What If S01E06 Review: War and Remembrance

What If, Season 1, Episode 6: What If... Killmonger Rescued Tony Stark?

After the wacky hijinks of the Marvel Zombies episode, we continue with a slower paced, more (relatively) down-to-earth episode with an alternate take on Iron Man of all things -- the movie that kickstarted this whole MCU.

But in an interesting twist, the main character of this episode isn't Iron Man doing something different, but rather one of the MCU's many, many under-utilized villains. That has always been one of the biggest problems of this 'limited movie' format, where the villains don't quite get a chance to shine more than their limited role in the movies, after which they are killed off. Not every villain gets to become recurring threats like Thanos or Loki, and there's always going to be some that are wasted before they can shine. Sometimes they don't even shine at all (sorry, Malekith) but on top of my head, I can think of at least a dozen that I wished stuck around after their debut movies. On top of that is probably Erik "Killmonger" Stevens, a.k.a. Prince N'Jadaka, main villain of the now-iconic Black Panther movie. And one of the major reasons that Killmonger is such an interesting character is that he has such an interesting sad backstory for himself that it's not hard to sympathize with him even if you realize that what he's doing is wrong. The movie and its sequel would really hammer home that Killmonger's a brutal dude with a couple dashes of hypocrisy, but Michael B. Jordan's performance is so strong that it's actually rather easy to get sucked into Killmonger's story of someone thrust into the role of a villain due to circumstances. 

And... instead of doing "Black Panther, but the villain won" -- the concept of many of the older comic-book What If's, we instead barely get Wakandan involvement in the first half of the episode. Instead, we go all the way back to the origin of the MCU... Tony Stark in a military jeep after the Jericho missile demonstration. It's a fantastic recreation of the movie's scenes. Instead of being captured by the Ten Rings, however, Tony Stark gets rescued by a random wandering mercenary dressed up in Dragon Ball Z Vegeta's armour. It's... it's honestly rather random, although it does make sense if you think about the timelines -- Erik Stevens would be active as the Killmonger around the time that the events of Iron Man happened. 

And... the episode does move a bit slowly, which is to be expected considering the main concept is Killmonger gaining the trust of Tony Stark slowly but surely, worming his way into Stark's inner circle by driving out Obadiah Stane (not a hard thing to do, since Erik's learned the truth of the Iron Man plot), Happy Hogan and Pepper Potts. It is an interesting exercise, and... again, it's rather slow-paced, which does help the delivery of the episode at the cost of making it move a bit slower than the hectic "a plot twist every five minutes" norm of these What If episodes. I like this a lot, though. 

There's also an interesting exercise in that this is a Tony Stark that didn't get the gigantic dose of humility that the first Iron Man movie gave him. He was never held captive by the Ten Rings, never befriended Ho Yinsen, never saw Yinsen die, never got to appreciate his friends Rhodey, Happy and Pepper, and wasn't quite betrayed by Obadiah Stane to the degree that he was in the source material. Sure, he's generically more heroic and responsible than start-of-the-movie Tony Stark, but it's also clear that his dependence on his new groupie Killmonger isn't making him anywhere as heroic as his sacred timeline counterpart is. 

Also, instead of making Iron Man armours, this version of Tony Stark gets super-into Killmonger's old thesis of unmanned combat drones. These are conceptually the same thing as Stark's original Ultron concept, but because Michael B. Jordan is a cool anime geek like the rest of us, Killmonger is, too, and his unnamed combat drones are extremely anime-inspired. You could totally see them as mass-produced units in a Gundam cartoon! Love this. 

This leads to a plot thread that spirals into a scene not too dissimilar with some plot points in Age of Ultron and Black Panther. The drones need vibranium to work, leading Stark to send Rhodey (who's Stark's only ally that isn't suspicious of Killmonger, probably because of their shared military backgrounds) to negotiate with Ulysses Klaue for vibranium. It goes a bit under the radar due to the Killmonger focus, but I do like that Rhodey gets roped into Stark's "can't make the world safer without getting your hands dirty" motto, which even fits Rhodey's character. This meeting gets crashed by Black Panther, but because Killmonger is lying in wait and is prepared about everything, he shows up and kills everyone present. Killmonger arranges the scene to make it look like Rhodey was the one that killed T'Challa, basically setting up a war between USA and Wakanda. 

We get a pretty cool (and cold) scene where Killmonger seems to be able to almost get the jump on Tony Stark and make him think that Black Panther was the one that killed Rhodey. Stark manages to finish a single Liberator drone, but turns out that Killmonger's superhero-comic skills outclasses the anime robot's skills, and Killmonger murders Tony in, again, a darker scene. He frames Wakanda as assassinating Tony in retaliation for T'Challa's death, causing the very angry General Ross to take over Stark Industries and mass-produce Liberator drones to sic at Wakanda.

