What If...? Season 1 Review

00:22
Hi and welcome to the Dynamic Duel Podcast, a weekly show where we review superhero films and debate the superiority between Marvel and DC by comparing their characters in stat-based battle simulations. I'm Johnny DC. And I'm his twin brother Marvelous Joe. And this episode, we will be talking all about the DC fandom. All the news to come out of that. It's awesome, it's amazing. And I guess we'll be talking about what if as well. We have to review that.

00:49
Hell yeah, that's the main event of this episode. We will be reviewing the Disney Plus animated television show What if. Who cares about the DC stuff? Just skip the news. Actually, I think this is probably the one episode where people are most likely to skip the main event Because we're gonna be talking about the new Batman trailer, Black Adam's official first look, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdoms behind-the-scenes clip, the Flash's first look, the Shazam Fury of the Gods behind-the-scenes clip

01:14
We're gonna be talking about the DC's League of Superpets teaser trailer, as well as Blue Beetle and Batgirl's costume concept art, the Peacemaker official teaser, and the Catwoman hunted trailer. There was a ton of other news to come out of the fandom, but we're gonna be specifically talking about those items. Yeah, don't forget that we're also gonna talk about Will Poulter being cast as Adam Warlock in Guardians of the Galaxy 3, which was probably bigger news than anything to come out of the fandom. Nah, we'll get that shit out of the way right away, real quick. Then we'll get into the good stuff.

01:44
As always, we list our segment times in our episode description, so feel free to check out the show notes if you want to skip ahead to a particular topic. As a reminder guys, only the 4 most recent episodes of this podcast are available to the listening public if you want access to over 200 episodes of archived content including our Suicide Squad review, Adam Strange vs Star-Lord, our Deadpool 2 review, Black Adam

02:12
Be sure to subscribe to this podcast on Spotify or Patreon, both of which will provide you with an RSS feed to use in your own podcast app. On Patreon, you also get bonus content including bonus episodes, access to our Discord server, blooper reels, and more. It's only $2 a month to subscribe on Spotify or Patreon, and you can do so by visiting DynamicDuel.com slash subscribe, which is linked in our show notes. We want to give a quick shout out to Panache Gordedema.

02:41
and Nathaniel Prather, hopefully I got those names right, for recently joining us on Patreon. Thank you guys so much for your generosity and for helping support this show. You guys are awesome. But with that out of the way, quick to the No Prize. A No Prize is an award Marvel used to give out up until the 90s to fans. Our version, the Dynamic Dual No Prize, is a digital award we post on social media that Jonathan personally draws for those who we feel gave the best answer to our question of the week.

03:09
For last week's question, we asked, what was your favorite DCEU film so far and why? There's been 10 of them. We got a few answers and we want to run down the honorable mentions before we announce the no prize winner. Our first honorable mention goes to Marquis High, who said, Hello gentlemen, this is Marquis here. I'm just checking in to put my bid in. I would say there'd be Suicide Squad. James Gunn to me is the one that should be holding the reins for.

03:37
just the direction of projects in general. I know that he's a little bit outlandish, but just his take in the way that all the characters were able to give their best performance and adhere to just what we would imagine each of them to be was amazing. Yeah, the Suicide Squad was what Suicide Squad should have been, hands down. It captured the tone of the comic, the zaniness, the violence. Everything you love about the comic was captured on film by James Gunn.

04:07
He's obviously a comic book fan and I personally wouldn't mind it if he became the Kevin Feige of DC Comics. I wouldn't want everything to be zany and outlandish, but I think he knows the source material well enough for that to not happen. Yeah, I agree. I think he has a great sense for story and for the visual side of the storytelling. He does come with a little bit of his own baggage due to the whole drama that happened with him a few years ago. But the guy is not only one of the best comic book directors, he's one of the most original creative minds out there right now.

04:37
Yeah, totally. Our next honorable mention goes to Corey Wooten who said, Guys, Corey Wooten here. This list is getting pretty impressive and this decision is getting tougher and tougher. Wonder Woman was my favorite a couple years ago. It's phenomenal. I can watch it over and over. The new Suicide Squad was darn near perfect, but the only answer is Zack Snyder's Justice League, the best comic book film I've ever seen.

05:06
Yeah, I mean, honestly, that's my favorite right now as well. Zack Snyder's Justice League, again, is what the theatrical release of the Justice League should have been. It's by far the most epic DCEU film to have come out. Yeah, by far. The scale of Zack Snyder's original vision was just so much more grand in scope than the first theatrical Justice League cut that we got. So despite the fact that I had a hard time sitting through it,

05:32
I could definitely appreciate why many fans would view it as their favorite because it just had so much to offer. Yeah, it was a tour de force and that's exactly what you want a Justice League film to be. We'll see the story continue in the upcoming The Flash movie, I think, and we'll see where we go from there. Our next honorable mention goes to Brandon Estregard, who said, Alright guys, hopefully this makes an end on time, but I'm gonna have to give it to Mattis still. Everything about the movie, I just love, I love how-

06:00
Zack Snyder brought these godlike beings to a normal world like ours. Superman suit. Definitely by far the best suit that we've had for Superman, in my opinion. And don't even get me started on Michael Shannon as the best freaking DCEU villain ever. It was the best villain, best score, best action. Well, until probably Zack Snyder's Justice League. But yeah, it's such a good film. It's definitely one of my favorites in the DCEU. Probably my favorite until

06:29
Zack Snyder's Justice League came out. I know it gets a lot of hate. I am NOT one of those haters. I love it I'm one of those haters, but no it has to be commended for you know Henry Cavill I wish they would announce like him coming back into the role right because he was just fantastic Although I think a lot of Superman fans are getting their fix now from the Superman and Lois television show Which is supposed to have pretty good Superman action if you guys haven't seen the man of steel in a while check it out Now pass I was talking to you

06:58
Suck at everyone else. I saw it recently, it still holds up, and I think it gets better and better as time goes on, and we get more and more context from other DCEU films. It perfectly set up that world. That does it for the honorable mentions before we name the no prize winner, we wanna give a big shout out to CJ Kraft, who took the time to visit our website and leave his answer. Guys, be sure to go check out his book on Amazon, Pages of Terror Trilogy of Fear. I got my hardcover book coming in the mail, and I'm really excited for it. But the winner.

07:27
of this week's snow prize goes to Michael Haggerty who said, wow wow wow wow.

07:36
Guys, Michael Haggerty here. I have been to the future. You won't believe it. Shhh, shh, shh. Oh God, it's sucking me back. The Batman is the best DCEU movie. It's true. It's connected. The Flash is pretty good too. Michael Keaton does some good stuff, but the answer is the Batman. The answer is the Batman.

