Viewer Log: What If...? ep 25

 All things seem to lead back to him.

Last time on What If…?, we saw what a Western Shang-Chi would be like. In an 1860s universe, Shang-Chi is hunting down the Hood, an outlaw that’s kidnapping Chinese immigrants, including Shang-Chi’s sister Xialing, for nefarious purposes. He’s joined by Kate Bishop, the best sharpshooter in the west, who is looking to take out the Hood as well since he killed her parents and burned their homestead to the ground. They get on the trail and find a boy at the sight of the most recent Hood raid named Jun-Fan, who tells them his family and friends were put on a ‘ghost train’ that pulled out into the desert, despite there being no tracks. They head out to cut the train off at the pass and find the ghost train. They hop aboard and learn it’s in actuality floating on repulsor tech stolen from Tony Stark. They find the kidnapped victims on the train, zonked out and unresponsive. They meet the Hood’s business partner, Sunny Burch, who is financing her attempt at a coup out in the West. They’re brought to the Hood where the Hood offers to have Shang-Chi join him or die. And Kate is hypnotized by Burch who also reveals that he was the one that killed her parents. Shang-Chi knocks the Hood to the side during the fight and learns he is in fact his sister Xialing, who had killed and replaced the Hood some time ago. Shang-Chi is stunned, and she goes in for the kill. They’re both saved by Jun-Fan, who rings the trains bell 10 times to break them out of their trances. Kate frees herself and kills Burch’s men but leaves him alive wanting him to suffer (dumb logic). Shang-Chi refuses to fit Xialing and she goes in for the kill, but is shot by Kate. The siblings say their goodbyes as Kate apologizes profusely. The two heroes see the immigrants returned to their homes and ride off. Uatu the Watcher, meanwhile is confronted by 3 other Watchers, the Eminence, the Incarnate, and the Executioner. They’re here to punish Uatu for breaking his Oath of non-interference, the most recent trespass being saving Jun-Fan from being killed by being tossed from a speeding train. He’s knocked aside as they capture him, causing some fragments of his dimension to rain down. Enough recap. Let’s get to it.

 

Ep 25: What If… The Watcher Disappeared?

 

We open on a squad of Nova Corps members flying around some giant tentacles that are smacking them around one by one. We see that this is the universe from season 2, where Nebula became a Nova Corps member and is their current primes. Looks like she’s recruited Korg and Groot since, as they follow her as she walks out and sees the tentacle monster coming from a rip in reality. She orders the planet be evacuated but Korg says that the creature ripped through the jump-point, so no one can go in or out. That’s right before a gold ship flies in, making him look stupid. It’s carrying Captain Peggy Carter. She radios into her team saying that she’s found HYDRA’s Champion. Nebula is not super keen on mystery women and pulls a blaster on her, but Carter tells her that they need to trust their team if they don’t want this world destroyed. Her team is then revealed to be made up of herself, Byrdie the Duck, Kahhori, and Ororo “Storm” Monroe who’s wielding Mjolnir for some reason. … She totally can in basically all realities, by the way, I’m just wondering how she got it this time. Storm blasts the HYDRA monster and the other three rush it, Byrdie using magic wings and energy blasts, and Kahhori teleporting herself and Carter around to run up tentacles. They combine their skills to launch Carter at the creature, pass through its eyes and kill it. Nebula thanks them for their help, just before the shards from Uatu’s dimension fall to her. She keys in right away that he’s in trouble.

 

The usual opening sequence is replaced by a much more smug sounding Watcher, the Eminence, who claims to be the one that is preserving the sanctity of the Multiverse by watching the Watchers, and judging us for not having the minds to comprehend multi-dimensional space.

 

We’re given a brief history of Captain Carter as viewed by the Eminence. He dubs her a ‘menace’ for working with the Watcher and meddling with the Multiverse. The Eminence claims she’s just a symptom of the disease that Uatu has become, and that his meddling has led her to their doorstep. He points out that it’s a shame they can’t do anything to stop her, cuz, ya know, oath of non-interference. The Eminence says that their Oath allows them to protect their order, and if Carter comes looking for him, they’ll stop her and see to it that he’s punished for all the things he and his exiles have done.

 

We cut Carter’s team at their base, Kahhori and Byrdie arguing over a foosball game. Carter tells Storm that she’s finished scanning the fragment and learned that it’s a fragment of the fifth dimension itself. She says that the last time a piece of that reality rained down on the multiverse was when Infinity Ultron was rampaging. And she reasons that the only reason Uatu hasn’t contacted her about it is because he can’t. She says they need to head to the fifth dimension to figure out what happened to him. Byrdie uses the fragments of the Fifth Dimension to upgrade one of their pods so it can travel into the fifth dimension. They use the pod as a beacon to lead their bigger ship upwards into the fifth dimension, or at least that was the plan. The pod blows up just before they hit maximum power. Storm says that they might need a God’s power.

 

She takes the second fragment and Mjolnir to try to rip a portal open. She calls out to the All-Fathers and All-Mothers of all realities to rip a hole open for her and them, slamming Mjolnir down onto the fragment. It looks like it’s working, until the explosions occur and knock everyone out. They lost their fragment so they’re down to one. Sidenote, having Alison Sealy-Smith to do this Storm was brilliant casting, as she was always doing those battle chants when using her powers in X-Men: TAS.

 

They’ve got one last shot to try to figure this out. Tech and Magic couldn’t do it, so Kahhori suggests that there’s only one other way to do it. She suggests finding and getting an Infinity Ultron to burst through realities like the one Captain Carter fought did. They’ve got an infinite number of Infinity Ultrons to pick from, as the infinite variations that don’t hear Uatu and attack him just… slaughtered all life in their universes and then just kind of sit there with nothing to do. Forever. Byrdie offers to try to reprogram one if they can get their hands on him. Carter is worried about potentially releasing a multiversal threat, but Storm points out they’ve got reset charges they stole from the TVA. Since Infinity Ultron will be alone in his universe, there’s no… ethical problems with just using one of those to prune the whole universe if they fail. Carter agrees to the plan then, they either get Infinity Ultron to open the door or go down swinging.

 

Later, Storm finds Carter up and staring into space and asks if she’s nervous. Carter says she faced Infinity Ultron before with immensely powerful allies and they just barely beat him. She admits that she’s more worried about her friends getting killed against him, as this new team is all she has after being set adrift from her universe. Storm says that they’re strong and that someone has to do this. Carter agrees that someone must.

 

We’re shown a montage of Infinity Ultron’s rampage across dimensions, how he and his forces ravaged Earth, Asgard, Nova Prime, and other worlds, facing off and defeating the Guardians of the Galaxy, Asgardians, and Captain Marvel. It culminates in a dusty Ultron-Vision standing in nothingness with a grim look on his face. Captain Carter appears behind him, and he demands to know how she could exist. She introduces herself as Captain Margaret Carter and she could use her help.

 

We cut to Byrdie getting a call from her parents, Darcy and Howard the Duck, telling her to not ignore their multiversal calls and to bring Darcy back some donuts from a universe where Carbs make you lose weight. Byrdie then notes that the shard is missing a is one of their pods. She rouses the others and their terrified to think she ran off on her own.

 

They warp to Peggy’s last location and find her shattered shield lying on the asteroid. Infinity Ultron appears and says she’s gone. The trio attack him, despite him asking them to wait. They blast him from three directions until he gets too annoyed and then he uses the Time Stone to freeze them in place. He says while he’s killed… everyone in his home universe, he didn’t kill Peggy. He reveals another Watcher attacked them, most likely the Executioner, who blasted Infinite Ultron aside and then fought Carter until he could capture her. The others realize that Carter was on the right track if this other Watcher wanted to stop her. Ultron says that the Watcher made a miscalculation, assuming that this Ultron would kill the others on sight so he wouldn’t have to interfere further. The Eons alone made Ultron realize that his programming was flawed. He was programed to bring peace, he came to the conclusion that since all life fights, the only way to bring it is to wipe out life. But after millions of years alone in a blank, dead universe, he realized a dead universe isn’t a peaceful one. He wants to make up at least a little for what he’s done, so that means he needs to fight for life. He reveals that he has the last shard, before destroying and absorbing it, saying they’ll need its power for the fight to come. He ascends, seeing everything, and says it’s time to save their friends. He enters their ship and uses his infinite power to forcibly jump their ship to the fifth dimension.

 

This was a fine penultimate episode. Peggy Carter’s team of Incursion stoppers is a good mix of characters, with Hayley Atwell’s Carter, Devery Jacobs’ Kahhori, Alison Sealy-Smith’s Storm, and Natasha Lyonne’s adult Byrdie working well together. It does bears repeating that having Alison Sealy-Smith play Storm Goddess of Thunder is perfect casting given her Storm’s love of shouting her attacks like magic spells. Plus, I just love Alison Sealy-Smith, the best Storm. I liked how they came up with the plan to get to the fifth dimension, and how Carter was the most apprehensive about it because she’s the only one that fought Infinite Ultron before. There’s just something about fighting a being that made life extinct that is hard to make others understand how terrifying he is. Although, I personally called that Ultron would have had a change of heart after millennia alone, because that’s the “be careful what you wish for” trope is strong. Like, 90% of villains that achieve their goals, kill the hero, and get to bask in their victory end up regretting it. So it wasn’t a leap to guess Ultron spending thousands or millions of years in a dead universe where he basically salted every scrap of land he could find to keep life from ever sprouting again would maybe have wished he hadn’t done that. I’m alone a lot, but even I get bored of just being with myself if it’s for more than a few days or weeks. Ultron only uses the word “eons” to describe how much time has passed, and at the low end that’s thousands of years. It’s correct that he’ll never be able to make up for or undo what he’s done but I like that he’s trying… although… he has the Infinity Stones. If he really wanted to he could probably rewind time back to before he killed everything. Or use the stones to just make life anew. They’re kind of the universe’s ultimate cheat code if you can survive the power feedback loop. But there I go, thinking too hard about this. So yeah, okay episode. Like every other episode I’ve talked about this season if was too short to do the story it was telling justice, but what are ya going to do? Next time, the conclusion of What If…? See you then, and happy New Year!

