Seems like regardless of MC Universe, a Cap and Black Widow end up as friends.
Last time on What If…?, we saw
what would have happened if Tony hadn’t made it back to Earth after defeating
the Chitari. He fell through a wormhole and ended up a prisoner/guest of the
Grandmaster. He witnessed the atrocities that was the Grandmaster’s rule,
exemplified in a massive death race and wanted to do something about it. A
decision that he became more adamant about after meeting Gamora. She’d been
sent by her dad to kill Tony in vengeance. Tony escapes the Grandmaster with
Korg and they recruit Valkyrie to defeat him. A grand race is performed with
Tony, Valkyrie and Korg, Gamora, Grandmaster and Topaz participating. During
the race, Tony is able to convince Gamora to give up on killing him. Tony crosses
the finish line and the Grandmaster is melted by his own weapon. Valkyrie is
named King of Sakaar and Tony leaves to return home. He’s grabbed by Gamora on
his way out, though. This turns out to be fine, as the two team up to kill
Thanos. What a crazy timeline. Enough recap. Let’s get to it.
Ep 14: What If Captain Carter Fought the Hydra Stomper
This episode opens with Captain
Carter and Black Widow battling Chitari during the invasion of New York. This
timeline’s Avengers consist of Captain Carter, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Iron Man,
Thor, and Wasp. Guess Banner is off doing his own things. The team split off,
with Carter and Nat going to cause some mayhem. They’re end up on the top of
Avenger’s Tower and beat the snot out of Loki.
We cut to the Watcher in his space
between spaces. He seems to still be making repairs from the Damage Ultimate
Ultron wrecked upon it. He claims that he doesn’t normally do sequels, as there
are infinite stories for him to tell, so what’s the point of revisiting old
ones. But, he’s a Captain Margaret “Peggy” Carter fan, and wants to see more of
her story. He also explains that this is the same Peggy from the Guardians of
the Multiverse episode, which I think we all could have guessed but clarity is
helpful.
Back in the timeline, Carter picks up
Natasha for a Mission bestowed upon them by Nick Fury. They end up on a cargo
ship, Natasha telling Carter she might want to prepare herself. Carter, who’d
just gotten back from the Multiverse mission, says that this won’t be the
weirdest thing she’d dealt with today. Turns out, the Pirates here were trying
to get their hands on the HYDRA Stomper. Carter is excited at the thought that
Steve is inside, but the Stomper powers up and starts firing at them. Natasha
says this isn’t so much Steve as Robocop, and that they’ll rent the movie once
it’s clear Carter doesn’t know the story. They battle with the Stomper, which
has clearly gotten some upgrade since the 1940s, Carter throwing her shield and
popping the Stomper’s faceplate to confirm Steve Rogers is inside it. Now
sporting a beard. He launches missiles at the cargo ship, the super spies just
barely escaping into the water.
Later, Carter grills Fury for lying
to her that Steve was dead. We learn that in this timeline Steve kept on fighting
with Bucky after she disappeared in an interdimensional rift. He disappeared on
a mission in Argentina in 1953. He says that there’ve been rumors of the
Stomper surviving since the 60s, but they didn’t tell Carter as that’s all they
were, rumors. He goes on to say that if the Stomper is still around, it’s guilty
of causing a lot of damage, killing SHIELD Agents not the least among them. …
So I guess in this timeline the HYDRA Stomper is the Winter Soldier. Carter is insistent
that Steve wouldn’t do that, but Natasha says that he might if the Red Room is
controlling him. Carter is obviously hurt at the idea that Natasha had some
idea that this was happening but didn’t tell her, but she doesn’t dwell on
that. She tells Fury to have a medical team ready for when she gets back from
the Red Room base, as there’s no telling how long Steve has been in that armor,
but Fury says she should probably sit this one out. Fury and Natasha tell her
that it’s too dangerous but she asks what the Stompers next mission is.
We cut to Secretary of State James
Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes. He’s arguing the details of an aid package to Sokovia,
when Crossbones comes in to tell him they’re moving him to a secure location.
Bucky says he might be old but he’s punched nazis and had beers with aliens, so
he can take care of himself. The HYDRA Stomper flies in and starts shooting at
him, but Carter slides in at the last second to save him, she orders them to fall
back. Back at SHIELD, Fury gives Nat the green light to kill the Stomper on
sight.
As Bucky falls back to the roof
from extraction, Carter tells him Steve is the one in the Stomper. She asks
what’s powering it without the Tesseract, he says it’s something Howard cooked
up after the war, making Carter think she can break it. The Stomper busts into
the stairwell and Carter drops onto him, riding him out into the lobby before
being bucked off. The Stomper flies around, destroying quinjets before
cornering Bucky in a hallway. Natasha flies in with her quinjet and prepares to
fire, but Bucky gets up and tries to reach out to Steve. He says they’ll go get
a drink like in the old days. He gets the Stomper to drop it’s guard for a
second, but he prepares to shoot him again. But Carter arrives and knocks his
arm aside. She rides the Stomper into the sky, bashing it’s skull repeatedly.