08:02
I'm convinced. I'm convinced he went to the future. I mean, we heard it happen live on this show. But I don't know if I would consider the Batman to be DCEU. Maybe it is. Michael Haggerty just said it was connected. It's part of the DCEU. He was in the future. How can you deny that? The facts are there. I guess that's true. But no, yeah, does the DCEU just refer to the Snyder verse or is it much bigger than that? I don't know. But.

08:32
I totally believe that the Batman will be the best thing that has ever come out from DC. It looks like the film is going to be amazing, but we'll get into that when we break down the latest trailer. So do you think Michael Haggerty is trapped in the future now? Probably. Just like Back to the Future 2. Well hopefully he enjoys those hoverboards. Lucky bastard. Congrats again to Michael Haggerty for winning this week's No Prize. If you the listener want a shot at winning your own No Prize, stay tuned to later on this episode when we'll be asking another question of the week.

09:01
And now that that's done, on to the news!

09:09
Alright, this past week we got some big Marvel news. Despite the DC fandom, Marvel was still able to shine with this little gem in that Adam Warlock has been cast for Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3. Now he was teased at the end of the last film with Aisha growing up being called Adam in this gold cocoon-like structure. And fans have been wondering what was gonna happen with that ever since 2017. Yeah, it's been one of the major.

09:35
dangling plot threads that Marvel has put out there that we haven't really heard anything about until now. Yeah, but with volume 3 set to begin filming within the next couple of weeks we got the big news that Will Poulter has landed that role of Adam Warlock and this was kind of a head-scratcher for me because I've seen Will Poulter in a few things and he does not seem like an Adam Warlock type character who I typically view as like this Adonis guy just very mysterious this basically perfect being.

10:05
Yeah, honestly, I thought Adam Warlock would be taller. And Will Poulter definitely has this unique look to him. I always think of him as the funny kid from We're the Millers. Right. Yeah. Or like the annoying cousin from the Narnia films. He also played this douchebag racist in Detroit. I heard he was really good in that. He's played a wide variety of roles, but none of them would lead me to believe that he is a superhero character. That being said, James Gunn is obviously brilliant at what he does. And whatever he has.

10:35
planned for Adam Warlock, I believe 100% that Will Poulter is the man for the job. According to Deadline, sources are saying that basically his screen test was too good to pass up. So, if that's the case, I'm really looking forward to seeing this. It'll be a little bit weird seeing him in the movies considering that the whole Infinity Saga is over and I primarily associate Adam Warlock with the Infinity Gauntlet storyline. It'll be interesting to see what type of role he plays within the MCU.

11:03
post Thanos and the Infinity Stones. Doesn't he have like the soul stone embedded in his forehead? He has had that. Yeah. I wonder if they'll explore like the whole soul world that we got to see in some of the Avengers movies, just like that orange landscape with those films. That would be interesting. Because that's another kind of dangling plot thread that they never really addressed. Like what is that place? I'm curious. Yeah, me too. I would like to see that. And maybe he could go in there and like bring back Tony Stark and Gamora or something like that. Who knows? I wonder if he's gonna be the bad guy.

11:33
I think he'll start out as the bad guy, but since Adam Warlock is ultimately a hero, he'll probably switch sides toward the end. That's my guess. We'll see. Yeah, maybe he'll become like the newest member of the Guardians of the Galaxy. Yeah, because he was certainly part of that team in the comics. I'm wondering if maybe we're going to see him first in Thor, Love and Thunder considering the Guardians of the Galaxy are going to be in the first part of that film, or if we're going to see him in the holiday Christmas special, or if we're going to have to wait until May of 2023.

12:02
to finally see him in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Hmm. Well, enough of that shit, let's get on to the good stuff, the DC Fan Dome, starting with the Batman trailer, which was actually the last bit of news to come out of the Fan Dome. Of course. It was the only solid news to come out of the event. What? So of course they were going to make people sit around for 4 hours before they got that. Well, I guess you could say it was the only solid trailer for sure to come out of the event, which was actually honestly kind of disappointing.

12:31
But the trailer itself was not. It was amazing. And honestly, it just got better as it went along. I'm not gonna lie, early on, I didn't know what to think of it because I felt like so many of the shots I was seeing had come from other Batman films, especially Christopher Nolan's. Everything from like the scarred back to like the amber lights of Gotham City night time to like the interrogation scene in the police station. A lot of it felt familiar. Well, Matt Reeves' Gotham City feels a lot more like Blade Runner to me.

13:01
because it's like always raining, it's very dark and drab. It has a very different feel. It's not quite as realistic as Nolan's take on Gotham, which felt very real world. This feels a little bit more comic booky. Well, we know that Blade Runner was actually the inspiration for Batman Begins, but I agree with you. This looks a little bit more like Blade Runner. It has like the same kind of vibes, especially with the opening frame where we see the Riddler in a coffee shop. That was a really cool shot. He gets taken by police.

13:30
and in his coffee mug is a freaking question mark that's not that cool like that didn't make sense to me like why the fuck is he touching his coffee? don't do that because he knows that they're coming for him like he starts making that symbol even before they come in for him okay I can't wait to see the reaction from the police officer who's like oh guys he put a question mark in his coffee yeah dude it's crazy hehehehe after that we get to see Robert Pattinson as the Batman

13:57
And he delivers this cool line where he's talking about the bat signal and he's like, it's not just a call, it's a warning. And yeah, these bad guys in Gotham should totally be afraid of him, because he's fucking them up. He's like straight up tasing them in the face, and like, not taking any bullets. No nonsense from them. See, at all. That's a little strange to me though, because since when is Batman Iron Man? He's never been one to walk into a hail of gunfire and just have all the bullets ricochet off of him. He doesn't have that kind of body armor.

14:25
You know what he does in this film. It's very metallic. It's strange because his mask is like made out of leather, but I guess he's wearing Iron Man armor beneath that. The thing that always separated Batman from Superman was that Superman could walk into a hail of bullets, whereas Batman had to rely on stealth and agility. This is definitely not that Batman. I thought it was going to be because Robert Pattinson is, you know, a slender guy and stuff. I thought we were going to see some cool acrobatics, but he's just a tank. That's

14:54
Actually not a bad way to describe him. To me, he was very much like a movie monster in this whole trailer. He was just walking towards you, like Michael Myers or something like that. Just bullets weren't stopping him, explosions weren't stopping him. Like there was no escape. I actually really liked that about the character. I don't mind that he's bulletproof in this version, because I know ultimately he's still a man and could still get shot in the face, you know, worst case scenario. So he's not completely impervious. He's just a badass.

15:22
Well, it is about time that he learned that there's a better way to avoid gunfire than doing backflips. In some ways that's an evolution for the character, but in other ways I do think that maybe he's lost something with that invulnerability. Hey man, this is the post Iron Man world! We've all seen the movie, we all can make, you know, metal suits of armor, so why not Batman? I have to say though, I don't really like Robert Pattinson's Bruce Wayne. Like that shot when he's looking up from behind the newspaper and he's wearing those glasses.