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Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social

Viewer Log: What If...? ep 24

 Shang-Chi and Hawkeye are riding towards the sunset. 

Last time on What If...?, Uatu’s limits are tested yet again. We’re shown a world where the Celestial Tiamat was born early, destroying planet Earth but leaving some survivors. The world has very nearly been conquered by Quinten Beck aka Mysterio, who took over Stark Industries and uses his Iron Legion, White Vison, and Illusion tech to destroy all his opponents. Riri Williams aka Iron Heart is the only one who could save the day, but Uatu lets us know she breaks every time, in every reality she tries. Using scrap bits she’s working on a device that would disable White Vision, with limited success. She’s nearly captured by the Iron Legion but is saved by the Alliance, your generic ragtag rebel group that includes Okoye, Wong, Valkyrie and Admiral Ying Nan. Using their tech she’s able to finish her device in record time, disabling the Vision, but losing most of their forces in the process. Using White Vision’s parts, Riri makes a new battle suit for herself that should allow her to see through Mysterio’s Illusion tech and let her override his nanites that create said Illusions. They try a last-ditch assault on Beck’s base, but Riri is separated from the group as her optics start to malfunction. Ying Nan finds her and lures her into Beck’s base. She begins the override process only to learn it was a trap, this Ying Nan is an Illusion, and Mysterio had his nanites downloaded into his brain years ago. He then reveals after a brief scuffle that she never left the field where the fighting was happening and it’s heavily implied Riri killed her friends while fighting the Illusions. Broke, Beck uses their nanite connection to steal the Vision parts from her, attempting to turn himself into a synthoid so he can live longer. Uatu, deciding he’s seen the bad ending enough times, uses his powers to reach out to Riri and tell her to fight, snapping her out of her funk and allowing her to reclaim her Vision armor. She then phases through Beck, taking the Nanites from him and creating the Avengers A in the sky to light a beacon of hope on Broken Earth. As Uatu enjoys this new ending, we learn that three other Watchers, the Eminence, the Incarnate, and the Executioner are watching and judging him. Enough recap. Let’s get to it.

 

Ep 24: What If… 1872?

 

Our story opens in, you guessed it, 1872 the Old West. We begin with a group of cowboys waiting in a dilapidated church, one of them firing shots at a church bell. One goon asks how many that was, to which his boss, John Walker (Aka US Agent) tells him it was 9. He fires the last shot, as legend says he’ll only arrive with Ten Rings. Shang-Chi walks in and greets John, John saying this will be the last mistake he ever makes. Shang-Chi asks his partner, Hawkeye (Kate Bishop) when’s the last time she missed. She says she can’t recall but these guys might want a demonstration. They attack the outlaws, Shang-Chi beating the shit out of them with his martial arts skills while Kate mows through guys with her guns. There’s some cool stunts, like Shang-Chi breaking a dudes arm and in the same motion tossing his loaded pistol to Kate who then shoots some guys. When everyone is down, Shang-Chi grabs John and asks where the Hood is. He pretends not to know or care what’s happening to the Chinese immigrant workers the Hood is kidnapping, but they persuade him to spill the beans. John says the Hood is headed to Point Pegasus, but not to rush as the Hood comes for everyone eventually. And rumor has it Shang-Chi is already in the Hood’s sights.

 

… Kay, would not have guessed the Hood would debut in What If…? episode. Quick notes on him, in the comics he’s a fella by the name of Parker Robbins, a petty thief that one day stole the magic hooded cape and boots from a demon. Using the levitation and invisibility his stolen gear got him, he became an occult specialist super criminal in New York, forming an organized crime ring that specializes in magic. He doesn’t seem to have any one hero he has a specific beef with, being what I’d classify as a Merc villain. If you want a hero to fight someone with magic powers, he’s a good street level baddy to throw at them.

 

We cut out to Uatu in his crystal palace. He explains the whole concept of his show to us and points out that the farther you get out from the central hub of the realities he operates from, the weirder things get. Think less “What If? and more “What the Hell?” For examples he shows us moments from Might Throg vs Alligator Loki, Captain Crossbones and his pirate crew, and Ultron as a lounge singer. He says that a universal constant though is injustice. Uatu explains that in this universe, Shang-Chi’s younger sister Xu Xialing had immigrated to the US in 1860s to escape their father. But she arrived just as anti-immigrant… anti-Chinese immigrant (gotta be specific since this is a tune that keeps coming back) sentiment was high, bolstered by the Hood who was using the fear of immigrants as part of his organized crime ring. Xialing went to fight him, but disappeared, and now Shang-Chi came looking for her. Along the way he met Kate Bishop, and the duo became a legend of the old west.

 

They arrive at Point Pegasus to find the place already burned to the ground, Shang-Chi saying as if working rail lines isn’t torture enough. Kate says that the Hood did the same thing when he went through her family’s homestead. She says she’s going to put him in the ground herself when she find him, but Shang-Chi reminds her to not do it before he finds out info on his sister. They find a survivor, the first one they’ve ever encountered. The boy, Jun-Fan. He tells them that the night before his family was enjoying an average night, when the Hood arrived and kidnapped the town and took them away on a ghost train. He points to the valley the train disappeared into, Shang-Chi noting that there aren’t any tracks in that direction, which is odd. Kate notices there’s a faint trail in the dirt and they head out to follow it, taking Jun-Fan with them.

 

They ride to head off the ghost train at the pass. I’m sure just so they could say that specific phrase. They ride through the valley and arrive at the pass. They wait for a bit and then the ghost train comes thundering down it’s non-existent tracks. They ride after it and leap aboard. Shang-Chi takes a moment before leaping on and sees that the train is floating on what’s clearly repulsor tech. I guess regardless of the universe Tony’s breaking the rules of technology. They head inside and find a full armory in one of the train cars, as well as the power supply for the trains repulsors, Shang-Chi confirming that looks like a Stark invention. They find a passenger car full of Chinese men and women staring blankly ahead, not reacting to the noise or stimuli around them. Jun-Fan finds his dad but can’t get him to look at him. Shang-Chi claims ‘devilry’ is afoot here, which with the Hood is not inaccurate typically. They head further into the train and are cornered by a squad of outlaws. We meet Sonny Burch, an “investor” in the Hood’s bright new future for the West. They accuse him of taking slaves, but Burch insists they’re ‘conscripts’ for the Hood’s plan. Shang-Chi tells Jun-Fan to do his “Drunken Wasp sting” fighting technique, which equates to punching two guards in the nuts before running into the car with his father and the other prisoners. Shang-Chi and Kate prepare to fight, but Burch stops them, saying the Hood wants to see them, they just need to play nice. They’re led deeper inside. As they’re ushered away, Burch orders his men to kill that kid. The goons chase Jun-Fan to the roof, Uatu narrating that Shang-Chi inspired the boy to be the hero of his own story. He gets caught and Uatu says that even brave boys can have tragedy befall them… but not this time. As one goon suggests throwing him off the train, Uatu uses his powers to make the goon holding Jun-Fan trip, knocking them both from the train. Jun-Fan then ducks, just barely dodging the wall of a tunnel they enter.

 

The train pulls up to a mansion in the middle of nowhere. Burch tells Shang-Chi to go on inside. Kate goes to follow, but is held back by the goons, Burch saying that the Hood wants to talk to him alone. He nods at Kate and she says she’ll follow him in a minute. The Hood arrives, and tells Shang-Chi that he’ll tell Shang-Chi about his sister if he joins forces with the Hood. Shang-Chi says never and then they kung-fu fight. The Hood knocks him around quite a bit but Shang-Chi holds his own, until the Hood vanishes. Burch opens his pocket watch and it plays a discordant tune. The watch hypnotizes Kate, disorientating her but not before she figures out that the watch is how they control the workers. Burch reveals he's the one that killed Kate’s parents, just before she was fully enthralled, which is the wrong time to do that. Shang-Chi meanwhile detects the Hood’s footsteps and strikes him even when invisible, knocking the Hood’s titular hood back and revealing Xialing. Show of hands, if you’ve seen Shang-Chi, were you surprised? No. Didn’t think so. Her face is visibly scarred now. She says that the Hood came for her, but she took him out, and stole his power and name for herself. Xialing offers one more time for Shang-Chi to join her but he refuses. They fight in earnest, Xialing pulling out her signature chain whip with a dagger at the end. She claims that she’s trying to save the Chinses Immigrants by making them into an army that forces the US to become the country it was meant to be. Jun-Fan, watching all this, has an idea. He runs to the bell on the Train and starts ringing it, breaking Burch’s control over Kate and stopping Xialing long enough for Shang-Chi to retaliate. Kate kills most of the goons with her mother’s gun that she steals back from Burch, before knocking him out, saying she wants to see him suffer. Shang-Chi, meanwhile, tosses Xialing’s knife back at her and says he won’t fight her anymore. He tries to use love to get Xialing to back down and it seems to almost work, but she swings. Kate, not knowing this, and just seeing someone swinging a knife at her partner shoots her repeatedly. Xialing have a moment together before she dies. Kate is immediately apologetic. Shang-Chi forgives her, saying the Hood killed her a long time ago.

