What If, Season One Review (Part 2)

Marvel's What If?, Season 1

The second part of my review of season one of Marvel's What If?, this time covering episodes six through nine. 

Episode Six: "What If... Killmonger Rescued Tony Stark?"

One of the biggest missed opportunities in the MCU movies is that villains only ever really show up for one movie, and then their story is over. Most of the time, that story ends with the finality of death. With the sole exception of Loki, the villains never really quite got the same amount of long-running screentime or rivalry that their comic-book counterparts have. That's one of the biggest losses of the format. Which is where the 'What If' scenario really does shine a lot. Bringing characters back from the dead has always been a touchy subject, and I'm honestly already a wee bit leery with how they are bringing back admittedly alternate versions of Vision and Loki over in the Disney+ shows. But in the realm of 'What If', of course we can get to see these more minor villains explored a bit more.

And one of the best villains in the MCU? Erik Killmonger, obviously, played by the very charismatic Michael B. Jordan. His story was told pretty well in Black Panther, but people do wonder what things would look like if he survives. Now this episode isn't exactly that. It's not "what if Killmonger won that movie", which would be the obvious What If prompt. No, it's "what if Killmonger fucked around during the events of Iron Man?" One thing that is rather interesting about Killmonger is how easily we could bend him into being a hero -- him and Vulture are two of the antagonists in the MCU that could very easily become a more off-the-law hero kind in the way that Hank Pym and Tony Stark are. 

And in this episode? Killmonger absolutely succeeds. I do find it interesting because in the beginning, it does make it out to be Killmonger basically taking the place of Iron Man in this alternate universe. Killmonger rescues Tony Stark in the opening act of Iron Man, preventing Tony Stark from receiving that huge amount of humility and character growth throughout the first movie. Turns out, though, this is all a sham on Killmonger's part, and he amazingly plays every single character on board in order to engineer a conflict between Wakanda and the United States. This plan involves killing James Rhodes and T'Challa, blaming the other country for the deed, and eventually Killmonger also racks up the deaths of Tony Stark, Ulysses Klaue, and ingratiates himself into the Wakandan royal family after stoking the US military into using the Stark-tech Liberators to attack Wakanda. Ultimately, Killmonger gets what he wants in his movie, albeit through a fair bit more deceit. The episode ends with him victorious, although like the Marvel Zombies one, it does have the brief ray of hope of Pepper Potts working with a young Shuri to expose Killmonger. 

This one is a bit more straightforward, I feel, although it is still pretty fun to see them take a character and just make him super-badass and everything goes his way. Not too much to complain here; I do really like Killmonger and I definitely do like that they keep his ruthless streak very much intact. 

Episode Seven: "What If... Thor Were an Only Child?"

After the previous batch of episodes have been pretty heavy on death and darkness (even if it's dark comedy), this one is just a full-on madness in the style of episode two. Chris Hemsworth's Thor gets reimagined as essentially a cosmic frat boy in this episode, because he never had Loki to bounce off of. Admittedly, part of me is disappointed because I had expected from the title that this was going to delve into some Thor/Nordic mythology. And... and this one was at least fun? It perhaps bordered a bit too heavily on parody at times in a way that I don't think the Star-Lord T'Challa episode did, though. In that episode, I could believe even the more outlandish interpretations of Thanos or Nebula, because the show gives an explanation -- T'Challa being a positive influencce on the two. Here, everyone acts kind of like frat boys for no real reason. And I don't want to rain on the parade of this episode, because it's still very funny all throughout, but I'm pretty sure that this is my least favourite What If episode in this season. 

I really don't have too much to say here beyond that it's pretty fun. There's Captain Marvel being called in to fight Thor around halfway through in a surprisingly well-animated superhuman fight. A whole metric ton of cameos from the MCU, some great comedy mostly from Thor and Darcy, but the 'plot' never really evolves beyond the one-note concept. Perhaps if this episode was around half its length, I would've liked it more? Of course, we got the non-sequitur ending of Infinity-stone Ultron-Vision showing up at the end...

Episode Eight: "What If... Ultron Won?"

...and turns out that there is a plotline tying together the final few episodes. That was a bit of a surprise that caught me off-guard. I was prepared for something like this, of course, something that would tie some of the universes together (or with Loki), but this episode peels back the story of the Infinity Ultron that we saw in episode seven's end. It's a movie somewhat similar to the Killmonger or Hank Pym ones, where the villain just wins full-stop against everything in the world, except Ultron is a lot more comprehensive in his wiping out of the Marvel universe. A truer-to-text adaptation of the comic book version of Age of Ultron, in that it's an apocalyptic future where some of our heroes are trying to survive against the hordes of generic Ultron drones. We do get context to what's going on -- the MCU movie Avengers: Age of Ultron get shown in this scenario where the Vision body turned out to actually be successfully integrated with Ultron's, and he quickly pulls off a Terminator III on all of humanity. In an almost off-handed way, Ultron also kills Thanos and gains all six infinity stones almost immediately. 

And in a super-cosmic way that the MCU has been shying from in previous movies, Ultron just ends up seeing every facet of the universe, and end up using the powers of the stones to plan to invade other planets and realms. Pretty badass, and the episode is paced quickly enough that we get to see Infinity-Ultron do something cool but it doesn't overstay its welcome. Lots of planets fall to Ultron's cosmic invasion. But after wiping out most life in the galaxy, Ultron just becomes... confused about his purpose. It's something that's low-key present in Ultron's debut movie, but we obviously didn't get to explore that part because Ultron is still obsessed with his original function during the plot of that movie. The voice actor they got to replace James Spader is... adequate, but there's admittedly a missing sense of manic-ness in Ultron's voice compared to Age of Ultron. Or that might just be the lack of synthetization effect on Ultron's voice. 

