WARNING: Spoilers for Season 1, Episode 6 of What If?
What If? has so far focused on giving us alternate versions of the heroes we know but in this episode the show focuses on an alternate version of a villain, namely Erik Killmonger, played (and voiced here) by Michael B. Jordan.
The episode opens with a shot for shot recreation of early scenes in Iron Man as Tony Stark's convoy in Afghanistan is attacked. The key turning point is that rather than being captured by the Ten Rings and needing to create the prototype Iron Man suit, Tony is rescued by Killmonger. A line in Black Panther mentions that Erik served in Afghanistan which is presumably where the idea for this whole episode sprung from.
Though it's not really explored in great depth here, the interesting consequence of this event is that Stark never became Iron Man in this universe. This means that he didn't learn to be a better person and remained the arrogant douche-bag he was before his time in that cave. Stark was also hugely important for the formation of the Avengers and we don't see if that means New York and indeed the world fared somewhat worse when Loki and the Chitahuri arrived.
Killmonger quickly muscles his way into power at Stark Industries- he has hold of the intel that Obadiah Stane was behind the attack on Stark and releases it online. Understandably Stark is hugely grateful and makes Killmonger his new partner, unaware of the man's true nature. Soon the pair are working on automated drones which need vibranium to power them. Stark happily agrees to send Rhodey to see arms dealer Ulysses Klaue (one of the most underrated MCU character making a pleasing return). It's really hard to imagine the Stark we know agreeing so readily to work with an arms dealer and it's only Pepper Potts who really thinks this is wrong.
The meeting was all a conspiracy as Killmonger had contact with Klaue all along. Erik happily kills both T'Challa and Rhodey in scenes that would be quite shocking, though the darkness of What If? up to this point has shown us that no character is safe. I loved the conversation between Killmonger and Rhodey, two character who never interacted on screen, and their differing views about dealing with oppression, it's a really great piece of script-writing.
It's not long before Tony discovers what Killmonger has been up to but despite his best efforts he can't stop him and for the third time in this series we see a dead Tony Stark. I saw an idea online that Marvel were killing Stark in every universe to ensure that he can never return to the main MCU. I do wonder though if there's a narrative reason for Stark's many deaths- perhaps in the Marvel multiverse some people are simply destined to die and the universe will find a way to ensure it happens- a bit like in the Doctor Strange Supreme episode with Christine Palmer but across multiple universes rather than timelines.
With Stark no longer around there's nothing stopping General Ross seizing control of Stark Industries and using the newly created drones to attack Wakanda. It's all part of Killmonger's plan though as he returns to Wakanda and impresses T'Chaka. When the drones attack Killmonger goes into battle to fight them, even though he can shut them down at the touch of the button. It's simply a grab for power that leads to him becoming Black Panther. We know his plan was to take over world government's and make them part of the Wakandan Empire and his new position would surely allow him to do this.
The episode ended with something of a cliffhanger- whilst other episodes in the series have suggested there might be more story to tell this is the first one where it feels like the story isn't over at all. Shuri somehow makes it to America and Pepper's office and the pair are the only two people from their warring countries to know the truth of what Killmonger is up to. There's a suggestion that now they will work to stop them and T'Challa in the ancestral plane suggests that they will probably succeed.
It's not clear how Shuri and Pepper would go about stopping Killmonger and preventing a full-scale war between Wakanda and the US. Shuri's genius and Stark Industries resources would likely be a strong combination and I wonder if this universe would see Shuri build and Iron Man-type suit that for Pepper to fight in, like the Rescue armour we saw in Endgame. Or perhaps they might dabble in artificial intelligence, leading to the creation of Ultron and/or Vision?
It was certainly interesting to see an MCU villain find a way to win, in the short term anyway, and it looks like we might see similar in an upcoming episode that is set to focus on Ultron...
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