The Short Take:
The second episode of Marvel’s What If…? loosens up, unlocking the potential of its premise a lot more than the week before. The animation didn’t bother me this time, and the clever writing made me laugh out loud. A lot.
Image Credit: The Ringer (what a great website)
The Long Take:
[SPOILER ALERT: No droll tie-ins this time because any hint spoils the joy of discovery for this episode. Watch it before you read this. ]
While I was all about Peggy Carter becoming Captain Carter last week, the variation was fairly similar, fairly safe. Am I grateful we got to see Peggy Carter kick ass and take names? Beyond. But Peggy and Steve are two characters from the same story, the same branch of the MCU. So the degree to which What if…? could actually “what if” was pretty limited.
Not so with this week’s episode. What if T’Challa never became Black Panther, but instead joined the Ravagers from Guardians of the Galaxy to become…Star Lord?! Now we have a really interesting thought experiment. On the Ringerverse podcast, some of the hosts complained that Steve and Peggy were both nice, goodie two shoes and therefore swapping one out for the other essentially precipitates the same result. But trading in Peter Quill for T’Challa seems like a more fruitful choice because they couldn’t be more different.
If any fans are still mad at Peter Quill’s Star Lord for blowing it with Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War (2018), seeing T’Challa pal around the universe with Yondu will be therapeutic. Of course T’Challa, being as noble and pure a leader as he is, would convince Yondu to abandon his mercenary ways in favor of galactic heroism.
The writing in this episode throws some passive aggressive shade at Peter Quill, who, next to T’Challa, is an idiotic jerk. The opening scene of the episode is especially smart because it flips so many lines from the original Guardians of the Galaxy opening from sarcastic or self-aggrandizing to sincere and true.
With plenty of verbal sparring, the writing of this episode more generally captures the signature wit and goofiness of the Guardians of the Galaxy films, convincing me that I was in an alternate version of them. Many barbs delighted me, but the best one by far happens when T’Challa/Starlord and Tivan/The Collector go toe to toe. Tivan says, “It appears he does have a super power after all. He can bore someone to death using only his sanctimony.” (This is such a killer use of the word sanctimony! Actually, I just love everything about that second sentence full stop.)
I shouldn’t go much further without mentioning the late Chadwick Boseman. His voice acting was not only a strong rendition of his now iconic character, but a bittersweet remembrance of his short life as well. I have to admit that hearing his voice for the first time in a while was an emotional mixture of smile and sadness. But seeing him, through T’Challa, doing good and having such a rollicking time doing it, ultimately made me really happy. This episode was a perfect vehicle for Boseman to highlight what made his Black Panther so compelling and nuanced: his humility, his reluctance to become king, his yearning to explore beyond Wakanda’s borders, his quiet playfulness, and his somber conviction.
All the characters in this, no matter how minor, were stellar. I especially loved seeing those who were more villainous in the Infinity Saga, like Nebula and Thanos, fighting by T’Challa’s side. Thanos has a laugh about his crazy snap theory as others continually point out that what he describes is “just genocide.” Wild. And I really liked Jessica Rabbit Nebula. Her femme fatale flirting was fun, and, surprisingly, believable. I even found her nickname for T’Challa — “Cha Cha,” endearing.
And none of them had derpy faces! All of my complaints about the art style last week mysteriously vanished in this episode, despite the aesthetic being mostly the same. In fact, I found many of the establishing exteriors (like the celestial head turned mining colony, Knowhere) to be breathtakingly rendered. I’m not sure if this happened because we were in space and the style fit the content more, or if the animators just honed in on what they wanted. Either way, it worked for me.
As I look back at what I’ve written, I’m not seeing any complaints. I guess I’m all in on this show now.