japanese word for five, Himitsu Sentai Gorenger (the first series in the Super Sentai franchise eventually adapted into English as Power Rangers), and Hyakujū Ō Golion (the anime series adapted into English as Voltron). The sequence shows how Iron Man (Tony Stark) created the team-up.

The footage then shifts into modern-style 3D animation to introduce the pilots of the five robotic mecha: Captain America (Sam Wilson), Black Widow (with Alexei "Red Guardian" Shostakov riding tandem in her cockpit), Xu Shang-Chi, Monica Rambeau (Captain Marvel/Photon in the comics), and Moon Knight (Marc Spector). As the center robotic mecha's pilot, Captain America commands the team to combine by uttering "Avengers, assemble!"

The footage finally showed the combined Avengers robotic mecha fighting a horde of Mega-Hulk monsters.

The offical X (formerly Twitter account) for the series had posted a season 3 screenshot of two of the robotic mecha (before they combined with the others) on January 22:

Marvel's earlier Japanese-inspired collaborations include the 1977-1979 Godzilla, King of the Monsters comic series which introduced the Red Ronin robotic mecha, Toei's 1978-79 live-action Spider-Man series (featuring the Japanese tokusatsu special-effects genre's first giant robot Leopardon), three early Super Sentai series that introduced robotic mecha (including transforming and combining ones) into the franchise, the 1979-1980 Shogun Warriors comic series based on Mattel's imported toys (Brave Raideen or Raydeen, Danguard Ace, and Combattler V or Combatra), the 2000-2002 Marvel Mangaverse comic series featuring manga-inspired art by Ben Dunn and other artists, four Marvel television anime series with an original video anime in 2010-2013, and the 2014 Marvel Disk Wars: The Avengers anime series.

More recent collaborations include the 2017 Marvel Future Avengers television anime series and manga, Kodansha's Magazine "Marvel" Manga Award in 2017 and 2018, Kazuki Takahashi's "Secret Reverse" and other one-shot manga (2019), Sanshirō Kasama and Hikaru Uesugi's Deadpool: Samurai manga (2020), Nao Fuji's Marvel Meow series (2021), powered suits designed by Eiichi Shimizu for the Tech-On Avengers comic series (2021), three Ultraman limited series in 2020-2022 with a new Ultraman x Avengers comic and an Ultraman: Along Came a Spider-Man manga coming next week, and Viz's Marvel Comics: A Manga Tribute collection (2023).

Update: More Japanese-inspired Marvel projects added. Thanks, mdo7 and Silver Kirin.

Source: "Marvel Animation Sneak Peek" panel at D23