What If S02E02 Review: Annihilation

What If, Season 2, Episode 2: What If... Peter Quill Attacked Earth's Mightiest Heroes?

So I do kind of like this episode a bit better than the previous one... and I really do think that What If? episode can get polarizing because people expected and wanted rather different things from each episode. The previous episode, the season premiere, basically was genre fiction that masqueraded as a What If episode, and we've had several of these over the first season as well (Marvel Zombies; Party Thor). Some people want more 'serious' What If's, and personally, I'm far more invested in What Ifs that allowed lesser-utilized characters to shine. 

Ergo, I really did enjoy "What If... Peter Quill Attacked Earth's Mightiest Heroes?" The actual premise and resolution of the episode is utterly simple, and I honestly didn't think that the story itself deserved the 30-minute length that it received. The change in time is that in this reality, Yondu did hand over Peter Quill to Ego, making us two-for-two in less-effective alternate-universe Yondus in this season. And Peter Quill is now empowered with super-glowy Celestial energy, and arrived on Earth in the 80's. This allows the show directors to take a look at the characters that would make sense to be active in the 80's, allowing several characters that are way too old to do stunts in the present day to, well, do stuff. I personally am the most excited about Michael Douglas's Hank Pym -- I'm not even the biggest Hank Pym fan from the comics, but I always thought that Hank Pym was severely underutilized in the MCU. And with the first What If season giving him some love as an evil Yellowjacket, I thought this take on him was pretty great as well, showing him in his 'prime' as a superhero. 

But perhaps even more than that is the presence of Hank Pym's rival, Bill Foster -- otherwise known to superhero comic-book readers as Goliath. Hank and Bill get a nice little argument back and forth as they get called in to serve with SHIELD (helmed by an older Peggy Carter and Howard Stark) with their rivalry. The rest of the team is comprised of T'Chaka's version of Black Panther -- very cool to see! Mar-Vell from Captain Marvel also gets to do stuff instead of getting hit with the Dead Mentor Syndrome. I can't really muster too much enthusiasm about Mar-Vell, if we're being honest, but I still find it really fun to see more obscure characters get the spotlight. And rounding up the initial team is Winter Soldier -- like, still-brainwashed Winter Soldier. Love that we're getting more of the cold, brainwashed version of Bucky, and I really do like the brief moments where Peggy and Howard realize who they're looking at and get utterly shocked. 

Winter Soldier spends around a movie as Winter Soldier before he just gets turned into 'Bucky Barnes, conflicted hero', which is a period of time that I thought was rather under-utilized in the movies due to the necessities of adapting his entire story into just a single movie. Winter Soldier also serves as the nominal 'evil teammate', even if his redemption arc is a bit obvious and I kind of wished that since we're in non-canon land that we kept him evil?

Anyway, this 80's Avengers, well, assembled to face an extraterrestrial threat, which is the glowing-eyed Peter Quill who goes around blowing up amusement parks and random streets. Uatu gives us some helpful exposition how Ego basically got to Peter when he was young, crushes his Walkman, and almost brainwashes him -- before Peter somehow escapes and manages to return to Earth. The Avengers are put together to stop this threat, with SHIELD noting that every single planet that Peter has passed through seems to have blown up... but Peter himself is a very human kid, making all of our heroic characters a bit more conflicted. Yes, even the jerk that is Hank Pym! The only one that doesn't care about little Peter's survival is Winter Soldier, and he's brainwashed and under orders from the Russian government to end this by any means necessary.

We do get some nice lines from all characters present, and there's always the glorious fan-geekery of finally seeing Mar-Vell and Goliath in their full superhero glory. Goliath is a bit more impressive, basically acting as this timeline's Giant-Man, while Mar-Vell... flies around a bit with a jetpack? Can't have it all, I guess. 

While we do have a smattering of characters, the main heart of the team is the relationship between Hank Pym and his teenage daughter Hope. And their relationship apparently hasn't became anywhere as frosty as it was when we see them in the present day in Ant-Man. Hank makes a lot of bad dad jokes, but in a refreshing change from most portrayals of Hank Pym, we get to see a side of him that's trying his best. He just hasn't fucked up enough for Hope to hate him yet. Hope himself will prove instrumental in befriending Peter Quill, since she's about the same age as him... though I'm getting ahead of myself. 

The mid-episode fight takes place in Coney Island, where the 80's Avengers show off their abilities in trying to subdue insane-Peter. Or, well, it's mostly Ant-Man's ants, Goliath going giant and Black Panther bouncing around that does most of the legwork. There's a rather unsettling sequence where Hank Pym is traumatizing scared little Peter with his ants and the house of mirrors. The panicking Peter goes berserk, and seems to have the upper hand until Thor arrives. 

And I love the treatment of Thor here. I don't deny that Thor: Ragnarok is the best Thor movie, but man, the character has diverged so much from his original source material that seeing him here, just a heroic badass and easily the most powerful Avenger in the group? We get so many great action scenes of Thor destroying Ego's rock-avatars with his hammer and his storms, and his role here as someone who recontextualizes the sheer scope and scale of the threat brings him in line more to the more serious and dramatic version we saw in Thor and The Avengers. Again, while Ragnarok did revitalize the character, I do wonder how different things would be if Marvel decided to double down on a more serious Thor. 

