[7.5/10] I appreciate that these episodes have been more in the vein of a mash-up than a simple twisted retelling of a preexisting MCU film. The basis for this one is “Fury’s Big Week”, or the stretch of time that comprises The Hulk, Iron Man 2, and Thor in quick succession. But it also has shades of The Winter Soldier with its conspiracy thriller elements centering Nick Fury and Black Widow. It loops in The Avengers with Loki’s arrival and eventual takeover of Earth. And of course, it invokes Ant-Man with a furious Hank Pym turning out to be the culprit.
The results are thrilling. For something that plays with familiar settings and characters, I was impressed at this one’s ability to surprise me. Hank Pym turning out to be the killer is a good twist. (I had expected it to be Bucky.) I guessed the reveal of Loki as Fury pretty soon after the mischievous god started doing things Fury never could, but it’s still an extremely fun reveal. And simple spins on the familiar like Fury considering using the Captain Marvel pager in his time of need help make this one a winner.
Plus, it plays the “for want of a nail” game better than any story we’ve gotten so far in What If?. The If You Give a Mouse a Cookie game results in an interesting line of cause and effect along the line sof “If Hope joins Shield, she’ll die in the line of duty, which will cause Hank Pym to come out of retirement to get revenge, which will lead him to take out the Avengers before they come the Avengers, which will cause Loki to conquer Earth unchallenged, which will bring Captain Marvel back to the planet a decade earlier and lead Fury to seek out Steve Rogers.” Watching the dominos fall there is entertaining.
The story is not without its weirdness. It’s nice to have Mark Ruffalo on board as Bruce Banner, but it’s kind of weird to see his likeness inserted into the lone Hulk appearance where he was played by Ed Norton. At the same time, some of the vocal doubles they use for folks whose live action stars didn’t make an appearance sound a little wonky. (Mainly Black Widow and Betsy Ross). But that’s to be expected with the shift in mediums and going back to a time prior to recasting. (Will we get Don Cheadle as Rhodey circa Iron Man 1, I wonder?)
Still, the show has fun with it. Samuel L. Jackson is a star, as always, finding ways to make Fury’s line-reads both dramatic and amusing. Likewise, Phil Coulson’s fanboying here is almost as endearing and amusing as Korath’s in the last episode. And as usual, Loki is a ton of fun, with a great dynamic between him and Fury in a pre-Avengers confrontation that echoes their ones in the main timeline.
On the whole, this one packs together an Avengers assissination mystery, a Phase 1 mash-up, and Fury-focused tale into yet another delightful What If? romp. There's enough seriousness with Pym’s anger to give the outing ballast, and enough oomph from familiar heroes being offed to create stakes, while still giving the whole thing a breezy vibe that makes the alternate universe yarn play like pure entertainment.
First Episode ..Meh
Second episode..nope..
But this actual episode....???
Finally it gets started...
Has my fave ..Loki ..plus it kills em all off ..even the unkillable Hulk..
Outstanding
"He's dead." — Black Widow
Natasha just killed Tony Stark
Fury: "They look like they're from Earth?"
Coulson: "Maybe Middle-earth?"
Loki: "We are not allies."
Fury: "Then let me help you."Uh... Fury... that's how this works
Coulson: [Sighs] "Hashtag-Steve-Steve-Steve-I-heart-Steve-0-7-0-4."
Same.
Fury: "I'm not the only Avenger left."
Ouch, that hurt
Best one yet? Best one yet.
This one is the most interesting by far. Like, while Captain Carter hits the same beats as TFA and T'Challa's is original, I like this one because of its scale. It meets all the Avengers and kills them all! Like, that's an insane number of changes compared to the "sacred timeline". Anyway, this show is getting better with each episode.
7/10
Great episode. Shows the true potential of this series.
