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

[cricharddavies]

Here we go here we go here we go.

Interestingly different banter between Captain Carter and Nat.

Oh, you have got to be KIDDING me. Uatu, you're losing smart rep fast!

Not too thrilled about the idea that we end up owing all of reality to Arnim Zola.

Annnnd there's the inevitable double-cross.

Okay, smart rep restored, and kudos for tying in all the worlds so far. Not a bad finale, all told, though I am looking forward to seeing Gamora and Tony on Sakaar.

Comments

[deh_tommy]

Aw, is the Sakaarian Iron Man being reserved for Season 2? Kind of weird to make a LEGO set out of an episode that won’t be out for another year or so.

[cricharddavies]

Seems that way; he makes a cameo in this episode, but that's it. And if that's the weirdest thing Disney does in any given week, it's a slow week.

Oh, addendum -- there's a mid-credits scene.

[dewinged]

I think the season was supposed to run for the episodes, but one got pushed back to next season due to Covid.

[dewinged]

The Strange-thulu monster animations are pretty slick. They remind me of the video game Sundered. The Mythos-based bosses look like Geiger had an evil baby via Don Bluth.

[owlbrigade1]

Eh.... I felt I enjoyed the stories leading up to this more than the mega-crossover EVENT episode than the episode itself. I'm just not invested in most of them beyond seeing the wacky divergent stories. And I've never felt the same level of enthusiasm that everyone else seems to have for Killmonger and T'Challa. so the Killmonger betrayal bit is just, not interesting. I'd prefer less crossover madness for S2 and just more individual adventures. I wish I could have enjoyed this series as much as everyone else did though, because it seems most of you had a blast.

[deh_tommy]

I’m just happy to see more Ultron.

[owlbrigade1]

Always fun, I'll admit.

On further reflection on the episode, am I alone in feeling uneasy about Killmonger and how the universe was saved from a villainous black man by a Nazi and a rich white guy? Because, I feel, the optics on that one are not great.

[donnblake]

It was a little odd that we never got the beat of Zola's own sudden yet inevitable betrayal. Like, it seemed to have been assumed, no one went "Hey, he just helped us save the universe, maybe he shouldn't be locked in a crystal vault for eternity," but it does play kind of weird to give him the Big Damn Heroes moment and never get into just what a bad outcome him winning the fight would've been.

[icon_uk]

To qupte the S_D motto: "It's never just you"

[donnblake]

Oh, Killmonger. Never has a more sudden yet inevitable betrayal been cursed.

[zachbeacon]

Nice to get closure on some of these universes.

Apparently Peggy and Steve swapping places didn’t change things very much (even though they probably should have). Still, they plucked her from the events of (Almost) Winter Soldier so who knows what’s really going on with SHIELD and/or Hydra.

Killmonger’s actions caught up with him. Good.

Ego was apparently defeated by T'Challa and Peter so the Starlord universe is officially a better place than the MCU. Nice to see a universe that ISN’T horrible come out of this thing.

Speaking of horrible universes, the Marvel Zombies seem even more of a waste. There was an entire episode dedicated to them but the only contribution to the overall arc is that Zombie Wanda distracts Ultron for a few seconds.

I’d have rather spent an episode learning something about this new Gamora. What’s her deal?

(It was hilarious to see the Watcher snub Tony though. As with many problems in the MCU, this whole mess is his fault)

I get bringing in Killmonger and accounting for the betrayal by why would you stake the fate of the multiverse on Party Thor?

Strange and Widow feel like the MVPs here and Nat isn’t even technically part of the team.

Its so weird that Marvel isn’t publishing an Exiles book to tie into this. Are the collections for the 2018 series even in print? I know it wasn’t very good but at least it had Peggy and a different take on T'Challa.

PS: Very disappointed by the lack of everyone's favorite reoccurring character; the tentacle monster.

[bruinsfan]

Strange unleashed the tentacled badness he'd previously absorbed on kaiju-sized Ultron.

[onsokumaru]

Party Thor's reality seems a good place too, as his thirts for party seems to have contaminated everybody in the universe, including bad guys.

[llordllama]

By the virtue of accidentally having the day off work, I got to enjoy the episode before lunch! And I *did* enjoy it - not perfect by a long chalk (and yeah, that missing Gamora episode made for a slightly odd momentary beat), but was a decent pay off for season 1.

More Natasha/Captain Carter though please is my major takeaway for season 2! Those two just sparkled.

[scorntx]

Reflections on the series as a whole:
Interesting. More fun than not.
But. I think the single episode of half an hour format hurts it. There's some universes I'd like to see more of.
Like the Captain Carter universe. What happened with that universe's version of Avengers? Seems like a lot of events in that universe follow the originals simply because that's what happened in the movies, so it's happening here.

And suddenly giving the whole thing a plot... ehhhh.
I'd rather just have a random anthology series. (Preferably one where the answer to the question asked isn't "everyone dies".)

Sad that we're likely never going to see Star-Panther again.

The oddest bit is the general absence of Gamora through the whole thing. It's like they were saving her up for her own episode... which then got cut.

[mazway_75]

Up and down in places but the finale does wrap it all up nicely and good turns to minimize some of the twists including Killmonger's great fate.

Still enjoy touches of Wright and Watcher called out on non-interference so not a bad experiment for the MCU.

[iamrman]

I thought it was a pretty neat episode. I really hope there is more Captain Carter is season 2. I look forward to seeing what Gamora and Tony got up to on Sakarr as well.

[shakalooloo]

There can never be enough Captain Carter, even if she became exceptionally British in this episode. I think the only cachphrase she didn't trot out was calling someone a wanker.

Odd that they should now pull out the idea that different universes affect the infinity gems in different ways - that a machine designed to destroy them in one universe can't destroy those of another - yet they themselves can mess with other-versal realities just fine.

Still! Having two time stones clash opens up the possibility of 'What If... Someone Put Together A Gauntlet Made of Duplicate Infinity Stones?'. Three, time, two power and a mind? All six slots for realities? Such possibilities!

[icon_uk]

Yes, IIRC the comics have established that the Infinty Gem's just don't operate if they're in any dimension other than their own.

[deh_tommy]

In tonight’s episode of What If…?, the role of Captain Carter will be played by Lena Oxton. At least she’s a better Captain Britain than Betsy is.

[cricharddavies]

I suspect that the gems of different realities won't work together because of the "slightly different" rule, even if they can function in different realities.

[icon_uk]

Elements to this I like, but the whole felt like less than the sum of the parts.

The Watcher facing absolutely no negaive consequences for breaking his oath not once (with the gathering of the Guardians) but twice, by deposting Natasha on a different Earth to her own, sort of makes a mockery of his oath of non interference.

And honestly, Ultron has the Infinity Stones and basically does nothing with them beyond "Energy blasts go BOOM!" ? How dull can you get?

I was hoping for a little more originality from someone who can now manipulate space, time and reality with his super-computer mind.

[cricharddavies]

The Watcher facing absolutely no negaive consequences for breaking his oath not once (with the gathering of the Guardians) but twice, by deposting Natasha on a different Earth to her own, sort of makes a mockery of his oath of non interference.

Well, consider that from his first appearance in 1963 onward, 616-Uatu interfered pretty much constantly, and wasn't called on it by the other Watchers until 1975. So this version of him is probably being given enough rope to hang himself, too.

And his last lines of the episode strongly suggest that he's basically decided, "I'm done just watching, I'm going to help these people after this."

[zachbeacon]

Yep, Uatu might talk a big game about non-interference but he's a dang superhero.

The OTHER Watchers tend to be indifferent monsters though so I could see the events of this series catching up to him.