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.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/118921172
Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social
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