Continuing the 'let's keep killing people and frame other parties for it', Killmonger kills Klaue and brings him to Wakanda, framing the dead Klaue as T'Challa's killer and the real killer of Tony Stark. Just as the sacred timeline, Killmonger's royal blood gains him an audience with the Wakandan rulers... only that with T'Challa's death, King T'Chaka, Queen Ramonda and the rest of the Wakandan leaders are quite out for blood. Suddenly, Killmonger's two enemies are now at each other's throats, and he's wormed himself into the good graces of the Wakandan royal family. 

All throughout this, the only people who figure out that all these deaths are a bit convenient and suspicious are Pepper Potts on the American side, and little kid Shuri on the Wakandan side. They don't actually get to do anything just yet, though, other than slowly investigate each other. 

The episode's climax is another pretty good one (coming off of the zombie one), with Killmonger jumping around and destroying Liberator drones while aided by the Wakandan army. This episode isn't quite as action-intensive as some of the others in the season, and I think they saved most of the action budget for this relatively pretty well-done action scene. 

Killmonger ends up looking like a goddamn hero to the Wakandans, but his victory is also aided by the fact that he's got a backdoor to the Liberator drones, meaning that he was never in danger throughout the whole fight. All of this is just a way for him to essentially worm himself super deep as a hero of the Wakandan people, allowing him to do his plot of taking over Wakanda in Black Panther but by making up this whole story where he's, well, the liberator of the Wakandan people. It's extremely fun and chilling to watch as this intelligent villain protagonist just casually mows down and moves characters around like they are chess pieces, and this is something that takes great advantage of the What If format since we already know who characters like James Rhodes, Ulysses Klaue and King T'Chaka are and how they would react to events that are going on. 

Other than a brief 'stinger' of Pepper and Shuri meeting each other and preparing to take down the true killer of their loved ones, the episode essentially ends with Killmonger's victory. We do get a rather interesting scene as Killmonger drinks the heart-shaped herb in the ritual that lets him become the new Black Panther in this universe... and who else greets him in the land of the dead, but the panther spirit of T'Challa? It's a somber yet serene scene, and it's particularly haunting due to the fact that this episode was released after Chadwick Boseman's death.

That said, the episode just kind of... ends? I'm not sure if they couldn't do more with the script, but I really didn't think the Pepper/Shuri team-up was the most exciting way to end the episode. I'm not sure how the episode would've ended a bit better instead of this quasi-cliffhanger. I dunno -- What If does these "the world is fucked, wop wop" endings a fair bit, but this one just feels like it ends a bit abrupt. Still, I really did enjoy this one more than I remembered, and maybe it's just Michael B. Jordan being so enjoyable to watch. But this one was different in a good way.  

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• The events of this episode diverge from the very first scene in the first Iron Man movie, though all the events that happen afterwards are more or less original. There are several moments of references to Black Panther, obviously, most notably:
• Killmonger gaining entry to Wakanda after killing Klaue and bringing his body.
• Killmonger seeing a sunset at the end of the movie, though he is way more triumphant in this alternate universe. 
• The mention of Killmonger serving in Afghanistan is mentioned in that movie; this 'What If' just moved the 'when'. 
• Killmonger uses the same sonic device that is used by Obadiah Stane to kill the Ten Rings terrorists, right down to the protective earplugs he wears.
• Killmonger also quotes Tony's line, "peace means having a bigger stick than the other guy" from Iron Man. 
• The idea that Killmonger is a secret otaku (with a love for Gundam in this episode) is a combination of Killmonger's pre-Wakandan outfit in the Black Panther movie being similar to Dragon Ball's Vegeta and actor Michael B. Jordan's love for anime.
• Tony briefly considers miniaturizing an arc reactor (which was what he did in the first Iron Man movie), but dismisses the idea as ridiculous. 
• This Reality is Designated... Earth-32938
• Role Reprises: New debuts in this show include Michael B. Jordan (Killmonger), Andy Serkis (Ulysses Klaue), Don Cheadle (James Rhodes/War Machine), Angela Bassett (Queen Ramonda). Just like Mark Ruffalo technically playing Edward Norton's Hulk; here Don Cheadle substitutes for Terrence Howard's James Rhodes.
• Returning from previous episodes are Danai Gurira (Okoye), Chadwick Boseman (Black Panther/T'Challa), Jon Favreau (Happy Hogan), John Kani (King T'Chaka), Paul Bettany (JARVIS), Leslie Bibb (Christine Everheart)
• Notable non-reprises are Obadiah Stane (voiced by Kiff VandenHeuvel), Shuri (voiced by Ozioma Akagha) and Pepper Potts (voiced by Beth Hoyt). In addition, Mick Wingert and Mike McGill continue as replacement voices for Tony Stark and Thaddeus Ross.