Marvel’s What If? Episodes 3 & 4 Review
Credit to: Disney and Marvel StudiosThings are really getting interesting
Welcome back, y’all! We’re finally taking a look at next two episodes of Marvel’s What If? series, and I gotta say, things are getting weirder and weirder. This isn’t as weird as Loki, but boy is it crazy to see these “what if” realities on screen. Now, a lot of people have been talking about the fourth episode specifically, and how it might actually be a lot more important than we all might have thought, and I will be talking about that, but I’ll save it for that episode’s review section. Now, without any further ado, let’s just jump right in.
Episode 3: What if… The World lost its mightiest heroes?
So of course, we start off with our usual introduction and explanation from The Watcher, but we quickly pan to a a black screen that suddenly shows, “Monday” in a thick, white font. We cut to a closeup of Nick Fury, who’s talking to Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow, just in case) as they drive to a very familiar area. We see a reflection of Tony Stark eating donuts in a giant donut sign in the car’s window, and we actually go through the exact same scene that we saw in Iron Man 2. But, when Natasha goes to inject the lithium dioxide into Tony’s neck, he begins to convulse, and drops to the ground. When Natasha checks his pulse, he’s dead. We cut to Tuesday, where we see Natasha being escorted by SHIELD agents in handcuffs, to board her in the back of a truck. Fury hands her the syringe she injected into Stark, saying that he needs it analyzed, because someone had to have swapped out the antidote with something lethal. The truck takes off, and of course, Natasha proceeds to absolutely destroy every agent in the truck before the passenger, Agent Rumlow (who would eventually become Crossbones), and the driver both notice the commotion in the back of the truck. When Rumlow runs out to check the back, Natasha is nowhere to be found. We cut to the landing site of Mjolnir, Thor’s hammer, where Agent Barton (Hawkeye) and Nick Fury discuss the hammer, and how someone might be coming for it. Sure enough, Agent Coulson reports that he has eyes on a man with gorgeous hair taking out their agents. Fury orders Hawkeye to take position and watch Thor. When Thor finally sees his hammer, Hawkeye pressures Nick to let him fire his arrow on Thor, but Nick insists that he lets him do what he came for, just like in the Thor movie. All of a sudden, when Thor goes to grab his hammer, an arrow flies through the air and hits Thor in the chest, killing him. Hawkeye insists he didn’t fire, but Nick responds that his arrow indicates otherwise. Really quick, I just want to say how ridiculous it is for Thor, the God of Thunder, to die from an arrow. With or without Mjolnir, Thor is still one of the strongest Marvel characters of all time. A bit ridiculous, but whatever. I guess they did it to further this episode’s story. Anyways, we cut to Hawkeye, who’s sitting down in a cell, telling himself that he never misfires, that he never misses. When Nick comes to the front of the cell, Agent Coulson informs him that Hawkeye wouldn’t even talk to anyone else. Nick opens up the cell, sure that he’d talk to him, but when he tries to get his attention, Hawkeye wouldn’t move, he would just sit there with his head down. When Nick goes to move him, Hawkeye leans all the way to the side, dead. Coulson asks the guards who they let in, but they swear they let nobody in. In only two days, we have Tony Stark, Thor Odinson, and Clint Barton dead.
We cut to Wednesday, where we are taken to a place called Culver University, in Virginia. We see Natasha in an undercover disguise, approaching none other than Betty Ross, a character we haven’t seen in many, many years. Natasha informs her that Stark was murdered, and she was framed. She shows Ross the syringe, and she takes it to be analyzed. After examining it under a microscope, she informs Natasha that the antidote never even left the syringe, but instead, it looks as if a tiny projectile was fired from the needle into Tony’s neck. Ross tells Natasha they’re finished, an as Nat goes to leave, she notices a pizza delivery uniform on her desk. When she asks Ross, she stutters, saying that a student must’ve left it. Nat chuckles and receives a sudden phone call from Nick, who informs her off Barton’s death. She mourns, and quickly turns her sadness into revenge fueled anger, when she asks who did it. Nick updates her on the latest, and tells her that she needs to find Bruce Banner. Natasha turns to a closet door, telling him she won’t have to look far. When she tries to open it, Ross tries to block her, and she immediately threatens her. Banner himself quickly pops out, assuring her there’s no need for violence. Cutting ahead here, we cut to Fury and Coulson, who are caught off guard when Loki and an Asgardian army teleport directly in front of the SHIELD base. Things get tense when Loki tells him that he seeks revenge for Thor’s death, but things begin to heat up with Natasha and Banner as well. We see them both on a very familiar bridge from the 2008 film, The Incredible Hulk, and we even see General Ross and his US forces drive up onto the campus to take in Banner. Natasha demands that they stand down, informing him that he’s under her custody. Suddenly, a bullet pierces through Bruce’s shoulder, and he gets pissed off of course. Over on Nick’s end, Loki begins to unleash havoc from The Casket of Ancient Winters (a stupid ice shooting box from the movies), and it freezes over a bunch of SHIELD cars and causes chaos. Back with Natasha, we see her jump off of the campus bridge and take over as Hulk comes out and goes CRAZY on Ross and his forces. All of a sudden, Hulk stops, and everyone, including Natasha and Betty, watch as he suddenly begins to get bigger, and plump up. A surprised look on his face shows that he isn’t meaning to do it, and all of a