WARNING: Spoilers for Season 1, Episode 7 of What If?
After a seriously dark tone in the last few episodes, this week's episode of What If? veered in the opposite direction with a comedy episode.
The turning point in the universe seen in this episode was Odin returning Loki to his real-father, frost giant Laufey. This means that Thor didn't grow up with a mischievous brother which meant he didn't end up becoming the hero we know. It also means that neither the events of Thor nor The Avengers took place as Loki appears to be perfectly happy living as a frost giant.
The episode sees Odin enter the Odin-sleep and Frigga head off to meet her friends. Thor takes the opportunity to have one big party and chooses to host it on Earth, the rationale being that the planet is so backward that Heimdall doesn't even bother looking at it. Everyone who is anyone from the cosmic universe seems to have turned up- there's characters from the three Thor films from the Warriors Three to the Grandmaster, Korg and Sutur. The Guardians of the Galaxy are present, or some of them at least, with Rocket passing out in Jane Foster's bathroom and Drax vomiting over Thor. Howard the Duck shows up, in this universe perhaps not contained by the Collector, and Nebula is around, though it's never quite explained how Thanos lets her go to parties. There's also a load of skrulls who Thor finds most amusing.
Perhaps the most interesting guest to turn up is the frost-giant variant of Loki. Presumably this is the same variant that we saw a brief image of in Loki and it's a really fun take on the character, voiced again by Tom Hiddleston. Thor and Loki seem to be drawn together no matter what their background and they even refer to themselves as brothers from another mother. The fact that there are other frost giants present also suggests that relationships between the Asgardians and the frost giants in this universe are actually pretty good.
Eventually SHIELD catch up with Jane Foster after she spent the night with Thor and want to stop this huge party because Thor is actually destroying half the planet. With Nick Fury out of action thanks to an over-excited Korg, it's Maria Hill who is acting director. She's led the organisation a fair bit in the comic books so it was a nice idea to let her take the reins for an episode of this series. Hill uses the famous pager to summon Captain Marvel- it's weird how much a part of MCU history Captain Marvel feels despite the fact that she was basically retconned in.
It's great fun to see Captain Marvel and Thor fight it out- it's always fun to see two Avengers fighting and even more so when it's two of the strongest. Carol struggles to beat Thor, but only because she doesn't want to vastly damage the planet in the process. In one final showdown in Siberia, Hill prepares to nuke Thor and doesn't seem at all bothered about Captain Marvel potentially being collateral damage. Fortunately Frigga makes an appearance in time to sort things out.
It was nice that Thor actually does develop in this episode and by the end agrees that Jane contacting Frigga was the right thing to do. I found it interesting that this version of Thor was still considered worthy enough to carry the hammer and I think the ending suggests why that is, that he is basically a good person. His parties may be misguided but they seem to have a way of bringing people together- he's bridged friendships with the frost giants, the grandmaster, Surtur and Nebula which is an impressive feat. He is also still capable of love and the relationship between Thor and Jane Foster is really well done here, perhaps actually better than it's been depicted in the films so far.
Just when it looked like there was going to be a happy ending even the Watcher is surprised by what happens. A portal opens and out pops a load of Ultron-bots and some sort of Ultron/Vision hybrid. This has nothing to do with this episode and is the first clear indication that though this series appears to be made of standalone episodes there is something of a story arc. I suspect the next episode will tell the story of this Ultron/Vision hybrid and the final episode of the series will see the formation of a multi-verse Avengers, as teased in the mid-season trailer, where characters from across the series band together to fight this threat, with Captain Carter being a key part of the team.
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