While Peter is imprisoned in a SHIELD base, Thor gives us a bunch of explanations -- with Peter apparently having destroyed most of the other planets in Asgard's dominion off-screen, and Midgard/Earth being the only one left standing. Thor notes that Peter is going around triggering Ego's Celestial Seeds, including one that Ego left in Missouri. While all of this is going on, however, apparently SHIELD's security is so shit that Hope can just waltz up to Peter with her dad's access badge, bond with the scared Peter over dead moms, before using Hank's shrinking tech to bust Peter out. Now I don't doubt that little Hope is smart enough to outwit her old man, but it is kind of stretching the suspension of disbelief of this setting. The friendship speech could've been done well, but it really did feel kind of forced. 

I do like that the Avengers kind of get a bit of an argument over whether Peter is a threat, and whether to eliminate him now or to try and help him fight Ego. What follows is honestly a rather truncated but well-done sequence as Winter Soldier follows Hank and Hope to eliminate Peter Quill as ordered by the Russian government, but Howard and Peggy on the phone manages to talk Winter Soldier down, breaking him free from his brainwashing. Again... both of these 'friendship speeches' do really kind of feel rushed, but stretching them even further would bloat the episode even further.

While all of this is going on, Hank also gets a rapid-fire character development going from a jerk into someone who realizes he's talking to a kid and decides to use a much more sympathetic and softer tone with Peter. It's far more believable for Hank, though, who always felt that he's bitter for being tossed away by the government and never really getting over her grief. With him being needed and being useful both as Ant-Man and as a father, I believe this allows Hank to channel his grief over Janet's apparent death into something far more productive. And he's still a dad, not a good one but a dad regardless, and I do find it believable that he could get through to Peter. 

Ego arrives in a young-Kurt-Russell avatar on Earth, and starts attacking the Avengers in an attempt to activate the seedling himself. The animation here is genuinely fun and impressive, and a huge step up from the first season. Admittedly most of it is just Ego manipulating rocks to create clones of himself, but it really is a treat to see Thor and Goliath let loose with their powers. Some really great shots of Thor being epic, too, which, again, is very much appreciated. A lot of this fight is just there for the audience's benefit, to buy time while Hank and Hope friendship-talk Peter while Howard friendship-talks Bucky. 

Eventually, they manage to transport Peter to the site of the battle, destroying the seedling and having Peter and Ego confront each other in the same vein as Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2. Minus a giant Pac-Man form. We really shrink down a lot of the exposition of Ego's plan in GOTG 2 into a ranting monologue, but it really isn't super important -- Peter gets pissed when Ego lets slip that he's responsible for Peter's mom's death, and Peter absorbs the seedling into himself and unleashes a celestial beam that takes Ego out. The episode ends with some epilogue, with these 80's heroes kind of forming a family that bond over beer and cats, while the Winter Soldier goes off on his own journey of angsty anti-hero self-discovery. 

And... again, I do like this episode. Not a lot of it makes sense, and having another repeat of Ego's GOTG2 plan isn't the most creative story to put these characters in. I think I also made it clear about how eye-rolling I find the multiple 'friendship no jutsu' speeches are in this episode. But I really do like how this episode does kind of work as an 'alternate history' series of events. And... okay, I'm just really happy to see badass Thor, as well as characters like Goliath, T'Chaka and (kind of) Mar-Vell do stuff. Not a bad one, even if this one does feel very stand-alone-ish. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Even in the earliest What If? limited comics from Marvel, there were several different variations of "What if the Avengers assembled differently" -- such as the original What If #9 here. This one takes a different spin of it, taking MCU characters that should be active as superheroes in the 80's. Which also means that the episode doesn't exactly adapt any specific movie's storyline, though it does transplants the major plotlines of Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 to taking place in 1988. 
  
• If we're being pedantic, Black Panther established T'Chaka as being active as Black Panther when he was younger; Hank Pym and Bill Foster were established to have their Ant-Man suits in Ant-Man and the Wasp (we never see Bill Foster become Goliath on-screen, however); Mar-Vell/Wendy wouldn't be killed until the 90's in Captain Marvel; and both Thor and the Winter Soldier are respectively alive, just off-planet and in cryo-sleep respectively. 
• The young Peter Quill takes a stuffed raccoon toy in Coney Island, referencing his main timeline counterpart's friendship with Rocket Raccoon. Later on, he mentions that he's a 'dog person', which is likely an allusion to how the Guardians of the Galaxy would become associated with Cosmo the Space Dog. 
• While it does raise some continuity questions, Peter is imprisoned in the same type of cell that is intended for the Hulk in The Avengers (and later used to imprison Loki). 
• Howard Stark notes that they should toss the cosmic seed 'down the garbage disposal', which is what Tony Stark suggested they do with the Time Stone in Avengers: Infinity War. 
• Just like their mainline counterparts, Ego and Peter's arguments involve phrases such as 'the mortal in you'. 
• The credits confirm that Winter Soldier's handler is Vasily Karpov -- which is the Hydra agent that Baron Zemo drowns in Captain America: Civil War when he was hunting for clues about Winter Soldier.
• Thor fighting Ego is likely a stealth nod that Ego started off life in the comics as a Thor antagonist.
• Returning Live-Action Actors Are...: Michael Douglas (Ant-Man/Hank Pym), Laurence Fishburne (Goliath/Bill Foster), Kurt Russell (Ego), Atandwa Kani (young T'Chaka), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Sebastian Stan (Winter Soldier), Hayley Atwell (Peggy Carter), John Slattery (older Howard Stark), Madeleine McGraw (young Hope van Dyne) and, hilariously, Gene Farber (Vasily Karpov)
• Notable non-reprises are Mar-Vell (voiced by Keri Tombazian) and Peter Quill (Mace Miskel)... though for Peter, it's very much understandable considering this is a much younger version of him.