The roster might be different, but they're still Earth's Mightiest Heroes.
Last time on What If…?, we
learned what would have happened if Nebula joined the Nova Corps. In this alt
timeline, Ronan the Accuser successfully betrayed Thanos, killing him and
Gamora in the process. Nebula, lost and wanting to find a reason to live, joined
the Nova Corps at Nova Prime’s behest. Shortly after her induction, Ronan came
to attack Xandar. They sealed off the planet behind a forcefield that should
last fifty years. Five years in and things kind of suck. Lot of crime, lot of restlessness,
that ort of thing. Nebula discovers Yondu’s corpse and investigates his death.
She found his arrow and learned he’d gotten schematics on something. She is
told by Nova Prime to do whatever it took to solve this case. She goes to her
contact, Howard the Duck, and his bartender Korg let her know what she had was
a schematic for a data core, one that has the shield network’s codes on it.
Deciding time is of the essence, Nebula frees Yon-Rogg from prison, planning to
use his hacking skills to get into the core. They get inside and Nebula
downloads the codes, but she’s immediately betrayed by Yon-Rogg, who is working
with Nova Prime on a grander double cross. Ronan had promised her she could
keep her position if she surrendered the planet to him. They try to execute Nebula
but fail. Though she’s very badly damaged in the fall. She goes back to Howard,
who repairs her and outfits her with weapons, in exchange for defending his
liquor license. Nebula, sporting Yondu’s fin, Howard, Groot, Korg and Meek
attack Nova headquarters. They’re too late to stop the gate from opening, but
then Nebula reveals her play. She had realized Nova Prime was setting her up
when Prime told her to solve the case by any means necessary, which goes against
their oath of office. So she rewrote the codes to open the gate just long
enough for an overconfident Ronan to fly in and be crushed between the gates. Howard
and Co take on the lesser Corps traitors while Nebula fights Prime. She forces
Prime’s escape pod to crash, and the traitor kills herself when she attempts to
shoot Nebula, misses, and falls to her death due to kickback of her gun. Ronan
is dead, the Nova Corps can be saved, and Nebula is a hero, all’s well that
ends well. Enough recap. Let’s get to it.
Ep 11: What If Peter Quill Attacked Earth’s Mightiest Heroes
This episode begins with a UFO
entering Earth’s atmosphere. The object is shot down and crashes into 1988’s
New York City. The object, revealed to be a pod, opens and a young Peter Quill
steps out. The Watcher lets us know Peter’s here to destroy the planet and
maybe the whole universe with it. Peter shows that he’s got his full Celestial
Powers by telekinetically throwing and car at some cops.
The Watcher fills us in on the
background of this timeline, that six month before, Peter was abducted by the
Ravagers six months ago. Unlike in the Sacred Timeline, Yondu hands him over to
his father Ego the Living Planet. Ego planned on remaking the universe in his
own image and now that he has Peter’s power added to his own, nothing could
stop them. Peter, infused with Celestial power, goes on a rampage through New
York. Peggy explains to Howard Stark and SHIELD that they’ve been following the
boy’s trail through the galaxy and solar systems tend to go up in flames about
a day after he touches down. Howard cracks that he thought Tony was a pain in
the ass. Peggy suggests forming a team from the best and brightest to stop him.
Howard is skeptical because of the Cold War, but Peggy’s confident in her plan
and he asks who she wants for the team.
We cut to Hank Pym having troubles
parenting a young Hope. Howard calls, Hank hangs up, Howard calls him back and
tells him to turn on the TV. Hope already
had and Hank says to send the plane. Hank asks Hope if she wants to go to work
with Dad.
They head to an Airforce base and
we meet the rest of the team, Bill Foster aka Goliath, King T’Chaka aka the Black
Panther, and the Winter Soldier. We get a little world building background, T’Chaka
revealing that his father was the one to donate the Vibranium they used in Cap’s
SHIELD, and Peggy recognizing the Winter Soldier on sight. Peggy says that
cosmic radiation is building along the boy’s path and if they don’t hurry the
Eastern seaboard won’t be habitable for millenia. Hank’s unsure if they can
make it in time, but then we learn they’re taking an experimental jet, piloted
by Wendy Lawson aka Mar-Vel of the Kree. They fly at high speed and arrive in
New York as Peter hits Coney Island.
While Mar-Vel secures the pod, T’Chaka,
Bill and Hank go after Peter. The plan is to distract Peter long enough to get
him into a containment field. Hank goes in mini, using a swarm of Ants to scare
Peter toward s their trap. Hank lures him into a mirror maze. When inside, a
laser grid kicks on and traps Peter. T’Chaka says resistance will make this
more difficult. Peter blasts him away. Bill drops a container on him, but gets
blasted back. Winter Soldier flies in and prepares to fire, but Mar-Vel tells
him that if her ship blows there won’t be anything left to save, so he backs
off. She gets Peter to destroy his pod, but her jetpack is ruined in the
explosion. She almost falls to her death but Bill catches her. The heroes
gather, and Hank suggests a tactical retreat. They try to fall back, but Peter
telekinetically grabs the ship. Before he can kill them, though, Thor drops in,
knocking Peter out.
They put Peter in a containment
pod, Thor explaining that Peter destroyed Jotunheim, Asgard and the six other
of the ‘nine realms’ until Earth was all that remained. Thor shows them Ego’s
Seed, a bit of his essence he planted in Missouri, and explains that Peter’s
here to ‘light the fuse’ on it, destroying Earth and reformatting it into Ego.