She finally hits him hard enough to short-out his system. As they Drop, Natasha
flies up and grabs them, they fly off to St. Kilda Scotland to work on Carter.
They examine Steve, learning the
suit has kept Steve alive and young for the last few decades. Unfortunately,
the suit is all that is keeping him alive, so they can’t get him out of it.
They start the reboot process. While they wait, Carter says that according to
their readings, Steve’s chance of survival plummet with each activation, which
is why the Red Room used him sparingly since the 60s. She and Nat share a drink.
Natasha asks if they shouldn’t go to Stark or Banner for help, but Carter is
sure they can’t help. Her plan is to go to the Red Room to get whatever cure
they have for Steve. Natasha tells her that she joined SHIELD days after
tracking and killing the head of the Red Room in a sewer, but the organization
survived because their base is secret. Not even SHIELD can find it, but a
powered-up Steve says he can show them. Carter is clearly ecstatic to see Steve,
but Natasha looks… concerned.
The trio fly out to an old KGB
training facility designed to look like an America city circa 1950. Steve tells
them he reported to the Red Room that he was damaged and needs repairs. They
have a little time before his repair team arrives. Natasha leaves them to talk.
They catch up on what they missed and almost kiss, right before the robots
populating the city start attacking them. Natasha joins them and they start
shooting robots. They’re overwhelmed by the robots and their Widow Bites, the
women dropping, and Stomper forcibly shut down. The Red Room floating base appears
in the sky. They’re joined by Melina and Black Widow agents. She reveals that even
Steve’s ‘rebooting’ was part of the plan to capture Captain Carter. She offers for
them to surrender and come willingly, but neither of them wants that. While Natasha
handles her mom and sisters, Carter and Steve go to fight some things out.
They smash up the town good in
their brawl, ending up on the big water tower. Carter keeps trying the old
shouting “wake up” and hitting him gambit, but it doesn’t appear to work. Steve
shoots the tower struts and it falls to the ground, nearly on top of Natasha as
well as Carter. Night has fallen and the Red Room is still looking for them. Carter
approaches the Stomper and reminds him that he owes her a date. Natasha meanwhile
distracts her sisters, taking out the lot of them. Then it’s just her and mama. The Stomper keeps throwing
cars at Carter and shooting her, but she’s not going down. She gets in close
and knocks his helmet open. She says she’s done fighting and just wants him
back. He wants to be with him even if this is the end. This seems to wake him
up, he steps back and looks up at the Red Room. She sense what he’s going to do
and tells him not to, but he flies up before she can stop him. Natasha sees him,
fires a grappling hook around his leg and ties it to Melina. They fly up together
to the Red Room as he starts firing. Carter gets to Natasha, and they fall back
as the Red Room falls.
The Watcher pops in to say that this
isn’t exactly a happy ending, but then again, this isn’t the ending just yet. We
cut to Carter sneaking out of the Avengers base, planning to take one of Tony’s
cars. Natasha cuts her off, asking where she’s going. Carter explains that she
believes that Steve is out there and she’s going to find him. Natasha agrees to
help. The Watcher appears to pontificate about how powerful and all knowing he
is, just for a bit of weird red energy to appear and open a portal under Carter.
She disappears, Natasha asking where she went and the Watcher saying, “That’s a
very good question.”
Carter wakes up to a Nick Fury and
Scarlet Witch dressed in Ren Faire gear. Fury asks if this is the “one” that
will save their queen, to which Wanda says she’s the one that will save their
world.
Okay, so this was basically Captain
America: Winter Soldier and Black Widow mixed into one. The Red Room
is subbing in for HYDRA, which I guess we can assume was destroyed for good by
a grieving Steve by the 50s. The HYDRA Stomper gives off a very Crimson Dynamo
vibe with it’s red starred shoulders and other upgrades. The comment about him
having basically a limited number of uses does a solid job of explaining why
this cyborg wasn’t killing for the Kremlin during the entirety of the Cold War.
Peggy battling for her love was pretty sweet. Though the fact that Steve is essentially
Peggy’s Winter Soldier feels like it’s implying a lot about Steve and Bucky’s
relationship in the main timeline. Just saying. The big brawl at the end in a
creepy, Fallout Style 1950s city was well done. The robots filling the place
were creepy as hell, and having Carter, the Widows and the Smashers wrecking
the place was cathartic. I’m not a huge fan of breaking mind control by just being
sincere, but I suppose they couldn’t work any more head trauma into Steve for
that to be believable. The teaser for the finale, I assume, is interesting. A
past universe style Avengers could be cool, but with just ye old Nick and Wanda
as a hint, I have no idea where this is going. But yeah, fun mashup episode.
Next time, 15.
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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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