sudden, he explodes from the inside out. We see Loki calm down when Sif tells him to stop and listen to Fury, who promises that he’ll find the killer. Cutting ahead quite a bit, we do find out who the killer is, and man, this is so clever. I’ve always wondered if whether or not this character could pull off something so wild, and apparently, he can. It’s none other than Hank Pym, in his own unique Ant-Man suit, which has the classic Ant-Man helmet, and an interesting adaptation of the Yellowjacket suit. He’s hellbent on getting revenge against SHIELD and Fury, for enlisting his daughter hope into the organization, and letting her die on a mission in Ukraine. We see Hank and Fury duke it out, but Hank is getting destroyed… somehow. It’s until we notices a giant Nick Fury, various regular sized Nick Fury's, and a sudden outburst that we realize it’s actually Loki, who teamed up with Nick. They disable Hank’s suit, and we see Loki deciding to stay here on Earth. We cut to the United Nations, where we see Loki giving a speech, where he informs the nations of Earth that they are now all united under his command. Before the episode ends, we see Fury and Agent Coulson pay their respects to the fallen Avengers, and Fury gives a speech filled with hope. We see him in a cave of ice, where we see Captain America’s shield still frozen. This would be a great ending, but we unfortunately see Captain Marvel getting shoehorned into the ending, where she cracks her knuckles and asks where the fight is. Ugh, end of episode.
This episode was actually very entertaining. I really didn’t know what to expect from this episode, but I am overly pleased with this episode. It was a shame to see the ridiculously annoying character of Captain Marvel be forced down our throats, but it’s whatever. I really loved this episode. I loved how they tied in bits and pieces from the previous films while incorporating a brand new story into them, and I really loved the mystery involved here. We really get a sense of just how dangerous a blood-lusted Ant-Man can really be, and man, y’all better put some respect on his name. This episode was really wild, and had some really cool twists and turns, but it did have a few minor things about it that I wasn’t a fan of, like Thor dying from a regular old arrow, the unnecessary involvement of Captain Marvel, and seeing Ant-Man easily beaten after finally finding out that he’s the killer. Nothing too major, but these things did bother me a bit. Either way, I did love this episode. Great episode.
4 out of 5.
Episode 4: What If… Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of his Hands?
This one was a liiittle spooky. Seeing the Doc looking like this is… cool, but boy does he look menacing. He looks like a new Mortal Kombat villain. Anyways, let’s stay focused. After the usual monologue, we start off this episode with Stephen Strange in a snappy suit and a luxury sports car, and he picks up his coworker Christine, his love interest, to take her on a date. Uh oh. We see them flirting, joking, talking, as Strange speeds his way through the road. He’s forced to slow down as he pulls up to the rear end of a truck, but him being impatient, he decides to speed over into the next lane, where he almost crashes into an oncoming car. Thankfully, the two don’t crash, and Stephen calms Christine down. Suddenly, in the background, we see a card speeding up behind them, and it crashes hard into the back of the car, sending the two off the side of the mountain, just like in Doctor Strange. When the car finally lands, Stephen wakes up, perfectly fine, but when he looks in the passenger seat, Christine has passed away. We hear The Watcher tell us that in this reality, he didn’t lose his hands. Instead, he lost his heart. We watch Christine’s casket lower down into the dirt, and we see Strange filled with grief. We see this grieving Strange with a beard and travel gear, looking for answers in the mystic arts, but instead of him wanting these answers to fix his hands, we assume that he wants answers to perhaps revive Christine. We see Stephen training, and he’s able to learn things a bit quicker than our Stephen. We see the events of Doctor Strange take place. The events of that movie unfold as they’re supposed to, but we see that Stephen can’t stop thinking of Christine and their memories together. Wong steps in, and tries to comfort Strange while warning him not to do anything reckless, but when he walks away, Stephen decides to use his Eye of Agamotto to go back in time, and redo the events of what happened on the night of the accident. This time, he’s a lot more loving to Christine, and he’s patient when he reaches the back of the truck, but unfortunately, he’s still hit in the back, and the car is sent down the mountain yet again. Once again he reverses time to attempt to change the event. We see him go back in time over and over, but even when he takes a different route, they get hit. Even when they make it to the dance, Christine’s heart fails. They even make it to another place to eat, and a gunman shoots her down. No matter what Strange tries, Christine keeps dying. We eventually see The Ancient One herself step in to talk some sense into him, but he refuses to listen. She begs him to listen, and even uses magic on him, but Stephen uses his Eye of Agamotto to teleport himself to a safe area. He finds himself being watched by a silent man, who simply smiles and walks away as Stephen asks where he is and who he was. He follows the man out of the forest, where he finds a massive temple, specifically, the temple that contains the ancient library of a man named Cagliostro. In the temple, the same man from the forest reveals himself to be someone name O’Bengh, who totally is just Cagliostro. He leads Stephen to the massive library that contains knowledge of all kinds of magic, including time travel and something called absorption, which allows the user to absorb another living being to grow in power.
