WARNING: Spoilers for Season 1, Episode 2 of What If?
Whatever your feelings were on the Captain Carter episode of What If?, it's clear that this second episode is superior.
When details about the scenarios that would appear in this series began to be revealed, this one seemed the strangest choice. T'Challa, who we know as Black Panther, as Star-Lord from Guardians of the Galaxy? It didn't take long into this episode to explain why this concept works. Peter Quill was still a dick only out for himself during the first half of Guardians of the Galaxy and gradually developed the qualities of a hero. The difference is that T'Challa has always had those qualities and therefore quickly changed the Ravagers.
It's amazing how T'Challa can change those he comes into contact with. Whilst we know that Yondu is certainly an excellent father figure, it took some time before he really moved on from the Ravager lifestyle in the prime universe. Here though T'Challa has turned Yondu and fellow Ravagers Kraglin and Taserface into people who steal from the rich and give to the poor a la Robin Hood. I think it would have been sufficient to have shown the power of T'Challa's beliefs just from that but we also see how Korath takes almost no persuasion to join the Ravagers. I loved the way they turned the "who" moment from Guardians completely around and had Korath be something of a Star-lord fanboy.
T'Challa is even more powerful than that as he even managed to convince Thanos not to proceed with his mission to collect the infinity stones and wipe out half the universe. Clearly the Mad Titan still has some belief that this is a good idea and keeps banging on about much to everyone's annoyance but this version of the character is just another part of the Ravagers doing good for the universe.
The absence of Thanos seemed to have led to something of a power vacuum in the universe which was filled by The Collector who was able to make his collection even bigger and terrorise much of the universe with the Black Order under his command. I like the idea that someone will always take the opportunity to seize power and assume if in both this universe and the main MCU timeline whether Kang will be the next to do so.
These What If? episodes leave the wider universe outside of these characters to the imagination. One character that is notably absent from this episode is Gamora and I wonder if because T'Challa's intervention with Thanos stopped him from destroying Gamora's home planet and adopting her. Certainly he didn't seem to have messed with Nebula and hadn't wiped out Drax's wife and family so it's possible she's living a happy life where she was born.
The biggest question though is about what happened on Earth. It's worrying that the Collector seems to have amongst his collection of weapons both Captain America's shield and Mjolnir, perhaps suggesting that he has come up against The Avengers at some point. Maybe it was the Collector that supported Loki with the Battle of New York in this universe and this enabled him to take down The Avengers. Earth isn't in the hands of Loki and the Chitahuri though- we see that Wakanda is thriving and the brief epilogue set in the US suggests things are pretty normal there.
One other possibility is that The Avengers don't exist as a team in this universe. It was the Battle of New York that brought them together in the first place and the infinity stones were key parts of most of their origin stories. Without Thanos backing Loki and seeking the infinity stones perhaps Cap is still in the ice (although how did the Collector get his shield out) and Thor didn't become worthy, leaving an Earth where Tony Stark is a lone superhero in Iron Man whilst Bruce Banner lives quietly keeping the Hulk at bay in South America. This would all mean that Civil War never happened and therefore T'Challa's father T'Chaka was not killed by Zemo.
There’s also an implication that the Collector in this universe was heavily involved with the events of Thor: Ragnarok. He has Thor’s hammer, Hela’s head-dress and an arm which we can assume was taken off Korg. I can’t really work out what role the Collector would play in that story- perhaps he is sort of equivalent to Surtur.
I felt the explanation for how T'Challa ended up as Star-Lord worked pretty well- Yondu sent Kraglin and Taserface to collect Peter Quill and they found an alien signal on Earth but it was actually the vibranium meteorite. This left the question of what happened to Quill and we get part of an answer in the final scene of the episode- he appears to have lived a normal life and is cleaning a Dairy Queen, his love of music being retained. We see that Ego finds his son on Earth, presumably triggering the events of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. I'd assume that the plot would follow much the same line though wonder how Quill would cope taking on Ego without the back-up of the rest of the Guardians. If this episode gets a sequel in the next series, this is surely where it would head.
The episode is dedicated to the late Chadwick Boseman who gives a wonderful performance here. This version of T'Challa retains the heart and strong beliefs of the character that we're used to but also injects it with a sense of fun and roguery due to growing up with the Ravagers. Boseman was apparently one of the first actors to sign up to voice the series and was very keen to give the world more of this character. I think it's an important take on the character that shows he doesn't need to be a king to make an enormous difference. It's reported that Boseman voiced a couple of other versions of the character in the series though presumably they are little more than brief cameo roles, making this his final starring performance. It feels like a fitting end that he should make one final glorious appearance as the character he is most famous for playing, injecting a strong strong story with his warmth.
I just loved this episode and the way it really dived into a character by giving them a different role to play. This one didn't feel like an obvious choice at all but boy does it work well!
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