Just put the cast list at the end.
holy crap hulk blowing up is horrifying
The idea was cool but sadly the reasoning not so much, cause I’m sorry but no one cares about Hope like that or the Pyme family, so I was expecting for the killer to be someone else, someone shocking. And also I was expecting for the “new” avengers to be someone unexpected, captain america and captain marvel, that's a solid team and you pretty much don't need anyone else when you have them, so maybe like the younger avengers or sam, dr ross, yelena, like their counterparts.
Bad, really bad chapter. First of all the comedy is the curse of MCU, it felt like a really big joke. Reminded me how Thor and Hulk turned into some kind of clowns. And after this episode i finally decided i hate Mark Ruffalo, Edward Norton would been a waaay better Bruce and Hulk.
That was an interesting episode for sure.
First things first, what the hell happened to the animation? After stepping up the game last episode, this one took a serious nosedive in quality up the point where some movements and facial expressions just look motionless and ugly. Disney has a huge budget for this show, make use of it.
Again, many former (and current) MCU actors return to voice their characters, with notable exceptions of Robert Downey Jr, Scarlett Johansson, Liv Tyler and Brie Larson.
The replacements did a solid job, especially since their parts where not that big, with the unfortunate exception of Lake Bell, who tried her best impression of Johansson but made Natasha come off as robotic and emotionless (didn’t Laura Bailey, who can do no wrong voice her in Ultimate Spider-Man? How about that instead?)
The concept was interesting. What if the Avengers where killed off one by one before even coming together? What other options would Fury have?
The snippets of the OG Avengers were something to say the least. Most of their deaths felt (unintentionally?) funny and the episode didn’t really seem to know what tone to aim for. Or maybe by focusing mostly on Nick Fury they took the more emotional element out of purpose. Who knows? I believe that could have been made clearer.
Loki is the best part of this episode, because he is Loki and always the best part in anything he shows up in. It was fantastic seeing him as a respected leader among Asgardians, leading his people, fighting our main villain and wrecking absolute havoc on Earth in the most dramatic way possible to avenge his brother. He is Loki, of course he goes over the top.
I admit, despite Loki being awesome and the concept being interesting, I almost rated this episode down, if it weren’t for the twist villain in the end.
I should have seen this coming and it makes so much sense in retrospective, but in the moment it caught me off guard. Tragic and well-executed, it actually deserved more attention.
In other news, it was nice seeing Betty Ross again and since she plays such a huge part in Bruce‘s life, I‘m still puzzled Marvel never brought her back before (either with Liv Tyler or another recast).
Some funny tidbits are actually delivered by Coulson and his man crush on Thor and his overall gorgeousness. And his password.
It’s a solid episode. Definitely better than the mostly dull first one, but not nearly as great as the second one.
finally, an episode that actually lives up to the name What If, rather than just gender swapping or race swapping a character
This episode wasn't as good as
the second episode but this was
definitely better than the first episode.
This one was so
Interesting and well thoughtout
especially using the first two
Phase 1 movies as a base to launch this
Alternate reality story off of.
Hank really?.....hank, well that
was an anticlimax,
I was hoping for something
much much more,
What makes me laugh is the Marvel
Fandom came out with this idea
way back in 2019 with
"Avengers EndGame" we we're all
Saying including myself why
Scott (Ant-Man) didn't do this
to "Thanos" go up his ass,or Mouth or
In his ear/nose and take him out
from the inside.
So personally I felt like I'd already seen
this story from all the long talks about
this concept back in the day with the
Marvel Fandom, (come on writers
you've got to give us better than
something we've already
dreamed of).
I get why the reason Thor died with a single arrow is because at that time he was on earth and not worthy he was made mortal,
just good old fashion flesh and blood just like in the movie Thor 1 so this was very believable
that he was taken out with a single arrow to the heart. That being said this wasn't that bad of an episode till the end but it certainly was better than episode 1 but nowhere in the league of episode 2 which is the best so far.
