Monday, December 30, 2024

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


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