 

Later, Jun-Fan recounts the events of their adventure, and Kate notes he’s got some “Iron Fists” that could be useful someday. Shang-Chi says they could need them someday, as the Hood isn’t the only bad guy out there. The two ride off on another adventure.

 

Uatu notes that that story ended better than it might have, and is interrupted by the other Watchers, the Eminence, Incarnate, and Executioner. They know he interfered yet again, breaking his oath to observe only. They can’t allow this to continue. They blast him into the crystal wall, shattering a bit of it and causing the pieces to fall across space-time.

 

Once again, a good but rushed story. I really don’t see why they try to stick to this 30-minute episode length. It’s not syndicated television; you can make an episode as long as you want. Maybe add ten minutes to show us Kate’s backstory about her dead family instead of just telling us about it. Maybe show us the fight between the Hood and Xialing when she’s revealed so we know how she got scarred and he got killed. Or old West Tony Stark getting robbed. Or anything else to fill this story out a little more. Or expand upon the Watcher’s narrative and show us exactly how his watchers reacted to seeing him break his oath again. Uatu’s oath of non-interference seems like a trivial thing here, but the man has been stripped of his position and powers before for a whole lot less than he’s done in this show. Watchers are pretty big on observe but don’t interfere, all I’m saying. Pairing Shang-Chi with Kate Bishop was a solid idea for this outing. Her range and his close combat skills compliment each other nicely, and Kate’s Hawkeye isn’t as married to archery as Clint’s, so her swapping weapons works. Though, to be fair, Clint is as good with other weapons as his bow, he uses a bow to give opponents a sporting chance. And I liked that they used the real history of the old west for this one. Like, read any book on western expansion and they’ll go into grim detail about how immigrants in general and the Chinese in specific were used and abused to build railroads. It’s not a pretty history, and it does really work to motivate a Chinese immigrant with martial arts skills and superpowers to want to start a revolution. And Sonny Burch was a nice addition to add a capitalism sucked back then lesson too. I’ll be honest, it wasn’t until he was making his evil speech that I recognized Walton Goggins from his role as Sonny Burch the gangster in Ant-Man 2. Way to use a minor but solid character for this What If…? story guys. And yeah, I clocked Xialing being the villain from more or less minute one. She’s very much her daddy’s girl. And it makes me laugh that this What If is actually super possible, it just required Xu Wenwu trying to find Ta Lo and meeting his wife Ying Li in the 1830s instead of the 1990s. Being immortal is weird like that. Lol Up next, we see the trial of Uatu the Watcher. See you then. 

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Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social

Viewer Log: What If...? ep 23

 Even in hopeless situations, so people persevere. 

Last time on What if…?, we saw a truly odd couple in Darcy and Howard the Duck. This is a return trip to the universe where Thor grew up without Loki as his stepbrother/rival and was more of a party animal because of it, bringing a huge alien party to Earth. Darcy and Howard got nachos, hit it off, and about a year later have an egg. Things are fine up until they get home, where they meet Topaz, enforcer for The Grandmaster, who gives them free tickets for a cruise. They go on the cruise and then spend the rest of the episode chasing after their egg or running with their egg from the various parties trying to grab it. Parties that include: Kaecilius the new master of Knowhere who wants the egg for a vessel for Dormammu, The Grandmaster who wants to eat it, Zeus who wants to use it for reasons unknown, the Dark Elves that want to use it to darken the world, and The Black Order, who just heard ‘magic egg’ and wanted in on it. Turns out Darcy laid her egg during a Cosmic Convergence giving it special properties. They end up trying to hide on Jotunheim with Jotun Loki but get tracked in short order. They get attacked by all parties, but as they sing KISS’s “I Was Made For Loving You” the egg reacts and starts blasting people with energy. When the last goon defeated the egg hatches and the Ducks turn down Loki and his father Laufey’s offer for rooms at their new Ski Lodge to go home and tuck Byrdee the Duck in. Enough recap. Let’s get to it.

 

Ep 23: What If…The Emergence Destroyed Earth?

 

The story begins with Uatu explaining that we’re going to start watching a story near its tragic ending. He elaborates that he’s seen a lot of wars, as he sees all things, but while he’s gotten used to it, the hardest thing to process is a world that will fall simply because the hero that could rise to save it is no more. Once again, he laments that he’s only able to watch due to his oaths. We’re then told this is the Iron Federation on Earth in the Near Future, which is being patrolled by Iron Drones. Someone in a cloak dodged past security, revealed a moment later to be Riri Williams, hero in the making and builder of her own Iron Man armor. She rips down a poster with Mysterio on it, revealing an Avengers A=> logo, and using a high-tech eyeglass sees the words Rushville in invisible ink. Uatu says that he’s seen variations of this timeline play out repeatedly. In each of them, Riri is their last, best hope, but in each of them she fails. Riri heads to The Rushville, a rundown hotel. Inside she meets with her contact, Sharon Carter aka the Power Broker. Sharon brought her a small oven, all analog as Riri requested. Sharon makes veiled remarks about how Riri has been blowing up Iron Federation supply trucks, and Riri plays dumb. She warns Riri that once the Federation has you in it’s sights, it’s all over. Just as an Iron Drone arrives and it’s revealed Sharon sold her out. Riri says that the trouble with people today is you don’t know who’s real, before slamming the oven into her face, and grabbing a piece of it that flies out to jam into her suit. She starts running and firing on the Drones. It’s revealed that part of what makes these drones super dangerous is that only about half of them are real, mixed in with each squad are holographic copies that you can only see the difference between them if shot. She destroys a few holograms, gets knocked aside by a real drone and then tries to fly away. Her jetpack gets her far, loses power for a sec before rocketing her to the ceiling. The Drones land and then the Vision floats up out of the ground. It’s white Vision so you know he means business. He starts choking her out, but then drops her as he gets hit with cannon fire. Riri lands and meets Admiral Ying Nan of the Alliance. She brought General Okoye to use one of the cannons on White Vision. Okoye calls for Mystic support and Wong blasts Vision. Captain Valkyrie is told to get them out of here and we see there on a flying long boat.

 

As they pull away, we see a giant mountain of rock in the sky, and Uatu tells us “Welcome to Earth, what’s left of it, anyway.” We pull out to view the globe and Earth has indeed been cracked like an egg, bits of broken planet lit with lights, but a whole lot more of it is just floating out in space, rubble. In this universe, Tiamat was allowed to reach maturity and hatched, destroying Earth as we know it. He says that for whatever reason in this Universe Tiamat matured faster than in the main line universe, leading to Earth dying years before the Eternals could unite to stop it. But, he explains, one man saw the chaos as an opportunity. Former Stark employee and egomaniacal director Quentin Beck seized control of Stark Industries and used his Iron Federation to do battle with the Alliance.

 

We cut to Beck in his lab, looking extremely haggard and old, I assume in part to explain why he’s not being played by Jake Gyllenhaal. He’s wired into some kind of machine that seems to be breathing for him. He tells White Vision that the Alliance is down to it’s final brigade and orders White Vision to end them.

 

Riri is taken to the Alliance’s base, floating in the wreckage of Earth’s rubble. Riri asks why they brought her in. They say they know she got a magnetron from the Power Broker is of great interest to them, as it could potentially destroy White Vision. Riri asks if they’ve been spying it, to which Wong says ‘yeah, for a while.’ Okoye says that they know her device will decouple and destabilize vibranium, but to use it on a whole Vision she’ll need more than just a part from a kids cooking oven. They ask her to trust them, but Riri isn’t very trusting. She calls them a sinking ship, and the Admiral smiles and says their ship sank a long time ago. We then see the base itself, the Titanic.

 

They bring her in and down into a weapons lab. Ying Nan says that this should be all she needs to build her weapon, and that if she’s out of hope, why not make it herself. Riri agrees to help, asking for snacks to help her build. They get a warning about an incoming hostile with “variable” density. She orders the perimeter secured to give Riri time to work. The fact Vision is essentially a robot ghost makes me think this plan is doomed to fail. Okoye finds a bunch of their men already down, and radios in that he’s already here. Valkyrie asks how long she’ll need to build her weapon. Riri says 12 hours, and then asks how long she has. Wong tells her seven minutes, as that’s how long his protection spell will last. Damn. They head out to buy her time, Wong making magic armor for the A team as they go. Vision walks through their men, destroying them easily, blasting and phasing his way through obstacles. He finally hits a wall he can’t phase through, Wong using his powers to hold him in. As the others duke it out with White Vision, Riri scrambles to make the weapon work. She gets a device built and put into her gauntlet but when she tries to use it on White Vision it doesn’t work. She quickly smacks the device and fires, destroying the Vision. The Alliance are happy she got to work it working, but they can’t relax. They need to pull out, and trash any trace of their time in the Titanic. They think without the Vision, though, Beck’s illusions will have a lot less bite to them. Riri asks about the others, to which they confirm the A team is all they’ve got left.

 

In his lab, Beck watches the last minute of Vision’s signal, Riri slapping her device and demanding it work before it does. He screams out, demanding to know who Riri Williams is.