Still wondering how Thor died to a single arrow (even if it had the extra force from Hank), it only took a DAY for Loki to take office and he also knew what a mobile phone is. Also why is Hank Yellowjacket, rather than Ant-Man?
this one was a little too goofy and self-referential to take seriously but the premise was solid. there were so many moments that felt like they only existed because of our knowledge of cannon rather than as a logical extension of the new continuity. the most egregious was their justification of Thor's death and his place as an honorary avenger. he'd literally only been on SHEILD's radar for 5 minutes and as an adversary no less so heralding him as an avenger whose body would be buried with, in this continuity, random strangers he never even met just makes no sense.
This one's an entirely original story, though taken place in different well known moments of the movies.
A real alternative, a real mystery to solve, a quite interesting answer, and a out of the blue very different ending.
Best definition of this show. Though the title is actually the consequence. Not clear what tiny detail happened differently that led to Hank's behaviour
This was the best What If? so far. An actual mystery and great use of the characters and original voices.
Pretty good one, nicely done
I refuse to believe Thor could be killed with a single arrow like that. Everything else, sure, yeah, plausible. But not that.
It really sticks out when they don't get the actor from the movies to play the voice role. The fact that they do get most of them makes it worse, because then you only have one or two that sound not quite right instead of all of them.
This has a great concept at it's center - a whodunnit in the MCU is something that this series, thanks to it's AU leanings and willingness to do whatever, is exactly the kind of story I want them to be telling. And to it's credit, the actual inciting incident for the "What If" side of things is really clever and unexpected. Comics fans will likely pick up on it quicker then others, but for casual viewers, this will likely be their first exposure to this side of a particular character, and will absolutely strengthen their opinion on the character as they see how dark they can fall.
Unfournately, the actual whodunnit isn't the best. It's not bad mind you - the show still delivers exceptional action scenes and some great cinematography and framing in the animation - but the structure of the narrative is a bit too haphazard and the actual resolution comes out of nowhere for it to truly work as a mystery. The humor was also hit or miss this time around, and there is quite a bit of it which doesn't help matters. Probably the weakest one so far, but solid!
Loki once again steals the show and ends up being the best thing in someone's Phase 1 Marvel fanfic. :tea:
And we back to being meh. At least this pretty much guaranties that the next one would be good.
The 2nd episode was the best in my opinion obviously because it showed how characters could change familiar story around themselves. Instead of abducted traumatized kid, probably poor, I mean single parent with huge medical bill doesn't scream wealth to me who was at best kind, but probably just stayed naive kid at heart. We got a child prince who was raised to be a king in technologically advanced society. So he was sheltered against hardships of life, was taught crucial skillset for the story to work - diplomacy and he also felt like his wish was granted to top things of. He chose his path on his own.
Here, we have whodunit that gives away which type of characters could have done it pretty early on. You just don't know which one of the 4 of them did it and why. And the Why was done to death and has nothing to do with internal motivations of the character. It's a pretty boring reason.
Even fights worked better in the 1st episode and I actually cared about the characters... Come to think of it, I like 1st episode better than this one. Damn.
Getting better every week! I’m ready!
Better than last episode. And probably better than the first one too.
There were a few good laughs in this one, but it is not as good as the previous two episodes. A bit boring too.
These episodes are getting better each week! I really like the premise of this episode, but the catalyst for this "What If" is something that happened off-screen that seems pretty contrived. Regardless, it's a very interesting concept that makes for a fun, slightly morbid episode of TV.
This was a really interesting one! So the divergence was Hope joining (and dying for) SHIELD. What a trip! The reveal of the culprit made me think of Identity Crisis. There's a blast from the past.
captain marvel appearance at the end!! i'm so excited for the marvels
Shout by DeletedBlockedParentSpoilers2021-08-25T11:09:37Z
Hm, I expected much more if this. In this case, the “What If” part only happened in the last 10 seconds: What if all the Avengers are dead and Nick Fury had to work with Captain America & Captain Marvel only? Sadly, this rather boring episode ended with this question.
However, some dialogues were quite funny.