Much like some mystical prophecy that’s gravely being laid out by some powerful, baby-headed cosmic being, my warning about What If…? becoming too dependent on merely forming exotic new teams out of its sprawling cast has become doubly true since I brought it up while reviewing the previous episode.
In case you missed it, a reformed Nebula working within the Nova Corps pulls together a ragtag band including Howard the Duck, Groot, Korg and Meik in order to battle a corrupted Nova Prime and a typically smug Yon-Rogg to save Xandar. Nothing out of the ordinary there, but when you realise that this episode is simply an excuse to form a proto-type Avengers team out of the available faces that were active in the late 80s, there’s a distinct worry that Marvel’s most versatile show could be growing stale alarmingly soon…
As I mentioned earlier, the year is 1988 and after the Watcher informs us that the big change in this universe is that Yondu actually delivered a young Peter Quill to his celestial father, Ego, the cosmic-powered child touches down on Earth and proceeds to go all War Of The Worlds. From their base in Project Pegasus, S.H.I.E.L.D. top brass Peggy Carter and Howard Stark hastily scramble to assemble a response team and immediately start flicking through their super-powered rolodex.
The first name out of the hat is the embittered Hank Pym who is struggling to raise his daughter Hope alone after that fateful mission that saw Janet lost to the Quantum realm and despite his obvious misgivings (Hank was a curmudgeonly old bastard, even back then), he agrees. From there, the team grows aggressively, with Hank’s estranged colleague, Bill Foster joining as the mass-shifting Goliath, Wakandan king and current Black Panther T’Chaka and Kree scientist Mar-Vell answering the call with an added bonus of the Russian killing machine, the Winter Soldier, drafted in to assist.
Despite Pym being a bit of a dick, the team seems to gel well, but that doesn’t help them much when Quill proceeds like lay a cosmic powered whammy on them, but a much needed save is on hand when Thor shows up, tracking the destructive being who has already laid waste to Asgard and Jotunheim.
With some much needed firepower on their side, the group subdue Peter physically, but its Hope who manages to get through to him on a personal level, recognizing that under all the cosmic pizzazz, hes still just a child like her. However, when Ego himself shows up to finish the job, Hank realises that the only being with enough power to take him out may just be his own flesh and blood – however, the Winter Soldier obviously thinks different as the one-time Bucky Barnes prepares to carry out a clandestine kill order of the young Peter Quill.
So, yes, What If…? delivers yet another team episode and more than that, it’s a team episode that sort of mirrors the first Avengers movie if it was crammed down to last half an hour and was set in the late 80s. For a series whose entire brief was to give us the unexpected, What If… Peter Quill Attacked Earth’s Mightiest Heroes? certainly feels like it’s running on very strict rails as it reskins and repackages an over-told tale. While the plucking of characters from a different era of the MCU slots in rather nicely, the episode has precious little to say that’s new or original as it swaps out Loki for Quill and carries on the initial teething problems superheroes always seems to have when egos clash – both actual ones and the one played by Kurt Russell.
However, as derivative as the episode is, it pulls a lot of it back simply by the way the episode uses the characters it’s chosen. It seems that season 2 of What If…? seems dedicate to utilizing as many background characters as it possibly can with an impressive amount of original actors returning to lend their voices as Marvel’s request. Not only does Michael Douglas return to voice Hank Pym in a rare non-psycho role in a What If…? episode, but he’s joined by Hayley Atwell’s normal powered version of Peggy Carter, John Slattery as Tony Stark’s dear old dad, Kurt Russell as Ego, Atandawa Kani as young King T’Chaka and even Laurence frickin’ Fishburne who shows up to flesh out the criminally underused Bill Foster from Ant- Man & The Wasp. It’s an impressive haul even if you don’t include Sebastian Stan and Chris Hemsworth who return as Bucky and Thor respectively and even though they couldn’t manage to entice Annette Benning back to voice Mar-Vell, it’s still a nice, deep cut to characters past. Also proving to be a nice touch is the way the epidode handles the child versions of both Peter Quill and Hope van Dyne and their bond adds welcome heart and warmth to an episode that could have just been a flashy brawl-fest.
In fact, despite it’s rather entry-level premise, this is an episode that could have been far better if it actually had more time to explore some aspects a little better. Mar-Vell and Black Panther just seem happy to help, but the subplot concerning the Winter Soldier crackles with promise as he’s still an ice-cold, one-man murder factory who is following a separate agenda from his Russian handlers. In fact, the subtle moment where Carter and Stark recognize him from their old war days together could have been an entire episode of its own, especially when you consider that it’s Barnes who is destined to assassinate Howard in another reality.
As for the large scale stuff, well, that’s something What If…? can do in its sleep, with Ego creating an army of sandy drones to brawl with or even creating a giant, rock form of himself to combat the odd lightning strike from a pissed off God of Thunder.
However, with only two episodes in the can, What If…? really needs to come up with something a bit more varied than what we’ve got so far and even though the Watcher is bound to have more of an overt presence as the season goes on, he’s rather conspicuous by his minimal contribution thus far.
While What If… Peter Quill Attacked The World’s Greatest Heroes? could hardly be described as a misstep, it is something of a step backward despite its ingenious melding of a least six different Marvel movies and if the Watcher (not to mention the showrunners) aren’t careful, What If…? may fall in with the lesser MCU entries that’s littered the wasteland of 2023.
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