After finding the library, Stephen placed a spell on himself to prevent him from aging, and in this library, he spent centuries absorbing all kinds of beings, small and big, weak and powerful to grow strong enough to finally save Christine, but he became too far gone. Stephen becomes far too power hungry, and just continues to absorb more and more. When he returns to O’Bengh, he sees just how old he is, and demands that O’Bengh lets him make him young and immortal. He refuses, and says death is natural, but Stephen can’t accept it, and O’Bengh’s last words are that he knows. That was actually super sad. We cut to The Watcher, who informs us that there’s actually another Doctor Strange in this universe, which is really weird until it’s properly explained. We see this Doctor Strange in this same place as before, which is when he and Wong are talking, and Wong warns him not to do anything reckless. This time, Strange listens, and decides to join Wong. A bit later, he steps outside, and notices a black aura coming off of everything in the city. The people are frozen, and the black aura is coming from them too. Suddenly, The Ancient One enters, and warns Strange of his evil counterpart. When Strange explains how confused he is that there are two Stephens, she explains that the magical attack she used on that Strange was a spell that split him in half, splitting him and his good counterpart from one another. She tells him how he is the only one who can stop himself before disappearing. Back inside with Wong, both he and Wong develop a protection spell that protects against evil Strange’s absorption magic, and suddenly, the good Strange is dragged through a portal in the floor, and is approached by the evil Strange. He takes him back in time to the car accident scene, and they argue about whether or not it makes sense to save Christine or save the world. Of course, evil Strange isn’t happy about his good half refusing to help, so he attacks him. We see this super long and amazing battle between the two, and we even see both of their cloaks fighting each other, which is pretty funny. I’ll skip ahead to avoid spoiling this amazing fight, so make sure you watch it yourselves! Anyways, we see the fight come to a surprising end, where we see the evil Strange actually come out as the victor, and he absorbs the good half of himself. He successfully reverses time and saves Christine from the car, but brings her into this twisted and demented new world that was created as a result of this event. Christine scurries away when she sees a demonic looking Strange trying to comfort her, and we see the black aura float off of her, making her slowly rot away. The universe begins to minimize around the two, with Stephen using a spell to keep it at bay. He suddenly sees The Watcher, as he gazes upon the two. Stephen begs for him to help, for him to save the universe, for him to punish him, not Christine and the universe, but The Watcher scolds him, and reminds him that he cannot interfere, that he can only watch. The universe minimizes around Stephen and Christine, and as Stephen holds the dying Christine, her last words are, “What did you do?”, before she finally dissolves into nothingness. Stephen cries as he kneels on the ground in the tiny bubble he created to protect him, and the episode comes to an end.
Wow. Like… wow. We haven’t gotten something this sad from Marvel since Infinity War and Endgame. What an episode. I really didn’t expect this to go down this way, like I really expected for something good to wind up happening. Yikes. Now, the theory is, that this Stephen is actually the Doctor Strange we see help Spider-Man in Far From Home, the one who creates the time spell to have everyone forget about Spidey’s identity. I can see why people might think this, but after watching this episode, I have two reasons why he’s not that Strange. Reason one, is because his universe is gone, so there’s a 99% chance that he wouldn’t be able to pop up in the main MCU universe without our Strange stepping in to stop him. Reason number two, is that I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t care about anything other than getting Christine back, so no, I highly doubt he’d randomly help a high school teenager with his identity issues. Besides that though, I loved this episode, and it really did tug on my heartstrings. I feel bad for Strange, but I don’t feel bad for Strange. Regardless, I’m in love with this episode.
5 out of 5.
Final Thoughts
With the way this series is going, I really wouldn’t be surprised if fans asked for a season 2, and honestly, I think this series deserves it. So far, this series has completely blown away all expectations, whether it’s been through the story, or by giving us new and interesting characters. I love these interesting and unique stories, and I really love these reworked and new characters. I really hope this series is a mainstay, at least for a while. But what do you all think? Let me know on my Instagram and Twitter, and make sure you’re all following me there so you can stay up to date with the latest news and reviews on all of your favorite entertainment topics. That’s it from me, this has been The Wolf Den!