Howard asks why they can’t just destroy it but Thor says that only a Celestial
can destroy it. Hank says that it’s a good thing they have one.
We cut to Hope listening to her Walkman
and singing out, using a key card to enter restricted areas. She finds Peter
and they bond over both loving music. Peter reveals he’s from Earth to her and
that he also has a dead mom. He convinces Hope to help free him. As the alarm
blares, Hank just now notices he’s missing his Pym particles, keycard, and his
daughter. Hope, as it turns out, used the particles to shrink Peter’s container
down and tries to carry it out. Once outside, she pops him free and gives him
her Walkman as she tells him to hit the bus station just outside of town. The heroes
find Hope, who tells them that Peter isn’t destroying the planets he travels
to, but his dad, he’s just trying to get back to Missouri. Hank asks her if she
knows anything more specific about where he’s going. Thor is impatient and says
he’s going to go find Peter and bring him to Asgardian justice. Winter Soldier
is on board with the ‘kill the kid’ plan, but everyone else objects. Hope says
that the right thing to do here is to help Peter along with the rest of the world.
Peter heads toward Missouri,
ignoring telepathic messages from Ego. Ego, unfortunately, tracks him to Earth
and decides he’s going to finish what Peter started. The Seedling, Thor saying
it’s ‘master nears.” They detect Ego’s ship just as it lands. T’Chaka advises
that instead of fighting both Celestials, they get Peter to fight Ego for them.
Mar-Vel and Hank go to pick up Peter while T’Chaka, Thor, Bill, and Peggy try
to hold off Ego. Mar-Vel asks if they’re sure a child will willingly fight
their parent, and Hank scoffs saying she obviously doesn’t have kids.
Ego says that he’s not here to destroy
Earth but to make it part of him. He summons up an army of golems of himself
and the fight begins. Peggy’s tank battalion holds off golems while the heroes
unleash hell on Ego. Right up until Ego forms a mountain sized body for
himself. Peggy tells Howard to get the Seedling out of there. Howard thinks
this is a job for the Winter Soldier, but he’s ignoring Howard’s calls. Why? He’s
going to assassinate Peter. Hank and Mar-Vel arrive at Peter’s mom’s grave and
find the boy kneeling over it. Mar-Vel says she thinks she can hold him, but Hank
says that this eight-year-old boy will only help if they can make him want to.
Hank goes to talk to Peter as Winter Soldier’s handler to kill him. Peter tells
Hank that his father has some sort of control over him and that’s why the
planet’s he goes to end up burning. He thought coming home would make him not
feel so alone, but without his mom it doesn’t feel like home. Hank tells Peter
he gets it, he felt the same after Jan disappeared. He says the pain, anger and
loneliness can make you feel like Drowning, but he can’t let that happen.
At the same time, Bill gets even bigger
and tries to destroy more golems, but he and the others are starting to get overwhelmed.
Winter Soldier is ordered to take the shot, but Howard hacks him comline and tries
to reason with the part of Bucky that is still in Winter Soldier’s head. He says
Howard doesn’t know him, but Howard says Cap did and the friend that Captain
America loved so dearly would never take that shot. Hank offers to take him
home and the two hug, the moment being enough to keep Bucky from taking the shot.
Howard muses that fifty years later and Steve is still saving his ass, just as
the seedling gets grabbed by Ego’s energy tendrils.
Ego almost gets the seedling, but Mar-Vel
flies in and she drops Hank and Peter off. They grab the Seedling and enter Ego’s
giant body. Ego reveals that he killed Peter’s mom to make sure the expansion
happens and that in time he’ll accept that this had to happen. Peter, pissed
off, takes the Seedling into himself and says he’s going to use it to destroy
Ego. Ego says that deep down he always knew Peter was just a human, to which
Peter said his mom called him a Star-Lord before shooting him. Ego is destroyed
in the blast as are all his golems.
Later, the team have dinner at the
Pym house. Mar-Vel gives the kids Goose before asking if anyone knows where
Winter Soldier is. Howard says that he’s gone, but he thinks that bit of Bucky woke
up so they shouldn’t worry too much about Winter Soldier coming after them.
Thor thanks them for the meal but he needs to head out. Why? Well, Peter destroyed
Ego’s form here on Earth, but the universe won’t be safe until the main Ego is
defeated. They point out that they’re sort of a team, so where’s their invite. Thor
tells them to suit up.
This was a fun “What If” idea. I
liked that while this timeline’s Avengers is significantly different from the main
MCU version. Sure, it has Thor on the roster but that’s the main similarity. We
have instead of an armored genius, two assassins, a Hulk, Thor and living legend,
a non-armored genius, two size changers, an assassin, a Panther, Thor, and a
living legend’s love. Oh, and an alien pilot. Makes for a different team dynamic.
Having them face off against the Celestial father and son of Ego and Peter was
an interesting choice. The power scaling was not in their favor, but I liked that
they found a way around that, what with having Hank empathize with Peter over
their personal losses and helping Peter onto a better path. I liked that ultimately
it was Hope that figured most of this out. It might be a bit of a cliché, but often
ya do need a kid to talk to a kid to get the full picture of their situation. This
is true of abusive households as well as escaping world ending monster parents,
just saying. Also, if she’s there, I do hope this version of the Avengers save
Mantis too. Just saying. So… yeah, good episode. Next time, number 12.
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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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