15:50
and his weird hairdo, he looks like Topee McGuire from Spider-Man 3. He looks like that through the whole movie. During the fandom though, Robert actually said like, you know, this is still early Batman. This is still him like when he's first starting out. He hasn't really fully developed his Bruce Wayne persona yet. Okay. Because that's the mask. That's what he needs to work on. Batman comes a little bit easier to him. Interesting. Okay, I could buy that. I could buy that. The standouts of this trailer for me were honestly Catwoman and the Penguin.

16:20
Freaking Zoe Kravitz as Selina Kyle is pitch perfect. I would not be surprised if she gets her own like sequel spin-off from this movie. She looks dead honest Selina Kyle. She looks phenomenal like from the behind the scenes photos that we saw on set. I thought she was going to have long hair. No, dude. She has the short Selina Kyle haircut from the comics. It's so cool to see. It's like she's straight from the comic page. The penguin is not necessarily though like in the comic books.

16:48
Penguin is like this aristocrat and here he looks more like a Brooklyn Italian mobster. Oh yeah dude, Colin Farrell is totally channeling Robert De Niro. In the movie he's gonna be like, Kabagool, forget about it! Get the cannoli! Ma, the lasagna! It's a me Mario! But no, that end scene with him where he's like, oh I got you! I got you! And then just to see his face when the Batmobile drips right through those flames, oh my gosh!

17:16
I was like on my feet cheering when I saw that during the fan dome. It was the coolest moment. It was a fantastic shot to end the trailer where we see upside down from the Penguin's perspective, Batman walking toward him in the rain. And that music, that music is so cool. I love the Batman theme so far. I just can't wait for this movie. And really we don't have to wait too much longer for this. It's going to come out in quarter one, 2022, early March. And honestly, I don't need another trailer.

17:44
Warner Brothers has dubbed this the main trailer and I'm like, please let it be the only trailer that we get henceforth because I am totally sold. Like shut up and take my money. Moving on to our official first look at Black Adam. I was kind of disappointed that we didn't get a full trailer. It was really just like a heavily edited clip from early on in the film when we first get to see Black Adam emerge according to the Rock. That's how you described the clip.

18:09
I thought it was pretty badass and it did answer a few questions that we had about the movie, like does any of it take place in modern times, which it looks like the film does. Yeah, yeah. In the opening part of the clip, we get to see Adriana Tomas, who looks like she's some sort of archaeologist or something, find this like floating crown that's in this underground tomb it looks like. And she uncovers this inscription on the ground and reads the word Shazam, then all of a sudden, boom, lightning strikes from the sky and Black Adam emerges.

18:39
and just fries this guy literally into ashes. That was fucking crazy. Yeah, it was like a Mortal Kombat fatality. Absolutely, that's exactly what it felt like, like straight from Injustice. And then they shoot at him and he catches a bullet and he rises in the air. But he's taking bullets just like Batman does. That's a little weird, right? Dude, get over it. It's cool. But yeah, that's pretty much the entire clip. Before that, we actually got to see the actors who play the different members of the Justice Society.

19:06
talk about the film, talk about their characters a little bit. We got to see their emblems on their suits. I cannot wait to see Hawkman in full costume. Ugh, and Dr. Fate, Pierce Brosnan is going to be awesome as Kent Nelson. Oh yeah, definitely. I'm so jealous that you have a Bond actor in your films. And you also have Timothy Dalton in Doom Patrol, so what the hell? James Bond prefers DC, what are you gonna do? Hmm, you know, The Rock has been looking forward to doing this role for such a long time, and he even went as far as to say that he was born to play this role during the fandom.

19:36
He's the producer on this film, so you know he's gonna make it as cool as possible. Because this is probably gonna be his bread and butter going forward. Is it possible he's not managing his own expectations for this film? It's the fucking rock! Hell no! So we have Black Adam, we have the Batman. I would say my next favorite thing to come out of the fandom would be the behind-the-scenes clip we got of Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. And it looks like everyone involved, from Jason Momoa to James Wan to the producer Peter Safran.

20:04
are really excited about this story that they're gonna tell. It looks like from the concept art that they released, like it's gonna be as epic and as massive as the first one was. It just takes us so many new places all over the world. It's gonna be dope. The concept art that we got of this Lost Kingdom looks so interesting. I thought it was going to be like underwater, but this movie almost looks like a voyage to the center of the earth type tale.

20:28
Yeah, because you have these giant insects and then you have like these weird tentacle creatures and like jungle and stuff like that I'm sure a lot of it does take place underwater, but this setting is so fascinating Honestly, I think it's gonna be a Bermuda Triangle kind of thing because they've played up that angle in the comics before but yeah They also played like an ice element in the opening titles when they first were introducing this clip So I wonder if like the Lost Kingdom is some sort of ice realm Maybe I don't know but it looks like we're gonna see a lot of cool things

20:58
Yeah, there's even like this desert concept art with these strange creatures. There's going to be so many different set pieces within this film. It makes it seem super epic in scope. Yeah, yeah. I mean, Aquaman looks like it was really expensive, like it had a lot of money behind it. And this film looks the exact same way. They streamlined the costumes a little bit. You know, like we got to see the stealth suit a little bit better. Aquaman's new blue outfit that he's going to have for this film. But we also got to see like a streamlined silver helmet, black manta, which looks a little bit more classic.

21:27
but just as badass and iconic. Yeah, is his helmet a little bit smaller in this one? I couldn't tell if it was smaller. I don't think it was, but his costume overall is definitely less bulky. It's less of like a suit of armor and more like a sleek wetsuit kind of thing. We got to see a lot more of Patrick Wilson as Ocean Master in this clip. It almost looks like him and his brother, Aquaman team up for this film, which is pretty cool. Yeah, but I suspect some kind of betrayal down the line. I did notice that they used Amber Heard as like sparingly as possible.

21:57
Yeah, she only appeared in like two quick flashes of the behind the scenes footage. But it looks like she's wearing the same suit, which is fine because that suit was just perfection in the first film. This film is also coming out next year, just like the Batman, just like Black Adam. But in December, December 16th, also scheduled to come out next year is the Flash. That's coming out in November. And we got a teaser from that during the fan dome. I was expecting much more from this Flash panel, honestly. The brief look that we got of the movie.

22:27
really didn't get me excited like I thought it would because it didn't really provide anything new. Like we knew that Michael Keaton's Batman is gonna be in the movie. We knew what the new costume is gonna look like, although I will say it looks pretty impressive in live action. I think the main takeaway that I got from this flash first look was that Ezra Miller just seems like a really unlikable person. Yeah, it was kind of weird the way he introduced the clip during the fandom.