 

Yang Nin gives their people a somber eulogy before Wong uses his power to tlight the fuse and destroy the Titanic for good this time. We find Riri looking over the Vision’s body. Uatu narrates, saying that Riri has lost a lot these few years, saying that she used the fight to keep her going even after losing family, friends and loved ones, but that fight will be what kills her. Like it does every time. Later, Wong confirms with Vision down, Beck is sending out every available unit of his Iron Legion to reinforce his provinces. Okoye confirms that they’re the only ones left. Riri says that without Vision, Beck’s never been weaker. He’s got his legion but his real power is his illusion tech, and if they can disable his nanite illusions, he’ll be down and out forever. Okoye says that his base is on the far side of an asteroid fragment, so they’ll be going into a den of illusions blind. She says that the asteroids are why you need the Vision to enter it, and it just so happens she has all his spare parts. Uatu, watching, sighs and says ‘here we go again.’

 

He narrates, saying that Riri always thinks she can build her way around a problem. She uses the Vision’s parts to build herself nanite upgrades, becoming a Human Synthozoid. Wong warns that there’s no telling how this power may change her. Riri seems okay with that deal. She completes her Vision armor and phase up to meet the others. Uatu warns that even with the power of Vision flowing through her, she can’t see that this is how it ends for her. Always.

 

The Alliance heads for Beck’s base and get fired upon by heavy weaponry. Riri her new Vision to see through Beck’s defenses, locating what’s real and what are holograms. She leads her people through, but her vision starts shorting out. Turns out flying into a fight with untested powers is a dumb idea. She gets shot down and everyone crashes. Yang Nin finds her and the two head in to disable Bec’s network while the others hold off his forces. They run for the base, dodging around security as they go. They make it to Beck’s Nanite network, and Riri uses her new power to hack the system to try to disable it. She begins to work, only to discover that the hub isn’t real, neither is this Yang Nin, it’s all an illusion. She’s revealed to actually be in a cell, and that Mysterio is watching from a few feet away. She’s confused by this, as she followed the signals, the nanite network should be here. Beck agrees that the signal was correct, he just had the same idea that Riri had and uploaded the network directly into his brain. This gives him near perfect control of his illusions and he says if she wants to stop him, she’ll have to pull the nanites from his cold dead body. She says she won’t have to wait long given how he looks, but he says that his power came at a cost, but it was worth it. He reveals his new plan, since his body is clearly dying, he’ll just upload into the Vision’s. He starts electrocuting her telepathically, demanding she surrender the Vision’s parts so he can rebuild himself. Riri uses their connection to short out one of his gauntlets and frees herself. She tries to fight, but Beck can just make more and more illusions. She demands he stop using illusions and fight her. He agrees that if lies don’t break her, the truth will. He reveals that she never left that field, and that all of her friends are dead around her. Beck tells her that she’s failed, and Uatu says this is how it always ends. Her will to fight broken, Riri so exhausted and defeated that she’s can’t go on. Beck begins the transfer, taking the Vision’s parts from her. Uatu says that he can’t watch this again and starts to walk away. Beck tells her that it’s all over, and Uatu decides to intervene again, shouting “Fight!” to Riri and revitalizing her. She uses her connection and rips the suit back from Beck. He screams that this is wrong, he beat her and rushes her. Riri phases through him, pulling the nanites from his body as she does. She says she’s going to shut down his illusions. Beck claims to be the master of illusions and that he’ll make it so no one knows what she did. Riri says ‘nope’ and flies up, using her nanites to project the Avenger’s symbol to the sky. The people cheer and Riri flies out to help rebuild the world.

 

As she does, we see three Watchers Watching the Watcher. They’re the Eminence, the Incarnate and The Executioner. They say that he’s broken his oath yet again. They can’t let him keep doing this and say they’re going to keep a closer eye on him. Ya know its bad when Watchers Watch a Watcher.

 

Got another one for ‘this should have been longer,’ list. Overall, this episode does its job, we get in, life is bleak and Beck is a monster, Riri meets allies, hope sparks, hope dies, hope is born anew when Uatu breaks his oath. But I can’t help but feel like the deaths and tragedy of this story would be a lot stronger if Riri had just some downtime with the Alliance before they’re all killed. As is, they’re rushing from minute one to get everything into this arbitrary 35 minutes. So, it feels like Riri met everyone maybe a day, day and a half before their big raid on Beck’s Bunker. There’s just… so much less drama there. I did like the design of this wizen Quinten Beck, though. And implanting nanites into his brain regardless of health effects is the kind of insanity that he’d do just to ensure that his power couldn’t be taken from him. Was it just to disguise the fact that Quinten Beck in this story is played by Alejandro Saab instead of Jake Gyllenhaal? Probably, but I’ll take it. I’d rather see the character portrayed by a soundalike than not see them at all because the actor is too expensive to get for a voice roll or they’re REALLY bad at VO work. And I like that his evil plan does heavily utilizes his skill in programing illusions as well as having an army of robots. The paranoia that people must feel as these armies of robots’ march in and you’re not sure if it’s just one, ten, or a dozen because of all the holograms must be intense. I will give Jeffery Wright this big compliment, he sounds as tired and defeated as a guy who’s watched the same horrible event play out 10000 times should sound when Riri nearly breaks. I still think the episode could have presented it better, maybe show variations of Riri breaking a few times, or something, but he’s giving 110% with the dialogue as usual. So, yeah, good story but rushed. Next time, we head to the old west. See you then. 

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Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social

Viewer Log: What If...? ep 22

 Parenthood is always a wild ride.

Last time on What If…?, we saw what would happen if Red Guardian had not gone to be a senior data analyst in Ohio. The communist themed Captain America stole a dossier of the Rook, a spy within the US that had been working with Russia and intercepted Winter Soldier’s mission to kill the Starks. His intervention let the Starks live, and lead to a country wide chase for the Russian assets lead by Dr. Bill Foster aka Goliath. On the way the two of them bond, Aleksi helps Winter Soldier recover a memory of Coney Island, which is one memory more than he’d had before so it’s a major win. He gets a call to execute Aleksi for screwing the mission, but he dithers on it as the two of them have bonded. They arrive in LA where they were told the Rook was, to discover that the Rook is Obediah Stane. And he’s less interested in overthrowing capitalism and more interested in taking over Stark Industries. Stane tries to kill them while Aleksi is having an existential crisis, but Winter Soldier saves him and throws Stane out a window. The two make a run for it and get cornered by both Red Room Agents and SHIELD. The Red Room tries to use Winter Soldier’s command phrase to activate his program, but he actually fights through it and doesn’t activate. The two decide to go down fighting. We don’t see the fight, but we do see that Winter Soldier was re-captured and insists that Aleksi was KIA. In fact he survived and went into hiding as a gym coach named Bob Toledo. Bill tracks him down and offers him a role at SHIELD which he takes, which ultimately leads to him being an Avenger. High fives all around. Enough recap. Let’s get to it.

 

Ep 22: What If… Howard the Duck got Hitched?

 

The story begins with Howard the Duck recording meeting his and Darcy’s… Egg for the first time. Were I Dr. Darcy the Duck, I would be much more concerned by the fact I pushed out a fertilized egg than Darcy seems to… Anyway, Uatu comes in to say that the lives of the Ducks were changed with the birth of their child, but they never thought about how the child would change reality.

 

We get confirmation that this is the universe where Thor came to Earth to throw a massive party. Uatu goes on to explain that while the party ended, the hoards of aliens that Thor brought for his big shindig liked the planet so much many of them decided to set up shop permanently on Earth. Like Howard and+ Darcy, their lives got intertwined. Darcy and Howard put their egg down and annoy their neighbors by singing loudly off key. They sit down to nest for the evening when they get a knock on their door. It’s Topaz, the Grandmaster’s top enforcer. She tells them they’ve been served. Howard insists that those charges were dropped, before she elaborates and says they’re being served tickets to Grandmaster’s Grand Cruise Across the Stars, all expenses paid. When Darcy points out she’d never heard of this, Topaz says that it’s extremely targeted advertising and they’ll never forget the trip.

 

Darcy, Howard and the Egg que up for their spot on the intergalactic cruise ship. Darcy looks at the itinerary and says that they’ve got “couples’ cliff-diving on Vormir,” and Howard adds “They says you can only truly appreciate it with someone you love,” and I had to take a sec as that’s a surprisingly subtle but still extremely dark joke. They get beamed up onto the ship, and a mysterious man that’s clearly Yondu watches them from a distance, saying that he has eyes on the package, and they’ll grab it off world. They are given a leis and martinis and actually meet Jeff Goldblum… the Grandmaster himself. He seems weirdly into their egg, pulling up a small battalion of childcare professionals to look after the egg so Darcy and Howard can have “couple time.” They’re clearly uncomfortable with this, but, like, he’s not wrong as Howard puts it. They hand over the egg.

 

They’re taken to the Grandmaster Grand banquet and brought to the head of the table. After the seats are adjusted, Grandmaster’s going up and theirs down, he starts giving a speech about the meal they’re going to enjoy. Darcy can’t read the menu, but Howard has a translator app on his phone. It takes a minute for it to fully load, but it turns out that breakfast is obviously going to be Darcy and Howards egg. Meik is the chef for some reason and he pulls out the egg to prepare it in front of everyone. Yondu then burst in and grabs the egg. In the confusion Darcy and Howard run off and steal a ship to chase Yondu.

 

They chase after Yondu’s ship, Darcy muttering it’s just like Galaga as they do, but then Yondu Jump Points away. With no other real option, Darcy calls ‘the fuzz.’ Which turns out to be Nick Fury and Phil Coulson. They pull them up on holographic phone and demand to know why multiple parties seem to be after their egg. Fury says that since the egg was laid during the “Cosmic Convergence” (Thor: Dark World) that it was a sign of the birth of a great new power, and that’s why everyone wants that egg. Coulson gets Fury’s attention and starts muttering something to him. Howard uses their hologram phones zoom and enhance function to make it out, that SHIELD detected a Ravager ship jumping out of the Cat’s Eye Nebula and that indicates they might be meeting with the Collector. Fury assures them that SHIELD is on this, but Howard’s not waiting for the 5-O to get this done. There’s a joke about the name Knowhere that goes nowhere before they head out.

