Amph "Ponder the Question" Marvel's 'What If...?' [Disney+]

205: What If... Captain Carter Fought the HYDRA Stomper?

Following up on the Carter arc from Season 1, but with some neat character choices (a real staple of this season, I must say). I'm not sure I liked this one as much as the previous Carter appearances, though. Her solo key points tend to be a little too close to the films, while the middle team-up adventures end up being more interesting, it seems. The Watcher's reaction was hilarious, though. And I did like how personal his narration became at times.

206: What If... Kahkori Reshaped the World?

Another very cool stand-alone. Some really beautiful moments. It could have gone in a number of different ways, but while her power set never really leaves much in question, what she does with it ultimately really distinguishes her- and I look forward to seeing where this arc goes. And The Watcher's narration again really does nail the landing and capture what makes us so enthralled by heroes to begin with.

On a side note, playing around with a viewing order for both seasons combined (so we can get the Gamora episode in before she shows up in the Ultron arc, for instance). First I'm gonna try a roughly chronological setting order (with the notable exceptions like how the first Captain Carter episode needs to be the series introduction, and stuff that connects dictating certain episodes be out of order). Really makes you realize how many episodes are based around events from GOTG1.

EDIT-

207: What If... Hela Found the Ten Rings?

Wow. This episode was an excellent one. Not just a good moment or two, but end-to-end. Would never have expected a mixing of elements from Thor 1, Thor 3 and Shang-Chi. But it works so well. And, holy crap, they really got Cate back! And Idris for his 2 lines! Though they didn't use dragons more than in a cameo, boo!

And verrrry interesting that Ta-Lo is beyond Heidall's vision. I get that it's basically another dimension since you need to pass through a portal to get there. But, still, an interesting fact relevant to the canon timeline. One assumes it's not an "adjacent realm" like the Quantum Realm, since that's basically something that exists within the realm of Earth, where here they describe it as a barrier around Earth.

208: What If... the Avengers Assembled in 1602?

There's a few good moments here, and the swashbuckling makes for some fun, in a Star Trek TNG holodeck/Q-episode-type of way. And the personal interactions between The Watcher and Peggy are definitely the highlights. But I feel like the episode is still a bit off.

Probably because there's that weird time jump from when we last saw Peggy upon her arrival, to her failure in Thor's eyes- but without explaining the nature of the world and the characters (Queen Hela definitely threw me off), or their relationships to it (were they all pulled there? Or just Peggy?, Etc, etc). So those events don't have any meaning or impact because we're still confused. Add to that that Thor turning on Peggy for trying to help Hela didn't make sense and came across as more of an arbitrary means to turn him into an antagonist.

So, it continues to be weird that the Peggy episodes aren't as strong as the others. Still, nice to have a more out-there What If? story included in the bunch.

209: What If... Strange Supreme Intervened?

Now, this one was stronger. And it gets really crazy. Perhaps a little too crazy? Peggy's final form is quite over-the-top (talk about most powerful beings in the universe). And there's definitely a question of why Infinity Stones are able to be used by a human without the radioactive consequences that affected Banner, Stark and Thanos. But the final shot of the season is perfect.

Oh, and that extended intro is quite cool now that they've earned a large enough cast to support it. Though I hope they don't overuse it. One of the things What If? and Secret Invasion did well was not to use the full Marvel Studios intro for every episode and instead substituted it for a super-short version. Save it for the first and last episodes, we don't need to see it every time (unless they're doing a special variant ala the Ms. Marvel Partition episode, or Loki Worlds Fair episode, etc).

EDIT 2-

Ranking this season, best to worst:

-Peter Quill Attacks!
-Hela Counts!
-Nebula Narrates!
-Christmas Freak!
-Kahori Counters Conquistadors!
-Grandmaster Goldblums!
-Strange Supreme Forges!
-1602 ain't 616 or 311!
-HYDRA Stomper Roger Rogers!

Presumably that preview clip with the Red Guardian is from the episode they delayed from Season 2 into Season 3 for whatever reason.

 

(going to split this into a separate post, so that the last one doesn't get too long, and make it easier for any quoting in the conversation)

I think the key point here is the Fountain of Youth connection, which is most heavily associated with the Spanish. The change in this timeline involves the creation of a magic lake via a Tesseract shard. So those rumors spread and contribute to the search for the Fountain of Youth myth, which then alters history by drawing the Spanish further north in pursuit.

Marvel has had pretty good success with having holiday-themed content released for their holidays. Werewolf for Halloween (twice), Hawkeye for xmas, GOTGHS for xmas and, now, the Happy hogan episode for xmas again. Especially since they don't typically have films in theaters around that time. People stream xmas films, shows and specials all day, all weekend (and sometimes before and beyond), so it's smart to give the show exposure during that time (people may only watch the xmas episode at first, then circle back to the others).

Yes and no- even if you take the viewpoint that anything not in the prime timeline of events is irrelevant, we're seeing how the characters would have acted under different circumstances, so it still influences our understanding of the characters. And, occasionally, provides us nuggets of info that are relevant across universes.

I suspect we'll get more phase 4 stuff in Season 3 (and, hopefully, 4). These first two seasons were focused mainly on Phases 1-3 because Phase 4 was still in production when they were being made- and animation takes a long time. Which is why we only got Black Widow and Shang-Chi content towards the end of Season 2 (as they were the first two Phase 4 movies to be made).

The others I think they want to wait until there's more understanding about the impact of any changes to those characters- anything with Sam would be restricted to a setting pre-Phase 4 (or changes to his character from pre-Phase 4), for instance.

That thought did occur to me too! But the setting is just before Age of Ultron (Iron Legion, Stark Tower, Maria Hill, etc), so she wouldn't be a superhero character yet (and the implication is that her 4th-wall-breaking is tied to her getting her abilities, so she couldn't speak to K.E.V.I.N. yet even if she was Just Jen ).

 

False!

 

I think it's just in the episode title. The Watcher is just playing the audience.

 

Always interested in seeing what ILM Immersive (formerly X Lab) does. Though a shame it's exclusive to the Vision Pro. Looks like there are glimpses of Season 3 scattered between the in-game content in there too.

 

To be fair, Apple is trying to build a content library up for it, to help expand the user base so the device can get progressively more affordable as new versions are made. So, limited access for now- but in the future may be more easily done.

Besides, ILMI/X-Lab has made several products for VR headsets- some (including Star Wars products) also exclusive to certain headsets. Even before there were more mainstream options available like the MetaQuest or PSVR. So this isn't an action that is out of the ordinary for them.