22:52
He was like, this is me on the set, this is what it looks like behind me. He was obviously in front of a green screen. The guy's just trying to be funny, but it's like, OK, OK, dude. As for the clip itself, I think it relied a little bit too heavily on our nostalgia for the Tim Burton Batman film, which, you know, comes in spades. Don't get me wrong. I was super excited by, you know, like the music and everything and seeing the cave. But it is a flash film, and I do want to see more of the flash and like.

23:19
Who's gonna be the villain and different things like that? I wanted a greater sense of the story. Considering that this isn't a trailer, it was really only the briefest of teasers, I guess I'm not surprised that we didn't get that, but I gotta say, this doesn't get me as excited as some of the other projects that we saw during the fandom. Because of how much we don't know about it yet, I guess. What are your thoughts on the costume? I'm not in love with the mask. The silhouette is all off, because it doesn't have the protruding ears. It's just like on his mask.

23:49
I don't love it. I much prefer Zack Snyder's Justice League version. Which version of Ezra Miller do you prefer? The long haired version without bangs or the short haired version with bangs? Uh, I mean I knew that there were going to be two different versions of Barry Allen maybe in this film. I thought the other one was going to be a villain but it looks like he's an ally. Which is really interesting. It almost seems like the curly haired version of Barry Allen is the version from

24:16
Michael Keaton's Batman's universe. So it's like I guess it works. There has to be some form of Barry Allen in that world So I guess Ezra Miller could just play himself twice. Why not? His hair was a little bit too close to Sasha Kaye's Supergirl's hair They all kind of look alike, but oh well. It was cool to hear Michael Keaton's voice I'll say that. The line about him like, you know saying that he could go anywhere anytime Why would he choose to save this universe? It kind of seems like Michael Keaton is retired and kind of given up on this world so

24:45
Maybe we'll get some Dark Knight Returns angles in there. I don't understand why we didn't get to see Michael Keaton, at least as Bruce Wayne. Or, you know, why didn't we get to see the car at the end? Like, we all know what it looks like. I actually thought the same thing. Right, exactly. There are just some weird creative choices in this teaser that we got that, again, not as excited as I am for other projects. I'm a little more excited for Shazam! Fury of the Gods, which we also got a behind the scenes clip for during the fandom. I really liked the first movie.

25:15
I thought they captured the tone perfectly. And it's really cool to see the same characters back on screen, you know, back in their cool costumes, their updated costumes, they look really cool. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, these costumes look much better than the first movie. But we had already seen this before. I was particularly interested in seeing what the bad guys look like with Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu. I think they look fantastic. I'm really excited for the Greek mythology angle that they're really taking this movie.

25:41
Yeah, I mean, not only did we get to see Lucy Liu and Helen Mirren as some of the villains, but we also got to see like some of their goons like Griffins and Cyclops and Harpies and Dragons and stuff like that. That's exciting. That's really cool. I can't wait to see like Olympus and you know, like the Library of Eternity, you know, the different locations that they were talking about during this behind the scenes snippet. What did you think of the fact that Jack Dylan Grazer looks like he's about 20 years old now? He's almost an adult himself. I mean, it's to be expected, right?

26:10
Look at it too and how much he grew from it one. He was one of my favorite characters from the first movie. So I'm just excited that I get to see him again as Freddy. The first film didn't make that much money at the box office, but I'm really hoping that this film catches on with audiences because the first one was so good. And you know, it's all the same filmmakers and everything like that. This film, just like Aquaman looks like, you know, quite a bit of money is being put into it. So I have high hopes. It's currently slated to premiere in 2023.

26:39
And who knows, maybe we'll get to see Black Adam meet Shazam in the end credits stinger or something like that. I really hope so. That would be awesome. That would be really cool. Speaking of The Rock real quick, though, we also got a teaser of the DC League of Super Pets film. DC's animated film that's coming out May of next year. The Rock is doing the voice of Crypto and Kevin Hart is doing the voice of Ace the Bat Hound.

27:03
It's such a good duo. I always love it when those two guys team up in movies like with Central Intelligence and of course the Jumanji films. I think they have great chemistry and I'm glad to see them working again together, especially on a project like this, which I'm actually looking forward to. I always enjoy like a good, you know, like Pixar movie or something like that. So I think it's great that they're making this movie to appeal to a younger demographic. Yeah, I agree. It's always great to make films for kids. You know, I love taking my daughters to see those, but I think I'm not quite ready to say that this is Pixar caliber.

27:32
considering the teaser was mostly just like a pee joke. And not even a good one. Now who was the pig, the squirrel, and the turtle? Was that What's It and Chip? Yeah, I don't know if they're actually gonna be called What's It and Chip in the film, but it is the Flash's turtle and Green Lantern's squirrel. The pig actually belongs to Wonder Woman, apparently. What? I thought Wonder Woman had a kangaroo. I guess they decided not to go that route.

27:57
for this film. Maybe the kangaroo is just a little bit too exotic, like you wouldn't normally see a kangaroo just hopping around the city. So it's a little bit more conspicuous, I guess, to have a kangaroo. That's weird. I was a little bit nervous about The Rock doing the voice of Crypto and Kevin Hart doing the voice of Ace. I kind of figured that those voices should be reversed, but at least this trailer did sell me on the voice work and that they did a great job as their characters.

28:22
Moving on to the Blue Beetle movie, we got to see the filmmakers talk a little bit about the character and how excited they are for the project, which honestly I wasn't expecting anything more. The film was only announced fairly recently, but we did get some pretty dope concept art. And honestly, if it's anything like this in the actual film, that's gonna be amazing. Yeah, the art is great. I really love the visual style that they seem to be incorporating for this film.

28:48
I really loved it when Sholo Mareduña, the guy who's playing Jaime Reyes in the movie, was kind of gushing about how it is the best superhero costume in all of superhero films. And he was like challenging everybody else to have like a better costume. I really liked his energy. And the way that the writer and director were talking about the movie, how he compares to someone like Peter Parker, whose first instinct was to keep his superhero life a secret from his family.

29:12
Whereas within the Latin family, good luck keeping a secret from them. So he really shares that secret with his family within this movie and within the comics and how that's unique among superhero alter egos. For sure. Yeah, that's gonna be, I think, a unique and exciting take on a superhero. As far as the concept art, one interesting thing about it is that we got to see cord industries on a building in the background behind the Blue Beetle character, which to me is really cool.

29:41
I wonder if that means Ted Kord will play a role in this film somehow. I think that would be really cool. Right, because Ted Kord was the second Blue Beetle in the comic books. We also got to see the star and filmmakers of HBO Max's Batgirl film talk about that film as well as tease some concept art just like Blue Beetle. Although this concept art wasn't as good. No, it was nothing. It was basically just a silhouette among a cityscape. We didn't get a good feel for what the costume looked like or anything.

