What If...? (Disney+ Series) [Open Spoilers After First Post]

Cafe Society
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You make a good point. And if it were just Coulson, with Thor there…and maybe leave out the word ‘rotting’, it works for me. But they double down with Fury taking a big ol whiff…while Fucking Clint Barton is literally in frame on a slab behind him.

I maintain that Disney has laid out some guidelines to counter anything heavy with jokes because its a ‘cartoon’. Or at least said, “You know our formula about making quips even if half the universe is gone and the guy making the quips looks like he walked out of Aushwitz??..or our hero is suffering massive PTSD and guilt and is begging to use the Infinity Gauntlet to atone and I made you do a fat joke?..double diwn on that.”

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I found Episode 3* to be a great balance of tragedy and comedy. Previous episodes were very much on the fan service side (which I did enjoy), but this one was more measured.

*Do these episodes have official names other that Season 1: Episode whatever?

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It appears they do:

So far we’ve had, “What If…Captain Carter Were the First Avenger?”, “What If…T’Challa Became a Star-Lord?”, and “What If…The World Lost Its Mightiest Heroes?”

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I’ve still got my issue of WHAT IF #4 — you know, the one that The Powers That Be decided actually took place in mainstream continuity? (A robot replacement for JFK! The Human Torch burns Hitler to death! Jeff Mace becomes the new Captain America!)

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…I mean we are talking about this Fury right?

These two are brothers. They finish each others sentences. Fury would totally be whiffing that shit.

Nah. Disney don’t have much of a say at all on creative of the Marvel shows. And A.C. Bradley nailed the characterization of Fury and Coulson.

And just while I’m sharing all things Coulson, here is my favourite Marvel thing ever. “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor’s Hammer”.

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Well you convinced me {No sarcasm}…still, Hawkeye is laying on that slab behind you. Whats he smell like? Pomade and regret?

Edit: awww…I didnt know Bill Paxton made an appearance. (sad face)

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I think it’s actually Odessa in the Ukraine.

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That would make a lot more sense, lol. I knew I was saying something wrong afterwards but thought it was typing Janet Pym instead of Janet Van Dyne. :laughing:

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That would be Hope - the daughter - not Janet - the wife/mother.

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I was worried that the plot would have Nick thinking “Hm. It’s all about hope? Hope for what?” I was annoyed when Natasha didn’t say, “It’s about Hope Van Dyne!” I’m glad the writers didn’t go that way. Of course, the episode is only thirty minutes.

I was surprised that Nick still had Thor’s body. (In the coffin with the hammer icon on top.) Seems to me that the Asgardians would want to give him a decent funeral. His parents are still alive, and I don’t think Loki would object.

So Nick’s planning on taking back the Earth with Captains Marvel and America. I think he could probably get some help from Black Panther. I doubt the Asgardians know what’s really going on in Wakanda.

Which raises another question. Peter doesn’t have his powers yet. When he does, in this universe, will Nick Fury take him under his wing, instead of Tony Stark?

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That would be Hope - the daughter - not Janet - the wife/mother.

Huh, as usual I can’t correct one mistake without making a different one in the process. Not being snide, just self-depreciation. :slight_smile: And to top it off, the gravestone also said Hope Van Dyne.

Anyway, my brain kept returning to the image of Janet Van Dyne (with a very tiny “deceased” tag and red X on the photo, both of which I missed on first viewing) that appeared during Natasha’s library scene re: who accessed the Avengers Initiative file. Which raises the question; how broken is SHIELD’s systems to allow that?

I guess it’s no less unbelievable than Fury having a ‘retinal scan’ for his dead eye in Winter Soldier which still since his employee file had been deauthorized by Pierce implies Fury set up a second hidden account with that eye and matching security privileges.

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Peter doesn’t have his powers yet. When he does, in this universe, will Nick Fury take him under his wing, instead of Tony Stark?

Seems plausible. That is, presuming Hydra doesn’t try to recruit or eliminate first… if there IS a Hydra in this alt-verse. There might not be one in the Peggy Carter Supersoldier verse (can’t recall if Arnim Zola survived to resurrect it), but since Cap’s shield is in the ice, then the Zola-Hydra-SHIELD link ought still be in play.

It would be a switch if the iced Captain America from Ep 3 was not Steve but one of the army’s other “preferred candidates”; but that would be assuming the alternate Cap made enough similar decisions to meet the same fate.

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We don’t actually see what happens to him, but I doubt that Captain Carter would have gone so far as to kill him while persuading him to talk (if only because that would prevent further questioning). That said, he would be in a weaker position (since he didn’t have the chance to develop Tesseract-powered weapons as in the Sacred Timeline, and thus has fewer bargaining chips to play).

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Uhm, just to be clear, each What If…? episode takes place in its own timeline. The series isn’t in a single continuous alternate timeline. The MCU timeline happens exactly as it did in the original up until the “What If…?” point of divergence.

In the Episode 3 timeline, Steve Rogers is Captain America, he just hasn’t been recovered yet, because the timeline diverged during the events of Iron Man 2 and Thor, before the events of The Avengers.

