"What If...?" came to an end with its third season, and while the previous ones had also received some criticism for not showing the scenarios that fans asked for or having plot holes, this ending lowered the level even more, ending the series without ever having exploited the potential it had.
For some reason these final chapters seem less focused on delighting fans who have followed the MCU since its beginnings and more on making a product "for kids" with simple and fun stories. But as long as you tell good stories you could easily satisfy both audiences; children are not stupid and enjoy a well-told plot as much as anyone.
- What if… The Hulk fought the mech Avengers?
The truth is that this was not a bad start, although I am not a big fan of mechas and kaijus I know that there are people who are, and surely this tribute to Godzilla, Pacific Rim, Power Rangers, etc. has made them happy.
Also the animation shined especially in this episode, and Hulk was able to show how powerful he is.
But as usual this season there are some plot holes, the first one just as the episode starts, where they show us an old cartoon of the mech Avengers, but it makes no sense for it to exist if the events that inspired it don't happen until 2013/2014. And the other nonsense is that just by entering a software the mechas are suddenly able to connect and move their pieces in crazy ways.
Maybe the original idea of having Surtur as the villain and the original Avengers fighting him with mechas was better.
- What if… Agatha went to Hollywood?
As someone who enjoys Eternals, I'm glad to have more content about them and the Celestials, and while the beginning of this episode with the musical part bored me a little, the ending with its cosmic scale made it one of the most enjoyable of the season.
Of course, the fact that Kingo knows about the Celestial at the center of the Earth contradicts the lore of the film where we are told that the only one who knew about it was Ajak (Salma Hayek), although I can turn a blind eye to this small slip.
- What if… The Red Guardian stopped The Winter Soldier?
It's a very funny episode, but at the cost of Sergei making a fool of himself with a very silly personality, even more so than the one he had in Black Widow. The truth is that I think that in a season with more serious and better episodes, this episode would have worked as comic relief and would have been less criticized, but among so much comedy, seeing a ridiculed character again is tiring.
If there is a plot hole here I didn't notice it, but I wonder why Russia wants the super soldier serum if they already made their own (the one they used for The Red Guardian).
- What if… Howard The Duck got hitched?
Why would you make a sequel to one of the most hated episodes?
Seeing him open to the idea that this was going to be an absurd and ridiculous story is entertaining, especially since Darcy and Howard are such charismatic and beloved characters. But it's still hard not to get angry at the way some villains are being ignored. This time we don't have Surtur flirting with the Statue of Liberty, but we do have the Dark Order wanting to go on vacation.
- What if… The Emergence destroyed The Earth?
A priori reading the titles it was the episode that interested me the most, it was one of the scenarios that many of us wanted to see, but the truth is it was not what I expected.
As soon as they showed that there were entire cities standing after the Earth exploded my suspension of disbelief completely fell apart. And to that was added the fact that we had to believe that the only survivors were that small group of "The Alliance" (why are Wong and Okoye everywhere?). Maybe this story should have taken up 2 episodes, so that they had more time to tell the story properly without plot holes and explaining everything better.
There are still things that I did like, like the Titanic used as a base, the return of Mysterio, and the climax.
For me, the episode should have followed Thor, Hulk, Captain Marvel and Makkari as the only survivors, and how they try to reverse what happened by sending the mind of the eternal to the past (remember, she is a robot) using a machine created by Phastos, which would have given us a kind of Days of Future Past but with the Eternals and Avengers.
- What if… 1872?
Personally, I prefer episodes to start from a particular change, the episode in the Middle Ages showed us that it is possible even with the craziest scenarios, but I can still accept seeing a strange world without explanation from time to time.
I recently saw someone say that Shang Chi and Kate Bishop feel like characters from the early stages of the MCU because they make you want to see them interact with the rest of the universe and their presence feels natural in it, and I think that is a very accurate opinion, I am very eager to see them in more projects.
The story, in addition to benefiting from charismatic characters, is very interesting, and also allows us to see The Hood for the first time before his live action debut in Ironheart. I would watch more of this western version of Marvel
- What if… The Watcher disappeared?
Bringing back Infinity Ultron is a smart move, and it's very interesting to see what would happen if he achieved his goal, which surely in the comics must have already happened at some point. Other than that it's a pretty boring episode where not much happens.
I think one mistake this season made was not showing us some episodes that end badly, which would have increased our desire for the Watcher to intervene and would have connected us more to his story. There was an attempt to do this by telling us, for example, that Ironheart had to lose against Mysterio or that the boy from 1872 had to die, but it is not the same.
- What if…What if?
An epic final battle, admittedly, but I'm not sure if it's better than the last season's finale. This ending is even more full of inconsistencies, why can't Ultron fight that watcher if he could fight Uatu before? And where does Captain Carter get that final power up?
The animation, the fight choreography, the return of Dr Strange Supreme, and the resolution of the vigilante conflict make this a worthy finale, but it's hard to ignore those conveniences. On top of that, the confusion of seeing Carter bring out that power out of nowhere makes her death not hit as hard as it should, after she is indisputably the protagonist of the series, appearing in 7 episodes.
The final images with other what if that we could have seen are a complete mockery of the viewer.
In short, as has been happening with most projects in the multiverse saga, Marvel wasted a great concept by delivering something fulfilling when it had the potential to do something very good. Hopefully one day a new season will come out in which Disney gives us what the fans wanted to see, like Deadpool killing the MCU or that episode of Spiderman Children of Men that they thought was too dark to do.
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