30:09
I mean, it does look like she'll have like a yellow-ish cape, and she's definitely gonna have the red hair. Like they said that explicitly, that yes, it's Batgirl, she will have red hair. Interestingly, they did say that the character was going to be pretty brutal, so she definitely seems to be in line with, you know, how Ben Affleck played his character. Just, no nonsense. But that does seem a little bit out of character, no? Maybe. Maybe not if it's set in the same Snyderverse universe.

30:36
And the filmmakers did imply that Batman would be making an appearance in this movie. We don't know which Batman yet. I'm really, really hoping it's been Affleck. But we'll see. One project that I think is in really good hands is Peacemaker. Of course, James Gunn is doing that. I wasn't sure how involved he was with the show, but it sounds like he wrote every single episode, and he directed five out of the eight episodes of the show, which is really cool that he was that involved.

31:02
The cast looks like they're hilarious together. They have such good chemistry, you know, whether it's from a Zoom call or, you know, some of the behind the scenes footage that we saw. I'm honestly really looking forward to this more so than I had been prior to this panel. Well, I remember thinking after the Suicide Squad movie, if a Peacemaker television series would be successful because he was kind of a douche, you know, you kind of hated him within the Suicide Squad film. But seeing this and seeing the real comedic approach,

31:30
almost sitcom-esque approach that they're taking to the characters makes me pretty excited to see it. Yeah, it's almost like a workplace comedy or something like that, you know? Yeah. The official teaser that they put out just had me cracking up so much. Like, just his interactions with each one of these different castmates. I cannot get over how funny this show looks like it's going to be. Yeah, my favorite part was when Vigilante was like, you know, we're killers, but the difference about us is that we only kill bad guys.

31:59
Usually. Unless there's a mistake. Yeah, yeah, Vigilante looks like he's gonna be hilarious, which is a pretty interesting take on the character, but, you know, right up James Gunn's alley. I also love Eagly, how he's just like sticking his head out the car window and like giving hugs and stuff. The butt baby thing went on for a little long, but uh, it was still funny. I thought, yeah, I thought it was good. You know, I thought it was a butt baby until I was like 14. That explains a lot. The show actually comes out

32:25
pretty soon. January 13th, I think is its debut date on HBO Max. So look forward to that. I definitely am. What I'm less sure about is Catwoman Hunted, which we got our first trailer for during the DC fandom. It's an animated film, and it's very much like an anime kind of style. But I couldn't quite get what tone they were trying to capture in this first trailer. So much like totally Ocean's 11. It's Ocean's 11 meets anime meets superheroes.

32:55
I'm actually really excited for this. I really like the funky kind of vibe that they were giving off for it. I think it'll be a lot of fun. I mean, it's definitely a heist film, which is what a Catwoman film should be, but it almost seemed like a parody of the character as well. You know, there's a little bit of innuendo and quite a number of cat puns. Yeah, but they kind of address that within the trailer itself where they're like, don't you get tired of the cat stick? So it's pretty self-aware, I think. Again, I think it's a parody, which I guess could work, but it's not really anything I think most fans were asking for.

33:24
No, I think if I am watching a Catwoman centric movie, I want it to be a fun heist movie. That's exactly what this looks like. I think as long as it's not too over the top, I think it'll be fine. We'll see. This film drops February 8th, 2022. So it's coming up. But that was like all of the major news, I would say, to come out of the fandom. What did you think of the fandom overall? Did you watch it? Watch the fandom? What? Why would I watch the fandom? You suck. I watched the fandom.

33:52
I do wish they would have substituted some of the CW show stuff for upcoming announcements. There wasn't really anything new that was announced during this fandom. And some of the other projects that we have heard about weren't talked about at all, such as Green Lantern Corps, any of the JJ Abrams Justice League dark stuff. Nothing about Michael B. Jordan's Superman movie. I think this fandom could have been better, if I'm being honest. We kind of pretty much knew everything we were going to get.

34:20
Hopefully if they do this again next year, and I'm really hoping that they do, we'll get more movie announcements. But all in all there was a lot of cool things to come out from the fandom and we want to know what your favorite thing was. That's our question of the week.

34:38
Tell us what your favorite news to come out of the DC fandom was, and why. Record your answer at dynamicduel.com by clicking on the red microphone button in the bottom right hand corner, which will prompt you to leave us a voicemail. Your message can be up to 30 seconds long, and don't forget to leave your name in case we include you on the podcast. We'll pick our favorite answer and draw that person a Dynamic Duel No Prize that we'll post to social media. Be sure to answer before October 23rd.

35:07
Bruce Wayne may appear to be a wealthy playboy, but beneath his facade his true identity is that of the Batman, waging an endless war against crime. Join the Caped Crusader in Batman, the Audio Adventures, the first scripted audio original featuring Batman and his villainous rogues gallery in a world premiere story of life and death in Gotham City, debuting exclusively on HBO Max. Starring Jeffrey Wright as Batman and a who's who of incredible Saturday Night Live alums,

35:36
This rollicking adventure, told across 10 episodes, is written and directed by Emmy winner Dennis McNicholas, includes devilishly delightful original music by Doug Bossie, and performances by Rosario Dawson, John Legrizamo, Chris Parnell, Melissa Villaseñor, Seth Meyers, Jason Sudeikis, Brooke Shields, Fred Armisen, and many, many more. Go to HBOmax.com slash Batman Audio Adventures for more, and stream Batman the Audio Adventures.

36:06
Only on HBO Max.

36:10
Big thanks to HBO Max for sponsoring this episode, but let's go ahead and get into our main event now where we review the Disney Plus animated series, What If.

36:34
Alright so What If is an animated series on Disney Plus that was directed by Brian Andrews, written and created by A.C. Bradley, and starring many familiar names and voices from the live action Marvel Cinematic Universe. It explores the newly created multiverse that we saw manifest in the Loki television show with a series of anthological tales told from the perspective of the Watcher, a cosmic entity who oversees the events happening in each episode.

37:01
Each story is set up with a question of what if. This reminds us of a single change in the primary MCU continuity and unfolds the universal effects from that change. The show is reportedly already coming back for a second season next year which is a good thing in my mind because no matter how I feel about the execution of this first season, the concept of the show is worthwhile. Before we get into our thoughts any further though we want to let you guys know that this will be a spoiler review as all of our reviews are.

37:31
So if you haven't seen What If yet, and you don't wanna know anything about the show, go ahead and pause this podcast now and revisit it when you do check it out. I think if you are a diehard MCU fan who is fascinated by the new Marvel multiverse, and you want a taste of it before the new Spider-Man No Way Home and the Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness films hit theaters, then check it out for sure. You'll at least find some of the episodes good, if not interesting.

37:57
And that's pretty much how I felt about this season as a whole, hit or miss. Some episodes were great, some episodes I just couldn't get into. And that is somewhat of a disappointment considering how psyched I was for this series based on the trailers that were released leading up to its debut. I was the opposite. I was not psyched for this at all. I really don't care about like Marvel, Elseworld, Tales, alternate universes. What did save this for me?