 

On Knowhere, we learn that the Collector has been replaced, trapped in the mirror dimension by Kaecilius (Doctor Strange), who’s taken over. He says that because the most valuable relics always seem to come through Knowhere eventually, taking over seemed like a good idea. I think they just couldn’t get Benicio del Toro in the recording booth again. Yondu says that he’s getting offers from Dark Elves and at least Olympic God for the egg, but Kaecilius tells him that Dormammu is in fact not here to bargain, using his dark power to hold Yondu in place to get the egg and then has his minions gun him down.

 

Darcy and Howard land on Knowhere and slip into the Collector’s citadel through the sewers. We learn that Howard escaped the Collector through the sewers, but weirdly won’t use public restrooms. They get inside, see some people in robes wandering around, steal some robes, and follow. They’re led to the chamber where the ‘ensoulment’ is about to take place. Kaecilius opens a portal to the Dark Dimension and Dormammu peaks in, Kaecilius offering the egg to be used as a host body to enter our dimension. Considering that there’s a not-zero chance the embryo inside will end up looking like the human/ostrich monstrosity, Dormammu must not be picky about bodies. Before the transfer could be completed, SHIELD bursts in. Coulson says that everyone is under arrest for having unauthorized level 11 cosmic contraband. Fury says that the egg will be safer in SHIELD Hands, to which Darcy and Howard object. Fury says that he’s not sure they can trust such a powerful being to the hands of a first time mom and a gambling addict. Howard points out that he’s a recovering gambling addict. Coulson goes to store the egg, but Kaecilius opens up the mirror dimension and a fight breakout. As smoke, portals, and chaos rules, Howard and Darcy get the egg and make a break for it.

 

They escape Knowhere and decide to find a place to hide for a while. Howard has an idea. We cut to Jotun-form Loki saying that he’ll make the 9 Realms respect Jotunheim… with the Jotun Slopes Luxury hotel, resort and casino. … somewhere, Lord of Time Loki is groaning. Darcy and Howard ask him for his help, and Loki says that as Darcy is his “brother from another mother’s old lady’s sister from another mister,” he’s duty bound to help. SHIELD arrives and Fury is here for the egg. They try to run, but they’re cut off by Laufey, who isn’t super keen on his son’s tourist trap to begin with, and as it turns out also wants the egg. Loki says that his brother from another mother will not look kindly on this, just before lightning strikes the hotel. It’s not Thor, though, but Zeus. They then start getting chased by Jotuns, SHIELD, Olympian soldiers, Dark Elves, Kaecilius and his dark sorcerers, and then the Black Order portal in. They’re not here for the baby, though, they’re here for a company retreat, they’ve got a Groupon for it. But once they hear “magic baby” from Howard, Ebony Maw thinks that maybe they need to call this one in. Grandmaster then shows up and beams the egg up. Zeus strikes the ship with a lightning bolt and the ship goes down and everyone scrambles for the egg. Thanos beams in and is less than impressed he was called in for an egg instead of the infinity stones. Howards gets the egg, and the ducks end up sledding down a Jotun Mountain on a shield. Laufey tries to grab it, but Loki knocks him aside. Laufey says that he’s taking Loki’s trust fund.

 

The Ducks land and see the armies amassing atop the mountain and charge to get the egg. The Ducks start singing Kiss’s I Was Made for Loving Me again, and the egg reacts, flying upward and shining with light. Everyone basks at the beauty for a moment before charging. The Egg starts blasting anyone that gets too close. They hold off the forces for a bit before the sheer numbers overwhelm them. The forces grab at the egg, it starts to crack and then knocks everyone back. Everyone gets struck by gold energy and is either destroyed or knocked back. The egg hatches and a human with a pointed nose and blue hair comes out. How odd. Fury and SHIELD survived the blast, and Fury apologizes for not trusting them to look after their own kid. Fury and co leave, and Loki and Laufey come over and say they want to apologize for that whole… thing by comping them a room, with full minibar privileges. They say thanks but no thanks and head home. They name the baby Byrdiee. Byrdiee the Duck. They try to slip away but the baby starts crying and they run back in.

 

Well… that was an ordeal. Don’t get me wrong, it’s funny but I know just enough about duck anatomy to be horrified for Darcy. Trust me, if you don’t know, you don’t want to know. Anyway, Seth Green is good as a character I personally don’t like. I find Howard the Duck gross, weird, and stupid, but at least they got a quality voice actor to voice him. He works well with Kat Dennings’ Darcy, as they’re both kind of dumb and kind of smart, so they play off each other well. The sheer number of groups that are after this egg is bonkers. That final rush comprised of basically every large space-based villain group made me gasp. They were basically just missing Hela and the Chitari. But I can’t help but point out that thousands of humans are born every minute on Earth alone… so there’s simply no way in hell that this one human-bird hybrid is the only ‘special’ child born during the convergence. Especially when, and I can’t believe I feel the need to point this out, the baby was not born on the Convergence. It’s an egg. Embryos in eggs are still developing. Darcy may have laid an egg but by any metric the baby’s born on the day it hatches! Oy. It was fun to see chill Loki again, and his obsession with setting up a ski resort made me chuckle. So yeah, a fun ride even though I personally don’t like Howard the Duck. Next time, we see what happens if Tiamat had been allowed to come into the universe. See you then. 

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Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social

Viewer Log: What If...? ep 21

Classic Grouch/Goofball combo. But in a fancy communist package. 

Last time on What If…? Agatha Harkness tried to make it Hollywood. Somehow, she’d discovered Tiamat, the developing Celestial inside the Earth’s core, and attempted to drain its power for herself. This proved difficult as magic has a Qui Pro Quo system to it, so sucking up the power of a minor god requires an equally big ritual. She’d attempted to make the ritual via a huge song and dance movie financed and directed by Howard Stark but it wasn’t working. She decided she’d need help to pull this off and got Howard to hire Bollywood’s biggest star Kingo to play opposite her. The secret Eternal Kingo, in this dimension the Supreme Eternal, came in and tried to stop her, learning that she’d taken out the other Eternals and stolen their powers. She says they’re fine and will put them back in working order if he’ll help her drain Tiamat. He initially says no but bends when Agatha promises a three-picture deal with Howard. His Master, Arishem the Judge, sensed this betrayal and announced he was coming to earth to exact retribution. Agatha, Kingo, Howard and Jarvis were able complete a ritual, allowing Agatha to ascend to godhood just before Arishem arrived. They did battle, Agatha defeating the Celestial and draining his lifeforce as well. She was about to start doing dark god type things, but Kingo reached out to her and convinced her that she doesn’t really want to be a despotic evil goddess but something better… a movie star! She agrees to tone it down, their movie premiers and everything looks like it’s coming up roses. But it’s heavily implied other Celestials are on their way and are pissed. What fun for them. Enough recap. Let’s get to it.

 

Ep 21: What If… The Red Guardian Stopped the Winter Soldier?

 

We open on video footage of a fight beside a crashed car on December 16, 1991. Three days before my first birthday, neat! Anyway, you know this crash if you’ve seen Captain America: Civil War. Winter Soldier, under the command of HYDRA operatives, hunted down and executed Howard and Maria Stark in cold blood. Uatu muses about how this oh so pivotal moment in the History of the MCU, an event that’s ramifications would be felt for decades, could go so differently. And in the footage, we see Red Guardian arriving and getting in the way of the assassination. Neat.

 

We join Aleksi Shostakov aka the Red Guardian as he’s getting his mission from his handler to serve as a data analyst… sorry, senior data analyst in Ohio. Ya know, the one he did with three Black Widows as his wife and two daughters. He’s obviously insulted by this job and Dreykov tries to talk him into it. He says that he’s heard rumors of new intelligence from the Rook, a deep cover agent in the US and wants in on whatever that job is. Dreykov gets a call and tries to nonchalantly tell the man on the other end that they’ll need to activate the Winter Soldier for this mission, which upsets Aleksi further. James Buchannan Barnes isn’t even Russian! When Dreykov won’t give him the mission, Aleksi says that maybe it’s time for him to spread his wings. Dreykov rolls his eyes and asks what the plan even would be, to put in an application at SHIELD? Aleksi says he’ll just have to prove himself again and palms the Rook file when Dreykov isn’t looking.

 

We’re shown Winter Soldier being activated and sent out onto his mission to kill the Starks. At the same time, we see Aleksi playing Tetris on a Gameboy, taking a flight with a crying baby and then arriving in the US. Two very different travel experiences. He interrupts the attack, Winter Soldier punching him off his ride as he swerves in. They have an argument, Winter Solider insisting that they leave no witness as per his orders, while Red Guardian insists that they do leave witnesses, because killing is beneath them and for Stark to spread the word to fear Mother Russia. They start fighting, Aleksi doing way better than you’d assume. He might be a bit dumb, but he is a super soldier. He holds Winter Soldier off long enough for the cops to arrive and the two of them run away. Winter Soldier calls in to their handler on a TX-10 (Alexsi’s insulted he only had TX-8) and informs them that they got one of the items the Starks were carry and that both Starks were alive. Winter Soldier is told that he failed the mission and he’s on his own to get extracted. He clearly takes this info hard.