In the Episode 3 alternate, Nick is apparently forming a different Avengers team to take on Loki and the Asgardians. We know he’s got Captains America and Marvel. Who else would he recruit?

Loki’s takeover apparently took less than a day, and was accomplished mainly through shock and awe; SHIELD still seems to exist, and has enough organization and resources to give the fallen woulda-been Avengers individualized casket covers. So, Fury’s still probably got considerable resources.

Dr. Strange is still a few years away, and the Ancient One seems to stay pretty removed from ordinary mortal affairs. If she didn’t intervene during the initial Asgardian invasion, she probably doesn’t consider it her concern (the Asgardians are just conquering Earth, after all, not destroying it, much less all of reality). And SHIELD probably doesn’t know anything about her at this point. But maybe one of her more unruly disciples, like Karl Mordo, decides to get involved?

We actually never explicitly got Spider-Man’s origin in the MCU, we just know he was already around as of Captain America: Civil War. But this seems a bit too early for him to have gained his powers, and in the new timeline, he probably won’t.

Without Black Widow or Hawkeye, maybe Brock Rumlow fills the slot of non-powered-but-super-skilled-field-agent? If he was severely injured in Loki’s attack (facial frostbite from Loki’s use of the Casket of Ancient Winters), he might even be Crossbones already in this new timeline.

Anyone else?

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Well, she had Coulson’s password - #stevestevesteveIheartsteve

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I thought trailers or other bits suggested that there was going to be a team-up of some of these alt-verse characters, such as a battle involving Captain Carter, “Party Thor”, and possibly T’challa-Lord.
Unless they’re doing a What If multiverse crossover (always possible!) I was inferring that while most of the episode timelines were individual, some of them might be shared. What you said makes more sense, potential crossovers aside.
(spoilered for not-yet-aired episode leak)

Rhodes as War Machine. I can’t imagine Fury would talk Sam Wilson back into the wingsuit, presumably that gear was scrapped for some reason (unless it was just obsoleted in favor of duplicating Stark’s suits, certainly possible!) . While SHIELD would be all over investigating Pym’s research, it wouldn’t be Lang using Pym-tech if there’s a surviving suit for Fury to repurpose. Hank probably has his tech set on some form of self-destruct protocol in that alt-verse anyhow.
I’ve got no other leads.

Given the Ancient One never saw futures past her own death, she probably saw this future far enough to see it would work out well enough without interference needed.

I just realized, on a tangent here, regarding Strange’s apparent actions in the Spider-Man No Way Home teaser, this is a case where he couldn’t look ahead to see how it would turn out, no safety net for his arrogance. But that’s a discussion for another thread. :laughing:

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I mean, the Sorcerers Supreme were seeing into the future using the Time Stone. That’s gone now.

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If you mean she as in Natasha, that meant she was logged in as Coulson; it would show Coulson accessed that file. What she found was that a deceased agent, Janet Van Dyne, had accessed the file which led her to conclude “it’s about Hope” as the motivation for Hank Pym behind it all. So… Hank Pym had Janet’s login credentials to find the Avengers candidates… why did SHIELD not deactivate a deceased agent’s account access? for two years??

The more I think about it the more confused I get; since if the What If stemmed from Hope going on that Odessa mission instead of Natasha, wouldn’t it have been Hope that died two years ago? On the original MCU timeline, Janet was thought dead (stopping the missile) at least ten, fifteen years ago? But going by this episode, Janet went on to become a SHIELD agent.
Makes more sense if the computer file said Hope Van Dyne deceased instead of Janet, but that would have given away the answer too quickly.

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In the original timeline, Janet and Hank worked for SHIELD. Hank was apparently some sort of freelance consultant, ala Tony Stark, but Janet’s status was less clear. She might have been a full-fledged SHIELD agent, or a consultant with high-level access.

In this alt-timeline, the divergence seems to be that Fury successfully recruited Hope as a SHIELD agent some time after Janet disappeared and was presumed dead on a SHIELD mission. Hope then died on a SHIELD mission. The deaths of both his wife and child drove Hank Pym over the edge, and he blamed SHIELD for their deaths. He then spent the next two years plotting his revenge. He used his wife’s old credentials to access SHIELD’s systems - it was an old code, but it checked out. Yes, that’s unrealistic, but it’s a well-worn trope. He found out about the Avengers Initiative, built a new Yellowjacket battlesuit, and proceeded to kill Earth’s Mightiest Heroes before they had a chance to assemble as part of his plan to destroy Nick Fury and SHIELD.

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At the point Tony dies, has he built the War Machine suit yet? I don’t remember. If he has, then, yeah Rhodey as War Machine is a definite. If not, maybe we get Ivan Vanko as bobo Iron Man.

At the point Hulk dies, had Emil Blonsky turned into Abomination?

We could get a mostly Dark Avengers to fight Loki and the Asgardians:

Captain America
Captain Marvel
Karl Mordo
Crossbones
Abomination
Whiplash