38:26
Possibly is the fact that turned out in the end to be a little bit less Anthological than I thought it was going to be you know some of the characters from some of the previous episodes returned And that was kind of cool to see them all interact Yeah And there's also a rumor that some of these characters in these shorts may be showing up in live action in the multiverse of madness Movie so that'll be pretty cool if that does happen and it'll be totally worth watching this series Before I started watching the show I was so pumped because I was expecting this beautifully animated

38:56
high concept cerebral show about the nature of fate and choice and causality. And I think that's what the series tried to be, but it ended up as a mostly well animated, semi thought provoking affair that didn't quite live up to the standards set by the MCU's live action offerings. So yeah, that's probably a case of me not checking my expectations and I paid the price, but I probably should have known better because a lot of the what-if comic books are hit or miss also.

39:26
You know, there are some what if comics that are just freaking epic and mind blowing and so damn good. Like what if Captain America were revived today? Or what if Magneto ruled all mutants? Stories like that. They're not only good, they're kind of essential reading if you're into those characters. But you know, there are a lot of duds out there too. Obviously, that's kind of the nature of an anthology. But good or bad tales aside, and the comics and the show has both, the potential.

39:54
that exists within the what-if concept is worth more than any single story. The potential to be introspective and groundbreaking and thought-provoking is baked right in. You can tell some fucking awesome stories. The concept itself is the show's greatest asset. But it's also its greatest hindrance. Yeah, you know, oftentimes I'll complain about a Marvel movie saying, like, oh, you know, there's a barrier to entry. You have to do homework and see these other films before you can really appreciate this

40:24
and that makes it inferior. One of the reasons I praised Shang-Chi was that it was almost standalone. These stories are not set in the primary continuity of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It potentially may not be leading up to some bigger story that's happening within that universe, but it may also be. So I was kind of torn as to how interested I should be in the show overall. If you're saying that some of these characters,

40:53
are going to make live action appearances, that's cool, then I'm really glad I watched it. If they're not, then like, I really didn't care too much for it, honestly. Well, I mean, it's just a rumor. We don't know what's gonna happen in Multiverse of Madness yet. But you raise an interesting point about like your interest in the show. The main problem I have with this series is that the what if concept inherently doesn't require much investment on behalf of the audience because any single story anthological exploration outside of the primary universe

41:22
is just a sandbox that the writers can let thrive or destroy. It technically doesn't affect anything that matters. We don't have to care about it essentially. And because we don't have to be invested, sometimes it's hard to be. So when I was digging the show, it was good. But when I wasn't digging the show, it just felt pointless. Well, I mean, as far as an investment goes from the audience, they had to have at least have seen the film that the anthological show riffs on, you know?

41:52
The Doctor Strange episode would not make sense so much if you haven't seen the Doctor Strange film. Same thing for Black Panther or Guardians of the Galaxy or Captain America, the first Avenger. I think if you've seen those movies, this show becomes more interesting, but not everyone has. So I think this is really a show for the Marvel diehards, of which I'm not. And honestly, even if you are a Marvel diehard, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're gonna be invested in the particular tales that this show has to tell.

42:19
Not helping matters, I think, was that I felt largely detached from the character animation here. I personally don't connect with animation as I do with live action. Which was not to knock the animation, because overall I think the show is a win visually. Even though the characters basic movements could be a little stiff, and their faces were soulless abominations. I think the action was tremendous. And the background plates were just breathtaking, and the colors... Oh man, the colors were absolutely gorgeous.

42:49
I like how each episode had its own palette to complement the setting and story. Yeah, I mean, it's not surprising that the animation was great. It's Disney. You know, they are the best when it comes to animation. So yeah, I figured it would be good. And honestly, it was better than I thought it was going to be.

43:05
The cell shading took a little bit to get used to. It's why I think they opened up with the Captain Carter story because it had sort of this like Max Fleischer animation old school feel to it where you could more easily accept the cell shading. And while some scenes, particularly dialogue heavy scenes kind of seems like they were pulled out of like a video game cut scene. I think the action is where the show really shined. Yeah, the dialogue scenes seemed like very cheap but I think they spared no expense when it came to the action, you're right.

43:35
Overall, this series did get me thinking about the nature of alternate universe stories, their purpose, and what makes them good. So one of the purposes of an alternate universe tale is to provide a new perspective on the primary universe in a story not bound by the confines of canon. You learn how changes in continuity affect or don't affect the characters we know and love and we see how large their role really is in their greater universe.

44:02
These type of tales are reimaginings, essentially, like 1602 for Marvel or The Dark Knight Returns for DC. Another purpose of alternate universe tales is to experiment with the primary universe by telling a story seemingly set within that continuity but involving events that could not or should not happen within that world. Something like Marvel Zombies or Injustice.

44:25
What an alternate universe story should not be is essentially a retelling of a previous story with some minor elements changed. And I think that was a mistake that this show made occasionally. The episodes that departed heavily from the MCU were more interesting to me than those that essentially served to tell the same story with a twist. Because the episodes that did that just told essentially a less interesting tale than the original.

44:54
were more engaging. I felt the same way. Absolutely. You know, I love Elseworld Tales. I love these alternate reality stories. My favorite DC Comics storyline is an Elseworld Tale, Kingdom Come, and that definitely isn't retreading anything new. It's charting new territory. You know, it's asking like, what if this happened in the future? And that's a really cool notion to me. I think one of the reasons, you know, in the comics, the New 52 failed was because a lot of fans didn't want to see like slightly altered.

45:23
takes of storylines that they were already familiar with. Yeah, no, yeah, that's a great example for sure. And as we go down this episode breakdown, we're definitely gonna be able to point out which of these stories lacked originality and which ones were more compelling. So let's go ahead and do that. The first episode was called, What If Captain Carter Were the First Avenger? It had Jeffrey Wright as the watcher, who I freaking loved in this entire series. I think Jeffrey Wright has such a commanding voice full of presence.

45:53
You believe that the dude is a cosmic entity, you know, and you know, he's doing the voice for Batman in the audio adventures on HBO Max. Yeah. And he's playing commissioner Gordon in the Batman. Yeah. The guy is just fantastic. I can't get enough Jeffrey Wright. He needs to be in every single project. This first episode also had Haley Atwell as Captain Carter. Chris Evans was not in this. He was played by a guy named Josh Keaton who I thought did a bang up job.

46:19
Ross Markand who played the Red Skull in the Endgame movie relent his voice to the character here and Sebastian Stan played Bucky Barnes in the worst voice performance ever given ever. The plot of the episode is, during World War II, a Hydra spy shoots and injures Steve Rogers before he can undergo project rebirth. SSR agent Peggy Carter kills the spy and steps in to receive the serum instead. Howard Stark equips her with a uniform and shield and she becomes Captain Carter.