However, the meta-plot here isn't that it's just going to focus on the surviving heroes fighting against Ultron, because throughout the episode, Infinity Ultron does the same thing that Strange Supreme did a couple episodes ago, and actually becomes aware of the narrator, Uatu. Unlike Strange Supreme, Ultron does actually interfere and talk to Uatu. Uatu, having been a detached narrator all this while, ends up actually becoming horrified and panicked, which is something that I felt was done exceedingly well. Uatu, himself working with his own clause of non-interference, puts his hope into the Black Widow/Hawkeye storyline going on Earth. Some great voice-acting on Uatu's part as he observes the two mortal heroes and goes into a bit of a panic when Clint's desperation causes him to nearly overlook the all-important file about Arnim Zola in the KGB archives. And then we get a fun split of the episode where Infinity Ultron fights Uatu, while Hawkeye and Black Widow try to upload Arnim Zola's virtual consciousness to combat Ultron. Watching these 'What If' episodes with multiple alternate versions of everyone does make me a bit apathetic to the fates of these specific characters, but Hawkeye does get a very well-drawn final shot. 

Uatu and Ultron's discussion is kind of interesting, too -- a being who wants to bring peace to the universe through 'silencing' the voices, and a cosmic being who has to watch all the suffering in the multiverse but forbidden to watch. I guess Uatu's oath is flexible enough that he can don that fancy Kirby armour to fight Infinity Ultron for a bit, though... pretty fun visuals, and we get the ending: Uatu calling for help from Strange Supreme, and, I bet, the other heroes/villains we've seen throughout the season as well. Neat stuff. 

Episode Nine: "What If... the Watcher Broke His Oath?"

And so What If ends, with a crossover between the alternate universes it has set up. Uatu acts as a cosmic Nick Fury, plucking Captain Carter, Party Thor, Star-Lord T'Challa, Killmonger the victor, Dr. Strange Supreme and a version of Gamora that wears Thanos's armour to form his own cosmic Avengers to fight Infinity Ultron. Admittedly, last episode's transition to this one isn't the most smooth... but you know what? It's pretty par the course for these sort of crossover what-if alternate continuity stories. The Gamora presumably came from an episode that wasn't produced? Or maybe it's just a wink at how many other different universes are our there in the multiverse... and, of course, the Thanos-killer Gamora just happens to have a plot device that can destroy Infinity Stones. 

There s a neat nod to how we wrap up some of the cliffhangers hinted in these other What If episodes, with Star-Lord T'Challa saving Peter Quill from Ego, or Shuri and Pepper Potts overthrowing Killmonger... but all this is interrupted by Uatu plucking these heroes out of their respective home universes and plopping them in Strange Supreme's bubbled-up dimension and creating the Guardians of the Multiverse. Ultimately it's just gathering these badasses up and pitting them against a threat -- a story idea that's been done many times before even within the MCU. None of the characters really have too much of a development here as we go straight from exposition to some gags before we get the action. 

And, admittedly, the action is pretty good! What If isn't really a show that's particularly spectacular as far as action scenes go, but these last three episodes certainly got the bulk of the special effects budget. Combining powers in weirder ways -- like that multiplication spell on Mjolnir, or the visuals of Strange Supreme summoning demons from his shadows, Ultron's slow-time zone, giant-Ultron vs. Cthulhu-monster-Strange... and at one point even tossing the literal Marvel Zombies universe on top of Ultron's head. Resistance Black Widow from episode 8 joins the team around the halfway point. The action is pretty neat and appropriately chaotic as everyone is just piling on hits on Infinity Ultron to distract him long enough for the stones to be destroyed...

Except the convenient plot device turns out to not be able to work with the Infinity Stones from another universe, but the previous episode's Arnim Zola hacker-arrow turns out to be able to take down Infinity Ultron long enough... for, surprise-surprise, the explicitly villainous Killmonger to create an Infintiy-Ultron-monger suit for himself. I mean, sure, okay. Killmonger and Arnim Zola both fight over the stones, then Strange Supreme and Uatu set up the same dimensional shield.

Everyone gets returned to their home dimensions; Widow gets returned to the 'dead Avengers' universe from episode three (which I didn't catch during my first watch-through) and we get a random mid-credits scene of the Steve Rogers from Captain Carter's universe being basically her timeline's equivalent of Bucky. 

This episode is overall pretty tightly-plotted, but kind of predictable and far more focused on action scenes than anything. Infinity Ultron kind of gets reduced to a pretty one-note antagonist, and for the most part, only Strange Supreme, resistance-Widow and Captain Carter really got any sort of character moment beyond witty one-liners. Even Uatu himself doesn't end up developing beyond his cryptic 'I watch but I cannot interfere but I care' bit -- not even a token explanation as to why his oath is important. All that said, a finale like this is kind of necessary, otherwise the whole season would end up just feeling like an exercise in continuity nods. 

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Overall, the ending two episodes are... interesting. "Fanwanky" is a term I try not to use because it sounds so dismissive, but it's a tone that fits the premise of the show. It's not the perfect final episode -- not in the way that Avengers: Endgame was to the first three phases of the MCU -- but I did feel that this whole season ends up being a pretty fun series overall.