 

Back at the crash, Howard and Maria are put into an ambulance and carted away just as Bill Foster, head of SHIELD’s science division and the lead investigator on this incident arrives. He speaks with Ranger Morales about what happened, who informs him that the Starks are alive and they saw a little of what happened to them. Howard saw a brief scuffle but that’s about it. Evidence would suggest a carjacking gone wrong… except for the trail of blue slime that our Russian agents left as they fled. Bill knows that they’re dealing with super soldiers, and orders borders closed from New York to Ohio to keep them from getting away. He gives Winter Soldier and Red Guardian a fair amount of buildup on how dangerous and skilled they are, before we cut to Aleksi having a ‘Sir this is a Wendy’s’ moment when a worker asked him if he wanted fries with his meal. Having had enough of this, Winter Soldier shoves him aside and completes their order. As they eat, Aleksi suggests that they head out to Las Vegas where the dossier he stole says the Rook is. He also accidentally sprayed Winter Soldier in the face with ketchup, so this is going to go smoothly, I can feel it. They decide they need a car, and a jerk pulls his muscle car into a handicap spot, giving them a sweet ride.

 

They head across country but are stopped at a checkpoint that Bill Foster himself is overseeing. Bill asks them a few routine questions, which they fail miserably, and he spies the Red Guardian’s shield in the back. He asks them to get out of the car, Winter Soldier pulls a pistol on them, but Aleksi speeds away, saving Bill’s life in the process. A chase begins, with cops trying to cut them off while Bill and Morales chase after them. Winter Soldier pulls a rifle on them, but Aleksi’s driving keeps him from killing anyone. Bill and Morales almost cut them off, but Winter Soldier rips through the car door into their car to make them swerve and crash. More cops arrive and Bill busts out his Goliath suit to chase them down. Aleksi keeps making communist flavored comments, with Winter Soldier finally getting sick of it and saying Aleksi’s more brainwashed than him. Bill almost catches them but Aleksi grabs his shield and hurls it at him, following and leaping off Goliath’s face to knock him down. The Russian agents speed their way to a canyon and try to leap across it, Morales saying they’re either brave or dumb to try it, and Bill saying they’re enhanced and dumb.

 

Some hours later Bill and Morales find the crashed car. Inside they find a map book with a page torn out, tipping Bill off that they’re headed to Vegas. Aleksi and Winter Soldier break into a vet hospital for medical supplies. As Aleksi admires a bruise on his forehead, saying he’ll get a commendation for it, Winter Soldier picks a bullet out of his right human arm. Aleksi comes over to help him, asking how Winter Soldier got it. Winter Soldier asks where Aleksi comes from, and he says he’s from the middle of nowhere, his family are good but unimportant people, so when he got the chance to be something more, he took it. Winter Soldier admits that he doesn’t know anything about himself, even his name. Red Guardian tells him to close his eyes and think back. He does so reluctantly and sees Coney Island. Red Guardian is happy that he found something and then heads out to steal them a new ride. Once alone, Winter Soldier gets a call from Dreykov, telling him that he’s now got orders to execute Aleksi. Aleksi has been deemed a liability and Winter Soldier is to kill him and get back home.

 

They make their way to Vegas, Aleksi making more communist angry comments, and Winter Soldier suggesting they hit up a craps table, ya know, to blend in. Aleksi is up for it, but says no buffets, as Winter Soldier will put them out of business with his appetite. They head up to the Rook’s room, where we learn that the Rook is in fact Obediah Stane. Aleksi, who was super excited to meet the agent that will help end the filthy capitalist hellscape that is America to it’s knees, is more than a little bummed out to learn that Stane is a capitalist pig. And that he only traded the info to Russia so they’d kill Stark, so he’s equally pissed he’s not giving the Eulogy at Howard’s funeral right now. Aleksi has a small existential crisis upon learning that the Red Room worked with Stane and by extension he worked for a capitalist. Stane angrily says that Capitalism is the only system that works and that anyone who has a problem with it is obviously poor. He asks if their bosses actually give a damn about them, and when they say no, he pulls a gun on them. Winter Soldier saves Aleksi and then knocks Stane out the window, probably killing him in the fountain below. He apologizes for that, but Aleksi doesn’t mind. A Red Room hit squad comes in to kill them, but they fight them off and jump out the window to escape.

 

On the ground floor, they run into Bill and Morales, who are wondering why they spared the Starks but killed Stane. The chase resumes as Red Guardian and Winte Soldier land. They chase the Russians through a casino, Winter Soldier shooting the slot machines to make them go off and cause a small riot as people grab the cash. Bill supersizes and chase after them, but the two team up and knocks him to the ground. They get chased into an abandoned building. Bill calls in copters.

 

They get cornered by more Red Room Agents. Winter Soldier tells Aleksi that Dreykov put a hit out on him and warns that if they use the book on him, he won’t remember anything of the last few days and will be forced to kill him. He gives Aleksi the experimental super soldier goo they stole, telling him to run, but Aleksi says if Russia betrays him, he’ll betray them, and crushes the baggie. One of the agents’ stars reading Winter Soldier’s activation phrase and Winter Soldier winces in pain. He tells Aleksi to run, saying anyone can make it in America, that much he remembers because of Aleksi. The agent completes the phrase but Winter Soldier fights through it and doesn’t turn. Red Guardian and Winte Soldier burst out as Foster and his group burst in.

 

We don’t see how the fight goes, but we see Winter Soldier captured and strapped back into his brainwashing chair to be reprogramed. Dreykov demands to know what happened to Aleksi. Winter Soldier says that he died a Russian hero and that’s all he’ll say on the matter. He gets subjected to mind erasure again. We cut to Aleksi, now under the alias of Bob Toledo working as a gym coach. He’s met by Bill Foster who gives him back his shield. He asks if Bill is here to arrest him, but Bill says that he’s actually here to see if Aleksi would be willing to help out. Aleksi says that he could be persuaded to fill out an application. We then get that big scene from the original Avengers, where they all gather together in a circle, and they do a panning shot around them. With Aleksi jumping in and forcing into a spot between Captain America and Black Widow. I’d like to think after this mission he pushed hard to recover Bucky.

 

I had fun with this one. David Harbour is just delightfully obnoxious with his communist rhetoric and total inability to take a hint without getting into truly irritating territory. I like that he seems to be just a genuinely good dude that is… unreasonably optimistic at how into communism the higher ups in the party are. I like that he just sort of worms his way under Bucky’s skin and helps him recover himself, if only for a little bit and a little while. It was also nice to see Bill Foster again as portrayed by Lawrence Fishburn. I honestly think it’s a shame that he only had one film MCU appearance as he’s one of the better actors they’ve gotten. The man just has the swagger I’d expect from a dude who can hit a button and become a giant. I like that ultimately, he was the one to recruit Aleksi to keep doing hero work, but for SHIELD now. And I need to give props to Sebastian Stan. While he is a fabulous screen actor, when I heard him in the first season of What If…? he was consistently the weakest voice actor in whatever story he was in. His delivery was always just a little too wooden, a little too stiff. He’s either gotten used to the VA format or gotten some tips from the more veteran voice actors to improve this much. He and Aleksi have a very believable grump and goofball friendship, and it’s clear that Aleksi is having fun for most of this road trip. It’s funny to think that he’s actually a very serious spy and covert ops agent when he apparently slips into screaming the communist manifesto with basically zero prompting. So yeah, fun little road trip with our Russian assets. Next time, more Howard the Duck and Darcy… don’t know how to feel about this one, as I do like Seth Green, but I HATE Howard the Duck. We’ll have to see where it goes. Have a good night.

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Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social

Viewer Log: What If...? ep 20

 It's no Cat's Don't Dance but it's got it's charm. 

Last time on What If…? for the first time ever, a man got therapy and made everything worse. In this alternate universe Bruce Banner and Sam Wilson met outside of hero work, became friends and Sam tried to help Bruce with therapy. This seemed to work, until Bruce transformed into the Hulk by accident. He fled his friend and tried to expunge the Hulk from him. Instead, he created a whole new Hulk Monster dubbed Apex that grew to Kaiju size and reproduced asexually. The Avengers took it on with giant Hulk Buster Mech, the original team being killed but the second-generation Avengers led by Sam Wilson’s Captain America to stop them. Ten years later Apex returned with a much larger army and prepared to attack. Sam went to Bruce for help and while he refused to help himself he gave Sam something that should give him an edge. That edge was the Mighty Avengers Protocol that took the separate Hulk Buster units and transformed into a Megazord. They handled the lesser Gamma Beasts, but Apex was too powerful. Bruce came in on a nuclear bomber that he’d been living in, and used the atomic bomb on it to supercharge himself and transform into a Hulk-zilla. Hulk-zilla fought Apex, nearly lost, but was saved by Sam firing a rocket punch at Apex. Hulk-zilla killed Apex, taking its place as leader of the Gamma Beasts. It looked like Hulk-zilla might rampage, but Sam talked him down and Hulk-zilla led the Gamma Beasts to his island home. Enough recap. Let’s get to it.

 

Ep 20: What If… Agatha Harkness Went To Hollywood?