46:49
She steals the Tesseract from Hydra and Stark uses it to build the Hydra Stomper Armor, which Steve Rogers pilots. The armor gets captured and Red Skull uses the Tesseract to summon an interdimensional monster. Captain Carter and her allies rescue Steve and she pushes the creature back into the other dimension. 70 years later, she returns, having not aged a day. Now I think right off the get go, we realize that the entire premise for the episode is not necessarily just set up.

47:18
by the question of the episode. You know, this episode is titled, What If Captain Carter Were the First Avenger? The Watcher states that the change in this universe was that Peggy Carter decided to stay on the testing room floor, but really you see a whole bunch of different circumstances that dictate the flow of this story, such as, you know, the Hydra agent in the MCU movie was sent to observe the experiment to see if it was a success and then capture the Super Soldier Serum.

47:43
In this episode, he was sent to prevent the test from ever taking place. So little things like that. I did like this episode. This was actually one of my maybe top three episodes of the whole series. Yeah, I really like how it kind of took similar themes from the Agent Carter television series, live action, that got two seasons. The feminist themes of like the guy is not wanting to let the girls out in the field and like she goes out there and she just absolutely kicks ass. If anything,

48:12
It seemed like she kicked more ass than Captain America did, considering that she actually like acquired the Tesseract while it was in transition. That's what I was thinking. Yeah. She was like a better version of Captain America than Steve Rogers almost. She was definitely more lethal. She was straight up like killing dudes with that shield. How hard she was hitting them. I thought it was pretty crazy. But I thought it was really clever how the story used the Tesseract as kind of like an early arc reactor.

48:41
the thing that powered the hydra stopper armor and how Steve Rogers was the one to pilot that suit. That was cool. It's actually pretty, I think, interesting to have Steve Rogers out in the field with Peggy. He was like her iron giant. It reminded me kind of like, you know, like Stargirl and Stripesy in a way. Yeah, definitely. That scene where they're doing the aerial combat with the Nazi fighter planes was really badass. I could watch that all day. That was amazing.

49:08
I think the story did lose a little bit in the third act right after Steve gets captured by Hydra after the train explosion and they go to rescue him in that Nazi castle. It was interesting how Red Skull chose to use the Tesseract as a portal as opposed to a weapons energy source like he did in the live action film. Right. Yeah, that definitely was another detour that they took from the actual film.

49:31
I did think that the monster that he summoned was pretty cool though. Seeing Captain Carter with his sword and shield fight this like mythological Cthulhu type monster, reminded me a lot of like Wonder Woman actually. Yeah. I thought that the creature was actually going to be Shuma Gorath and that it was going to tie into a Dr. Strange story down the line, but I think it was just this tentacle beast. Yeah. You can't do Shuma Gorath now that you know, DC did Starro. Sorry. Completely different character, but.

49:59
I did think that it was entirely ridiculous that this huge ass tentacle monster was able to be essentially just pushed back through the portal with her little shield. You know? That was so dumb. She sold it, I thought. Did she? Okay. Me, I was like, what's this bullshit? Like it just got done freaking killing the red skull and it was like destroying this entire castle and she just kind of like walked it right back in. That's fair. Overall, I mean, I did-

50:27
like this episode I rated a three out of five stars mainly because I felt like I'd already seen most of the story especially if you've seen Agent Carter I think a lot of the themes that this episode tried to play up were done better within that series. See I haven't seen that series I thought this was one of the more original episodes actually so I'd like to I'd probably give it like a three and a half four. The next episode episode two was called What if T'Challa Became a Star Lord? This episode.

50:54
actually had Chadwick Boseman in one of his last performances as the character, he played Star-Lord T'Challa. It was really nice hearing him in this role again. The episode also starred Michael Rooker as Yondu, Josh Brolin as Thanos, Benicio del Toro as the Collector, Karen Gillan as Nebula, and Jimon Honsu as Korath the Pursuer. In the story, the Ravagers mistakenly kidnap T'Challa as a child instead of Peter Quill.

51:21
He grows up to be a famous galactic hero known as Star-Lord who steals from the rich and gives to the needy. He plots with Nebula to steal a magic bean-like artifact called the Embers of Genesis from the Collector. While searching for it, T'Challa discovers a Wakandan spacecraft and learns his home was not destroyed like Yondu told him. He fights the Collector for the artifact and wins with his allies help. He forgives Yondu for lying to him and reunites with his family back on Earth.

51:50
This episode I actually didn't love too much. It was actually my least favorite episode. It was also one of my least favorite episodes. Partly because I think T'Challa is much cooler as Black Panther and Peter Cool is much cooler as Star-Lord. So to see a less cool version of Star-Lord was not interesting. I think the way they played up his character, especially when it involved Korath and how he like...

52:12
Idolized Star-Lord and everything like that. I thought it got a little bit ham-fisted, you know Absolutely T'Challa is out there essentially saving the universe being such an influence over the galaxy Even convincing someone like Thanos to not be Thanos. That was fucking weird a stretch I'll say you know if he could convince Thanos to give up his agenda Like why didn't he think to do that during Avengers Endgame? Like he could just talk him out of it

52:39
I guess that doesn't make sense because they were in the middle of a battle. But like if you could convince the mad Titan to abandon his goal, then we should have saw that type of diplomatic reasoning in Black Panther with Killmonger. Oh, totally. That's like convincing dark side to give up his search for the anti-life equation. Exactly. No, that's the character. It's bullshit. Yeah. I think that was the moment where I was like, fuck this episode. And like the whole premise of this.

53:07
episode was supposed to be like nature versus nurture. Like, are you going to be the same person, even if you grow up in a different environment? And I think this episode tried to show that, yeah, T'Challa has such a strength of character that he remained the same honorable person despite the fact that he was captured by a bunch of thieves. And while that sentiment is nice, the execution was crap. Like he completely transformed what the Ravagers were all about. He had too much influence.

53:35
on everyone from Nebula to Korath that I think just did not seem realistic. It made so many characters less interesting. Like I mean, I think things got a little bit better when I thought Nebula had betrayed him. But then that turned out to all be like a ruse as well and I was like ugh. It was cool to see Howard the Duck. I think Seth Green did his voice, right? Yeah, he did. Howard the Duck showed up in a few episodes here. That was fantastic.

54:00
The Embers of Genesis was an interesting plot point that I feel like would absolutely destroy any planet that they tried to use it on. I did think it was touching when T'Challa returned home and had that nice celebration with his family. Although there was kind of like a bittersweet ending when we see Peter Quill working at Dairy Queen and then he's approached by his father Ego who uses him to essentially take over the universe and fulfill his plot from Guardians of the Galaxy volume 2. Overall though I think I give this episode a 2.5 out of 5.

