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
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