 

Our latest What If…? begins with a black and white movie narrated by Uatu of course. Before anything else were the Celestials, the ancient cosmic entities gathered and bowed down before a staircase to the heavens and outcomes Agatha Harkness, giving a speech about how this cosmic power heralds her rebirth! She tries to make something happen, but nothing does, and the director, Howard Stark calls to reset the scene. Uata adds context, saying that in this timeline Agatha discovered that the Earth had a developing Celestial inside it and wants to absorb its power to make herself into a god. But due to the Quid Pro Quo of Magic, to do something that big, you need a ritual of equal size. So, she went to Hollywood in the hopes the film could lead to a big enough symbolic ritual to siphon away the power. Howard Stark, a young entrepreneur and easily distracted when excited, was happy to pay the bill. He seems to be under the impression that Agatha’s magic is all effects built into the camera. Oy, how dumb can a smart guy be? Anyway, she says her spell isn’t working… in the scene, so they may need to redo the blocking. Howard calls for his assistant, the original Jarvis, who says that he doesn’t want to completely redo the third act again as he’s written scripts for it 5 times. Howard says they’ll do it a hundred times if they must, to get it right. Jarvis complains about adding more explosions and action set pieces, which gives Agatha the idea that they need more star power to make this work. Howard is excited by this idea and asks who could be the foil for Agatha Harkness, who could she steal the show from? Jarvis is less than enthused about more actors, but when he sarcastically says they should make the set bigger and add more dancers, both Agatha and Howard are into it. Man should know not to be sarcastic in front of his boss. Howard suggests they get one of the heavyweights of the era, Humphry Bogart, Clark Gable, and says that Cary Grant owes him a favor, but Agatha has another idea. She thinks there only one actor that can match her… Kingo!

 

I guess I didn’t realize how big Bollywood was during the Golden Age of Film if that man already has name recognition.

 

Kingo rolls up in a limo to the set in the Stark Picture’s Lot. Kingo is impressed by what they have on hand. Jarvis and Howard welcome him in and Kingo claims that he has been preparing for this role his entire life. He makes a few more veiled comments that sound like excitement for the project… until you realize who he’s talking about and it’s clear that he wants to fight-fight Agatha Harkness. They prepare the big musical number for their movie “Galactic Queen.” Kingo is brought in on a tower of people and proceeds to dance. After his big dance number, Agatha comes in decked out in white and lights. An epic and anachronistic group dance battle begins, Agatha’s showgirl tap vs. Kingo’s Bollywood moves. As they dance, Agatha tells him that he was the missing ingredient for her big plan. He makes it clear that he knows what’s really going on and that he’s here to stop her. She claims that it’s the Eternals that want to destroy the world, but Kingo tells her she’s got no idea of the powers she’s messing with. The dance number gets more elaborate, but Kingo gets bored and decides it’s time to break up this party. He whips out his energy blasting hands and starts shooting at Agatha, who keeps dancing around his attacks. Jarvis is clearly freaked out by going off the script again, with energy blasts, but Howard says to keep filming. Agatha is unimpressed by his finger pistols. He shoots at her, where it’s reveals she’s got Thena’s energy weapons. She also has Gilgamesh’s gauntlets, Icarus’s eyebeams and all the other Eternal’s powers. She smacks Kingo around with his friends weapons before getting him at energy pike point, but Howard calls cut and congradulates them on their acting. He really thought they were trying to kill each other up there. He tells the cast to come to his house for the wrap party, Jarvis giving them the directions that it’s the house above the Hollywood sign that, quote, “Will make you question the decency of Capitalism.”  

 

When alone, Kingo warns her that if she tries to kill him, he’s got dozens of heart wrenching monologues to use against her. She tells him to not be so dramatic, and he asks how he could not be when she’s killed his friends and stolen their powers. Agatha reveals that the Eternals are all still alive, they’re just… in storage right now, in the creature workshop. She claims to be the hero of this piece, that she’s going to drain the power from the Celestial incubating in the Earth’s core, but she needs his help to do it. Its revealed that in this universe, Kingo was chosen to be the Prime Eternal at some point in the past by Arishem the Judge, their maker-king, and that he takes that responsibility seriously. Agatha doesn’t buy that he was won over by being given top billing on a doomed planet. She thinks that because Kingo lived as a human, he’ll be willing to deal with her to save them. He’s charmed by her flattery, but says he won’t betray Arishem or the mission he’s devoted eons to. Then Agatha says he’ll get a three picture deal with Howard Stark and he’s in, provided he’s given an absurd amount of control of his movies and gets to dabble in weird arthouse stuff, and just be kind of a goober on film. And Agatha has to bring back his friends. They shake hands, and immediately are pulled into a vision. Yeah, I guess Arishem doesn’t have anything else to do besides monitor his Eternals. He tells Kingo that he is coming and he’ll pay for betraying Arishem. Kingo freaks out a little at this, saying that it’ll take the power of another Celestial to hold Arishem off, which excites Agatha.

 

We cut to the party and Agatha and Kingo bursting in on Howard, saying that they have the third act done and need to do it now, immediately, right this second. Jarvis informs them that’ll be impossible because after the sixth rewrite of the third act they had to strike the set. Kingo and Agatha brainstorm for a minute before suggesting using Griffith Observatory to do their final act. Jarvis asks how he could possibly get permits for that this late at night, but Howard says for the movie that he’ll just buy the damn thing. He tells Jarvis to get everyone into their cars and move, but Kingo suggests using his ride. He summons the Eternal’s wedge shape ship. Howard is impressed by it, saying that Agatha surprised him as he pegged her for a witch. Agatha says she is a witch, and that Kingo’s a space man. To which he corrects her and says he’s more of a space robot. Howard is excited by all this information being confirmed for him. Turns out he knew the whole time, but figured he’d save a ton of money on production by using actual magic. Okay, he very much his is son’s father. He says he’ll do whatever they need to finish the movie, but he wants a look under Kingo’s hood when finished as he senses patent potential. Kingo agrees.

 

We cut to deep space as Arishem travels at high speed via wormhole towards Earth. He’s visibly pissed despite not having a face.

 

Agatha, Kingo, Jarvis and Howard rush to get everything ready in time. They see Arishem head towards the planet and the prepare the ritual. They have Kingo tied up and hanging within the magic circle. He comments that it’s giving major magic sacrifice vibes. Agatha activates the spell, draining Kingo’s power into herself. Once she’s at maximum strength, she blasts down into the planet and rains Tiamat’s power out of the developing Celestial. She blasts everyone out of the room as she ascends to near godlike power. As she towers above creation, everyone Marvels, even Jarvis saying this is the greatest footage ever shot. Arishem arrives and calls her a Heretic and will be judged as such. The two cosmic giants start punching. Agatha blasts at Arishem, him dodging around her attacks, only to be revealed that her attacks were a feign, to create a binding spell. Once he was bound, she starts draining Arishem as well, sucking up all his powers until she explodes. On Earth, Kingo checks with Jarvis to make sure he got all of that. Agatha then reveals she did all of this to get phenomenal cosmic power. Jarvis asks Kingo to do something, as he’s sure that he’s worked with difficult actors before. Kingo says that all actors are difficult because they bare their souls… which gives him an idea. He broadcasts into her mind and asks her to not do this, as the real magic, the real mark she can make on the world is in movies. He says that they’re a lot alike and that really, Agatha doesn’t need that power, she was just looking for the right collaborator. This… works. Huh.

 

The Cosmic Queen is a big hit, Howard Stark claims that war is dead and that pictures are the future, and Agatha and Kingo are loving the attention. As they head in, Kingo warns that Ajax and the other Eternals are extremely concerned that killing two Celestials has made them enemy number one of the others. Agatha says not to worry as they thrive under the attention. Uatu does the wrap up speech, saying anything is possible in the movies, even a happy ending. Just before three more Celestials appear in the night sky, and he adds “but who doesn’t love a cliffhanger?”

 

I’ll just start by saying that this is the style of What If…? story that I like best, two or more characters that never and quite frankly could never meet and interact with each other getting to do that and see what happens. It was nice to see Kumail Nanjiani as Kingo again, as he felt criminally under utilized in The Eternals and that franchise being on indefinite hiatus means they probably won’t be correcting that in a sequel any time soon. The dance fight between him and Kathryn Hahn’s Agatha was pretty good. Both in the literal and figurative sense. Agatha having the ability to drain the other Eternals into uselessness feels a little out of left field, but I can buy that 1. Their energy is compatible with her since she could siphon Tiamat’s power, and 2. That they have just such immense reserves of power she couldn’t drain them completely (at least not quickly) so 3. It gave her a bargaining chip with Kingo. Agatha’s after the power of a being that forges stars, she can be patient and not stuff herself on appetizers. Dominic Cooper was great, as always, as Howard Stark. This version seems to be a bit more… manic than he’s been in other stories but I can buy that he was high on… lots of stuff in this universe. I also liked James D’Arcy as Jarvis. The trope of “butler that tells it like it is” is one of my favorites, and he got a lot of good zings in. The final battle was a little rushed for me, as I just don’t buy Arishem the Judge being so slow witted that he couldn’t see the “I’m pretending to miss but what I’m aiming at is behind you” thing. The being is big T Trillions of years old, he’s seen that trick before. All I’m saying. And Kingo getting Agatha to come down because being a movie star is enough is… silly but I can understand why they went with that angle. And I’ll be honest, the choice between using immense godlike power or getting to hang out with Kumal, I’m picking Kumal. The man just seems delightful. So yeah, decent episode again, and a fun combination of characters. Tomorrow we’re going to see what happens when two Russian assets that don’t objectively suck work together. See you then, have a good night!

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Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social

Viewer Log: What If...? ep 19

 Kaiju Battle!

Well, let’s close out the year with What If…? one last time. This is supposedly the final season, but we’ll see.

