(No Scans) "What If ...?" Discussion Part Three

[cricharddavies]

Third episode is out now.



An interesting combination of the premise of Ruins (everything that could go wrong does) and a thriller, very appropriate for a SHIELD-focused story. By half-way in, I'm fairly sure I know whodunnit. I'm a little uncomfortable with how much they're mocking Coulson, though.

(waits)

I was right. I think it must have been very hard for them to resist the temptation to have the killer say, "I'm the bad guy? How'd that happen?"

Comments

[lilacsigil]

I enjoyed it! I thought it was trending a bit old school What If comics where everybody dies and it's tragic and now we're sorry!!! ...but in fact the ending was hopeful and interesting! And the way each Avenger was taken out (apart from maybe Thor) was well thought-out.

[cricharddavies]

(thinking out loud) ... the two Captains, Rhodey, T'Challa, and possibly four Asgardians who know that this situation isn't what their friend would have wanted ... oh, and a guy named Phil.

On the other hand, Loki and Hydra.

Yeah, odds could be better, but it certainly won't be boring.

[zachbeacon]

Likely five Asgardians. One of them is famously difficult to sneak things past and he controls access to the rainbow bridge..

Maybe Falcon too.

Of course, because of the events of the episode, there'd be no Vision or Lang and if Winter Soldier or the twins show up they're probably going to be on the other side.

I could see Fury trying to recruit Abomination.

[icon_uk]

Thor surprised me, then I remembered this was set when he was cast out of Asgard and had all his godly powers removed by Odin, so he would be vulnerable to that sort of attack.

[owlbrigade1]

I'm dubious that that would have killed Hulk, but I'm willing to go along with it for sake of the story. I think I enjoyed this one best. The first one was a bit unfocused trying to do two stories, the second wasn't really a story but just a[well deserved] tribute show for Chadwick Boseman, but this tells a full and complete story in and of itself and uses the premise in an interesting way.

[zachbeacon]

"I'm dubious that that would have killed Hulk"

Could be worse. It could have been what the internet decided Lang was going to do to Thanos.

[owlbrigade1]

That is why they oughta have merged Deadpool with the MCU.

[mastermahan]

I doubt that as well, but I too am willing to wave my hands and say Hank did it with "science". Plus it would have been too obvious if he'd sent Hulk to the Quantum Realm or Thanus'd him.

And I second this one as the best so far. Too often divergence stories follow dutifully along the canon of events, replaying original moments to show how things are changed. The older What If comics often did that, fanfics often do it, and Captain Carter did it.

This was, like you said, a complete story.

[scorntx]

An interesting one. Not entirely wild about the reveal of who the killer is (or the why), but apart from that, good watching.
Always nice for Fury to get something to do.

Frankly also amazed they brought Betty Ross back at all, given the films just seem to be quite happy to forget she ever existed.

It also raises a lot of questions which the run-time doesn't give room to answer.
Like what happened at the Stark Expo, or what Frigga and Odin might feel about Loki's antics, or what became of Blonsky, all hepped up on faulty Super Soldier Serum...
Be nice to see some follow-up on all of those, because you could definitely get some yarns out of them.

It's weird seeing Banner looking like Norton but speaking with Ruffalo's voice.

[icon_uk]

Yeah, Odin's response to Loki's actions would have been interesting, but Loki had taken command of Asgard when Odin has his plot convenient Odinsleep, and Thor was in exile, so he was acting as sole monarch at the time.

[scorntx]

Sole monarch, sure, but given Frigga's still around... sure, in Thor she seemed to buy Loki's gambit of letting the Frost Giants into the palace, but given her later characterisation, it probably won't take her long to put two and two together and realise something is amiss.
(assuming she's not in a Mom Rage over what happened to Thor.)

[panthyr]

Well that fight went exactly how it should have.

One thing I didn't like about "Loki" was that, even having lost his magic while in No-Time, he should still have been far more physically capable than humans. And once back in the timestream, he really shouldn't have been jobbing for an enchanted redneck.

[icon_uk]

Depends how much of his strength/endurance etc is derived from magic rather than biology I suppose.

[panthyr]

I suppose. The MCU has never been really clear how strong/durable any of their characters are.

[zachbeacon]

He was playing with his food?

[shakalooloo]

Yeah Coulson's password was just embarrassing.

[zachbeacon]

Between that and the Thor stuff he seems less a fan of superheroes and more in love with them.

[zachbeacon]

Obligatory "its not a real What If.. until everybody dies." comment

I didn't figure out who it was until Widow's very obvious dying words.

I figured the MCU villains most likely to pull this off are Killmonger, Zemo, and Loki. Zemo doesn't really have a motive if Avengers 2 never happens so that left the other two. I was leaning toward Loki because taking out Earth's Mightiest Heroes one at a time and then taking over makes way more sense than his actions in the first Avengers movie.

[cricharddavies]

My first clue was when Natasha and Betty were talking about nanotechnology and ballistics, but I think I may have intuited it when Clint died. Who better to get into a locked room than a shrinking man?

It's not really a fair play mystery, though, as the critical clue isn't revealed until late in the story.

[mastermahan]

For me, the big clue was Thor's death. Hawkeye releasing the arrow had to be due to something like telepathy, telekinesis... or someone who couldn't be seen.

I'd say it was fair in the context of the greater MCU. It had been established that SHIELD used to have a couple of shrinking people working for them, so doesn't come out of nowhere - just nowhere in this actual episode.

[zachbeacon]

The was another reason I was leaning toward Loki. His power set allows you to handwave a lot of the more impossible things.

But yeah, mysteries with shrinking killers never play fair. At least it was more enjoyable than Identity Crisis (though that's a very low bar). They even gave the killer a motive beyond "woke up today and decided to be evil".