Storytime with Rachel F Hundred

Friendship is everything. Who’s going to argue with that?

Spoiler Warning

Having really enjoyed the first two seasons of What If, I tuned into this last and reported final season with high expectations. How did this season go?

What If…The Hulk fought the Mech Avengers

This was not the greatest start to the season, in my opinion. I can see the idea behind it to recreate that Saturday morning cartoon feel of the last Seventies, early Eighties, maybe playing up the nostalgia for those of us who were kids in that era, but this was just not good.

It was a bad Transformers meets Godzilla vs Kong meets the second-string Avengers mash-up. A lot of it was narration rather than just the story playing out.

The only interesting aspect was to see the different Avengers line up – Sam, Bucky, Monica, Shang-Chi, Nakia, Red Guardian and his wife, Melina. It makes me wonder if this version was somewhat close to the second line-up Marvel had in mind, with perhaps T’Challa in place of Nakia, and Yelena in place of Melina.

It’s also not the episode I would have chosen to kick off the new season, but I can kind of see why they did – Captain America plus Bruce Banner/The Hulk are original, and it does introduce that through-line of the series; of friendships being key to the success of overpowering overpowered superheroes or villains.

What If…Agatha went to Hollywood

Agatha All Along (2024) has been one of my favourite things in 2024 so I was pleased with the idea of seeing more of her in What If, not least because Kathryn Hahn returned to do the voice.

It is an enjoyable enough episode as The Eternals meets Agatha. I did love seeing Kingo again, and I’m glad Kumail Nanjiani got to return to the role.

I also loved all the over-the-top Stark antics with the long-suffering Jarvis – great work by Dominic Cooper and James D’Arcy.

I liked how the episode did keep the audience guessing as to Agatha’s motives and how Kingo was able to play to her ego and desires in the end. It was a fairly meta offering with its ‘movies can really change the world’ message.

What If…The Red Guardian Stopped the Winter Soldier

This I loved.

It was a great opposites buddy-buddy team up. David Harbour and Sebastian Stan were fantastic in this.

I loved them throughout and laughed when they ended up taking out Obidiah Stane.

It was also interesting to see Bill Foster and Ranger Morales who also made for a different kind of team-up. It was nice to see other characters than the usual suspects from SHIELD such as Agents Carter, Fury, Hill, Coulson, etc.

Hopefully this episode gives a sneak peek at the chemistry between David Harbour and Sebastian Stan coming up in 2025’s Thunderbolts* – a girl can hope.

Honestly, I would have led the series with this one.

What If…Howard the Duck Got Hitched

Follow on from the most ridiculous episode of season one with more complete ridiculousness.

Once you get past the insanity of the duck alien/human relationship, Darcy Lewis and Howard the Duck are a great pairing. Their race to save their egg against the forces of the universe who want to steal the baby’s power for themselves is wonderful slapstick comedy – you can almost see the live action version.

This episode also gets a special shout-out for the fabulous Tom Hiddleston cameo in his Blue Loki mode. It was nice to see a fun outing for Loki after the events of the last season of Loki (2023).

The overpowered offspring that emerges at the end, Byrdie, is wonderful.

What If…The Emergence Destroyed the Earth

There is always one episode each season where there is a post-apocalyptic event. This Riri Williams focused story has a darker tone to the previous two episodes and has very little humour at all.

While it was interesting to see the makeshift team around her of Wong, Ying Nan, Valkyrie and Okoye, it is hard to be invested in a character who at this point has only appeared as a side-character in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022) where her introduction, and the entire film in truth, was really overshadowed by the death of Chadwick Boseman. Had the promised series already happened, people might be more interested/invested in watching her helm an episode.

In the end though, the story wasn’t about Riri but about the Watcher being unable to stop himself interfering again. That kind of undercut the episode for me. I would have preferred for Riri to have found her own power rather than the Watcher step in.

I did like the use of Quentin Beck and White Vision as the villainous opposition, and I loved the use of the Avenger symbol to bring hope a la the Batman signal in DC.

What If…1872

I really enjoyed this episode.

I’m not a big fan of the Wild West motif, but the pairing of Kate Bishop and Shang Chi was awesome and I’d very much like this in live action please.

The storyline here was interesting too of Shang Chi facing off against his sister. Perhaps there were elements of this that were meant to be a mirror or contrast to the never-appearing Shang-Chi 2?

I liked the device that perhaps the evilness and the power is embodied in the mysterious Hood rather than a person simply taking the magical cloak without issue.

There was also a nice nod to Iron Fist there at the end.

The downside though, as with the last episode, is that the storyline is undercut by the Watcher’s interference and help for the heroes.

While I get it that the arc of the series is emerging which culminates in the confrontation of the Watchers at the end, I really wish that there had been some way to set up the Watchers’ conflict without the Watcher getting involved in the actual stories of the series itself.

What If…the Watcher disappeared? / What If…What If

As these episodes are a two-parter finale, I’ll review them together.

The first sees the introduction of Captain Carter’s new team – Howard and Darcy’s daughter, Byrdie, Season 2’s new superhero Kahhori, and the introduction of Storm, one of the most popular X-Men characters, although here introduced more as a Goddess of Thunder, Thor-alternate rather than Storm the Mutant.

I liked the sidestep into Season 2’s Nebula’s world.

I liked the all-girl team-up.

It’s not really explained how Byrdie went from baby to a kickass mechanic and pilot helping Captain Carter in space, but she’s a great character. You can tell she’s the daughter of Howard and Darcy.

It might have been better had this episode given us an origin story of how this team came to be rather than simply introducing them as a team from the get-go.

Also, it has been a while since the first season and a whole year since the second. These episodes really rely on What If’s its audience remembering what went down in those previous episodes as it uses Carter’s story to drive her rescue of Uatu, brings back Ultron and uses Strange’s Universe to defeat the other Watchers in the end.

Just as in previous finales, the final episode feels like it is just one long battle. There is just fight after fight between the powered-up team of superheroes and the overpowered Watchers with each confrontation just needing more and more power.

I will say that the final confrontation as the versions of the heroes across the multiverse were erased before Carter planted herself like a tree and overcame the erasure was tense and exciting.

And I ultimately liked the theme of friendship that ran through the narrative. Captain Carter sacrificing herself to save her friends once again kind of brought us full circle on the What If arc.

Season Three Thoughts / Series Overall

This season is not the best season of the series. Two of the stories were undercut by the need to set up the finale, and overall the stories were just not as interesting as those in the first and second season.

That said, I’d happily take some of the team-ups here through into live action. The third episode has made me excited to see how Red Guardian and Bucky will interact in the movie next year. I’d love to see Kate Bishop and Shang-Chi together on screen.

The theme of this season was perhaps friendship. How friendships can drive people to great sacrifice, be the source of great comfort, and enable people to achieve great things.  There was also a theme of friendship trumping great power. However, I’m not convinced that the theme was well-constructed or that the season was well-structured overall. Perhaps in the final analysis, it has also been the not well-constructed theme of the series all along.

In the end, the series tells of how Uatu went from watching to acting because he felt saving the heroes and giving those worlds a chance was worth it after seeing Captain Carter’s goodness and heroism, and in becoming her friend. Carter also gets a full story arc in the series, from the first episode of the first season to the last episode of the last, and it is one of great heroism, of sacrificing herself for her friends. That’s a lovely point on which to end.

In conclusion

As the movie universe works to bring its multi-verse saga to a close, I can appreciate why this may be the end for this animated series. It has been an interesting ride.

For the most part, I’ve enjoyed the peeks into other alternative worlds in this series and I’ll definitely be revisiting my favourites on Disney Plus.   

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