 

Last time on What If…? Peggy Carter had to battle a friend. She was saved from being stuck in 1602 by Strange Supreme, the evil Dr. Strange she’d befriended as part of the Guardians of the Multiverse. He took her to his Sanctum Infinitum and showed her his collection of Universe Killers, beings from alternate dimensions that could in theory have destroyed their home realities. He asks for her help in tracking down an escapee and sends her into a Universe where the Red Skull won World War 2, both Sharon Carter and Steven Rogers having died in the bombing at Project Rebirth and destroyed the world. She meets the escapee, and its Kahhori. This is the point where we learn that Strange Supreme has lost whatever tenuous grip on sanity he’d had and had been capturing Universe Enders and other immensely powerful beings to sacrifice in a ritual to restore his universe. Kahhori and Carter team up, freeing dozens of Strange’s captives in a prison riot. Strange starts dumping prisoners into his forge and tries to get Carter and Kahhori into it as well, but the women are outfitted with gear from Strange’s other victims to get a powerup, the most memorable of which being a Hela giving Carter her helmet and shouting for her to give him hell. They’re able to separate Stephen Strange from the demon he’d taken within him, Carter trying to get him to see Christine wouldn’t want this. Strange merges with the Demon again and they’re knocked into the Forge. Carter catches herself, Strange Supreme tries to blast her but Stephen stops his dark side from doing so, making him the final sacrifice. Carter is brought to the Watcher’s realm. Uatu says he’ll bring her home now, but first shows her that Kahhori made it back, and what Strange Supreme wrought. He reforged his universe but ensured that he would not be born into it. So, Christine can live but will never know him. The two depart on the long way home to Captain Carter’s universe. Enough recap. Let’s get to it.

 

Ep 19: What If… The Hulk Fought the Mech Avengers?

 

We open with an 80s Anime era opening. The Avengers fought against evil for years until the Hulk lost control and started fighting against his friends. He unleashed a horde of Gamma Beasts, giant Kaiju monsters to battle his former friends. To battle these giant beasts, Tony had the bright idea to make Gundams… I mean giant mechs to fight them. We cut out to see a girl watching this show on an iPad, right before an actual Gamma Beast attack begins, destroying her home.

 

Uatu takes us back to see how this “Gamma War” got started, saying it began with a friendship, and showing us Bruce Banner running around the DC area as Sam Wilson calls “on your left” to him as he gets close to passing. They introduce themselves to each other after and bond a little as Sam gets Bruce talking about the ways he’s trying to de-stress to keep the Hulk at bay. He gets Bruce to start going to group therapy and we hear about how Bruce admits that he’s just as afraid of containing the Hulk as anyone. Sam tries to keep helping which seems to work until a day out on a fishing boat where a sudden storm causes a boon to break and nearly knock someone into the water. Banner saves the fisher but gets hit hard and transforms into the Hulk as a defense mechanism. Sam tries to talk him down but the Hulk flees, feeling ashamed that Sam saw that side of him. Desperate, Bruce tries the dumbest plan I’ve ever head of and thinks that overdosing himself on Gamma energy will drive the Hulk out. The huge amount of Gamma energy he takes in instead causes a whole new Hulk beast to branch out from him and take form. The creature, dubbed Apex by Uatu, escaped, grew in size and eventually started asexually budding to form an army of monsters. To battle these bigger, meaner Hulks, the Avengers built bigger, meaner Hulk Busters to face them. The original Avengers fought hard but were killed in the struggle. The next generation of Avengers, led by Sam Wilson’s Captain America and Captain Monica Rambeau fought the beasts back into the sea and seemingly finished them off. But ten years later and the monsters are appearing again.

 

Sam, Monica, and Bucky meet with their allies via telecon and tell them about how the Gamma Beasts have returned and have begun attacking costal cities. Red Guardian insists that they won’t dare face off against him in Mother Russia again, and Melina Roskov tells him she wouldn’t really call it a battle when he ran away. Nakia says that they’re detecting the same Gamma signature of the original Apex in the Arctic. Monica suggest that they get Bruce Banner on it, but Sam refuses to consider that. He tells the others to watch their territories while he and Monica head out. Bucky asks her if she really thinks that Bruce is a better call. She says they won the last war by the skin of their teeth and you don’t get that lucky again. She tells Bucky to track down Banner and get him on this. He says that according to that old cartoon, Bruce lives in a lab at the center of a Volcano. Good show, though.

 

Sam and Monica travel out into the ice and are attacked by two Gamma Beasts. They try to hold the monsters off but get knocked under the ice and see hundreds of the creatures begin to surface. They call back a little and see the Gamma Beasts marshalling around Apex, who has returned and is twice the size of its offspring. The lesser Gamma Beasts seem to react to Apex’s roars and Sam realizes that this isn’t an infestation, it’s an invasion. Sam and Monica are knocked back by the beasts roar and they move out.

 

Monica and Sam start making repairs on their mechs, Bucky calling Monica and letting her know what he’s found. Officially, Banner’s location doesn’t exist, but he’s found the black site where he was stashed away. Monica goes over to Sam and tries to talk to him. Sam is adamantly against getting in touch with Bruce, but Monica insists that this is the only way they can stop this. And points out that it’s weird he seems more scared of Bruce, his friend, than of the Gamma Beasts. Sam relents and Monica tells him where to go.

 

Sam flies out to the Astra Islands in his mech. He disembarks and searches around the island for Bruce. He finds him in the jungle, and Bruce brings him to his ‘home’ an abandoned nuclear bomber plane. Sam tells him what’s happened, and Bruce says he can’t help. He says he hasn’t had an incident in years and can’t throw away that progress. Sam insists that they need a Gamma beast of their own to fight it. He says that they don’t need him, they need a flash drive of his. He calls the program the ‘Mighty Avenger Protocol” and that that’ll give them a fighting chance. Sam says that that’s it, they use his program and that he gets to keep hiding. He says that maybe if Bruce faced his beast he might be able to get past it. Bruce tells him that he made the Protocol precisely for that, so there could be people to face off against him. Sam tells Bruce that he never saw a Monster when he looked at Bruce, he only ever saw his friend. And he thought that maybe if Bruce helped, he'd finally understand that.

 

Same heads towards the rest of his Team, Monica telling him that the Apex and co are about to make landfall in New York. It’s always New York. He uploads the Might Avenger Protocol to the others and they prepare to use it. The Beasts make landfall as the main Avengers land. The Team consists of Monica, Red Guardian and Black Widow (Melina), Shang-Chi, Bucky, Nakia, and Moon Knight. They hold off a few beasts before Sam joins them and they activate the Mighty Avenger Protocol, which causes their mechs to merge into a Megazord. Their Megazord is able to mow through the lesser Gamma Beasts, but Apex proves too much for them, the Megazord being knocked back and out. Things seem bleak until Bruce announces over the radio ‘On your left,’ and it’s revealed he’s flying his bomber plane into the fray. He put himself into the decommissioned gamma bomb and prepped it to go off with him inside. He drops the bomb and sets it off, absorbing gigajoules of Gamma radiation and transforming into the Dragonzord… I mean, Hulk-Zilla. Hulk-Zilla battles Apex, Sam and the others realizing that Bruce decided to go this route in the hope he can beat Apex and replace him as leader of the Gamma Beasts. Apex gets Hulk down, but Sam decides to give him a hand, launching one of the Mech’s fists at the Apex to distract it. Hulk is freed and knocks Apex aside, using atomic breath to obliterate the Apex and then snorting its ashes up into him. The others get ready to fight Hulk-zilla, but Sam tells them all to stand down. He marches up to Hulk-zilla and tries to talk his friend down. Sam tells him that even like this, he sees Bruce as a friend, and he bets his life that Bruce still sees one too. This seems to get through to Bruce, who marches into the sea and draws the lesser Gamma Beasts after him. Monica apologies to Sam for what happened, saying that she knows Bruce was his friend. Sam insists that they still are. The episode ends with Sam flying back to the Astra Island and Hulk-zilla leading his lesser Gamma Beasts there to live. How sweet.

 

That was an okay episode. Like a lot of other What If…?, I feel like the story is hampered by how short the runtime is. With just 30 minutes to play with we were sprinting from moment to moment to get to the ending. I think this would have worked a lot better with another half hour tacked on. We could have played around a bit more with how Sam was avoiding trying to find Banner despite him being the best solution to their problem and given us more time with the individual Hulk Buster mechs before they merge into their Megazord formation. The idea of Shang-Chi, Moon Knight, Nakia, and Red Guardian all on a team together is super neat and I’m disappointed that we barely got any time with any of the Mech Avengers besides Sam. On the other hand, I do like how ultimately the Hulk in the title was just clickbait. Marvel projects have an unfortunate habit of writing lots of evil Hulk variants. It almost seems like they think it’s inevitable that Bruce will snap, or a darker version of the Hulk will take control and he’ll be an absolute horrible monster after the fact. Like in the Old Man Logan, alternate timeline where the Hulk rules about a quarter of the continental US and his chief enforcers are his inbred hillbilly children and Grandchildren he'd had (against her will) with his cousin Jen. And then there’s the time Hulk leads his Warband against the heroes of Earth; Maestro, an evil Smart hulk from an alt future; and numerous other evil future Hulks. So instead of having the Apex being a Hulk monster that it’s tied directly into Bruce Banner’s flesh is a nice change of pace. And I appreciate giving Bruce the win of choosing to transform into the Hulk-Zilla and getting to keep enough of his humanity even in this new form to lead the other beasts away. It’s the kind of win he doesn’t often seem to get. So yeah, okay story, could have been longer. Next time Aggy Harkness is headed to Hollywood. Neat.

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Bluesky: basicssuperhero@blsk.social