If you’ve been watching Marvel’s What…If? on Disney Plus, you may have noticed a trend of these shows getting darker and darker each of the past few weeks.
In episode 1, we had Peggy Carter taking on the mantle of Captain Carter instead of Steve Rodgers. Rodgers then became an early 1940s version of Iron Man, when Howard Stark created an early version of the suit for the heroic young soldier. But, the episode was largely similar in tone to the original Captain America MCU movie.
In episode 2, T’Challa was mistakenly kidnapped by the Ravagers instead of Peter Quill. T’Challa went on to become a very different version of Star-Lord, who actually convinced Thanos to set aside his plans to snap half the universe into dust and turned the Ravagers into a Robin Hood-style organization. There was plenty of Guardians of the Galaxy-style humor in this one.
Episode 3 took a dark turn, as each of the original Avengers (Thor, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Hulk, and possibly Black Widow) was assassinated prior to Nick Fury being able to bring them all together. The culprit was Hank Pym, whose daughter had chosen to join SHIELD in this universe and died in the line of duty. He took his revenge on Fury, by killing the Avengers before they could ever be formed. The episode ended as Fury and Captain Marvel appeared ready to find Captain America frozen in the ice. So, clearly a darker story here.
Last week, in episode 4, Dr. Strange received a different origin story where his girlfriend Christine was killed in the car accident from the original MCU movie, instead of Strange being alone in the car and injuring his hands. In this universe, Strange’s grief causes him to turn to dark magic to bring Christine back, which eventually leads to the end of the entire universe. Yikes. Hard to get much darker than that.
So, would this week bring us back to a happier storyline? Well, how do you feel about zombie apocalypses?
Infinity War… and Zombies!
The episode kicks off when Bruce Banner was transported/crashed into the NY Sanctum of Dr. Strange, as it happened in Avengers: Infinity War. But in this universe, there was a small change. When Hank Pym went into the quantum realm to rescue his wife, she had been infected with a quantum virus, which came back to our universe and began turning everyone into zombies. So, when Banner walks out to the street, he finds a world filled with zombies. Fortunately, not everyone is infected, and Spider-Man shows up to help save Banner from…
Earth’s Mightiest Heroes… want Brains!
Turns out that even superheroes can become zombies and you won’t like how they turn out, since they still have their powers and knowledge of how to use them. Banner faces off against several zombified Avengers, before being saved by Spider-Man and Wasp.
They rejoin a ragtag group of survivors, including Okoye, Bucky Barnes, Sharon Carter, and a few others. They make plans to head for a military base in NJ where a signal suggests there is a cure. Instead, they find Vision protecting and feeding an infected Wanda. But, on the plus side, they also find the reanimated and virus-free head of Ant-Man and an injured T’Challa. A battle ensues and only Spider-Man, T’Challa, and Ant-Man escape (along with Dr. Strange’s sentient cape).
Spider-Man, T’Challla, and Ant-Man’s Head fly to Wakanda…
The episode ends with our remaining heroes heading to Wakanda that they believe is still virus-free, with the Mind Stone in hand, which may or may not be a cure for the virus. Then we get a flash-forward to a zombified Thanos about to snap his fingers with the Infinity Gauntlet. So, apparently, things didn’t go well in Wakanda.
Through 5 weeks, we have 2 fairly normal MCU stories and 3 very dark ones. What’s in store for us next week?