54:28
It was definitely my least favorite just because the plausibility of it all. Yeah, I think that's a fair rating. Two and a half, two stars. That's probably my rating as well. Episode three was titled, What If the World Lost Its Mightiest Heroes? It starred Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, Mark Ruffalo as Hulk, Tom Hiddleston as Loki. Lake Bell, I thought gave a pretty convincing Black Widow performance. I think she mostly hit the right notes to mimic Scarlett Johansson.

54:57
I didn't realize that was like Belle. Yeah, I thought she did a really good job. She's just a really talented voice actress in general. Yeah, she also plays Poison Ivy in the Harley Quinn animated series. That's right, yep. Robert Downey Jr. wasn't here. It was a guy named Mick Wingert who played Iron Man. And of course, Michael Douglas returned as Hank Pym. The story goes that during the time around Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk and Thor, the original Avengers Initiative candidates are mysteriously killed, including Iron Man, Thor, Hawkeye, and Hulk.

55:26
Black Widow investigates and tells Fury their murders are related to Hope before getting killed herself. Loki arrives on Earth to avenge Thor, but Fury bargains with him to bring the killer to justice. He deduces its Hank Pym as Yellowjacket, who is upset that his daughter Hope died under S.H.I.E.L.D.'s watch. Hank tries to kill Nick Fury, but Loki stops him and later vows to conquer Earth. Fury finds new Avengers recruits in Captain America and Captain Marvel.

55:54
I really liked this one. What? It was pretty good. This was like my second to least favorite episode of the whole season. Really? This one was really dumb, I thought, actually. The way like that twist ending, which honestly was spoiled for me, because I tend to watch things with subtitles. So when Black Widow was talking about how it's all about hope, hope was capitalized. Oh no. So I realized that she was talking about Hope Van Dyne, right? And I was like, oh, this is stupid.

56:23
I really liked revisiting some of the scenes from those earlier MCU movies, especially seeing Mark Ruffalo in the scene from the Incredible Hulk movie when he's escaping that university and Thunderbolt Ross' troops are closing in on him. It was pretty novel, I think, to see that actor in that scene. And like the way he died, like exploding, I thought it was pretty crazy. I was like, what the hell is going on? Like how Hawkeye ended up killing Thor, you know, and then he died himself while in custody. I thought it was actually a-

56:52
pretty solid mystery. And when they finally revealed that it was Yellowjacket, Hank Pym turned evil, I thought it was a pretty true homage to his darker turns within the comic books. Didn't you think that the whole twist that Hope died in a scene that we never saw in a character that had never been mentioned prior in the episode was a cheap twist though? Maybe, but I don't think it was cheap if you know Hank Pym's history in the comics.

57:19
At face value, yeah, you're probably right. Like shouldn't he have been upset about like Janet maybe? Why? Because she was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who died. You know, we didn't see or hear about Hope dying prior, so we would never have suspected that. That's true. Yeah, but then I guess you would have had the clever wordplay about how it's about Hope. Why couldn't Black Widow have just said, it's fucking Hank Pym? Like why even have wordplay? So dumb. I don't know. I liked it. I liked it.

57:45
I especially like how at the end we get to see like joining of a new Avengers team involving Captain America and Captain Marvel. But that also doesn't make sense too because Captain America was the first Avenger. So why would he be like on a backup list of the Avengers? Because he wasn't discovered in the ice until after the events of Iron Man 2, Incredible Hulk and Thor. Oh, that's true. Okay, nevermind. I actually rate this episode a four out of five. I would give this episode like a 1.5 or two out of five. Geez. It sucked.

58:15
Episode 4 was called What If Dr. Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands. It stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Dr. Strange, Rachel McAdams as Christine Palmer, Benedict Wong as Wong, and Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One. After losing his girlfriend Christine Palmer in a car crash, Dr. Stephen Strange learns the mystic arts and uses the Time Stone to try and save her. The Ancient One instructs him that her death is an absolute point in time that cannot be reversed.

58:43
and she splits Doctor Strange into two versions of himself so that the good version may one day stop the misguided version. The misguided version becomes all powerful by absorbing mystical beings, eventually absorbing his counterpart and transforming into the monstrous Doctor Strange Supreme. He resurrects Christine Palmer, but the temporal paradox destroys reality and leaves Doctor Strange Supreme as the sole survivor of an empty universe. I loved this episode.

59:12
I think it's my favorite episode. Yeah, I would say it's my favorite episode as well. I mean, I think the episode should have been titled, what if Dr. Strange drove Christine Palmer to his award ceremony, but losing his heart instead of his hands just sounds better. I mean, that is definitely a huge alteration from the movie and that she was in the car with him, but other than that, I thought it was pretty good. I think Rachel McAdams totally forgot who her character.

59:37
was in this performance because she was like so flirtatious and like so sexy voiced. Whereas Christine Palmer in the movie was not very flirtatious. She was very like straightforward and caring and everything, but definitely not like sexified. Yeah, did they even have like a romantic relationship in the movie? I mean, there were exes, so it was slight. One of the things I really liked about this episode was just seeing the ancient one and Dr. Strange interact again, but

01:00:04
Also the use of magic, like the way Dr. Strange Supreme became all powerful, how he kind of like started with some of the weaker mystical beings and then slowly worked his way up the totem pole. I thought that was pretty fascinating. I also liked when Wong and the good Dr. Strange were doing their spell writing, the way that manifested with like these mystical text characters in the air and how they were just kind of pulling them out and like working them that way. Yeah, that was cool.

01:00:31
I hope we see that kind of magical visual language utilized within the live action films because I think that'd be cool to see. And it was so tragic, the ending, how everything just kind of like turned black and like floated away. And like he became like the sole survivor in this universe just trapped all alone for all eternity. And how he like pleaded with the watcher and the watcher was like, no dice. You did this to yourself, bro.

01:00:55
It was cool to see the Watcher interact with the Dark Doctor Strange. I thought actually that was a really cool aspect of this episode. The fact that the Watcher broke the fourth wall in a way. Yeah, I love every time he broke the fourth wall. I loved every time that we saw him gazing upon the events from the sky in the background. He shows up quite frequently in these stories. Yeah, it was always kind of a treat to see him just in the sky in the background. I actually liked that. I was like, oh, it's Wat 2. That's cool.

01:01:22
Overall, this episode I think was the best. I give it four and a half stars out of five. Yeah, I'd give it the same rating. The fifth episode was called, What If Zombies? And it stars Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk, Chadwick Boseman as Black Panther, Paul Bettany as Vision, Sebastian Stan as Winter Soldier, Evangeline Lilly as Wasp, Paul Rudd as Ant-Man, Jon Favreau as Happy Hogan, Danai Gurira as Okoye, Emily Van Camp as Sharon Carter, David Smolchin as Kurt, and Hudson Thames as Spider-Man. They apparently, they couldn't get Tom Holland.

01:01:51
But in the story, Hank Pym brings back a zombie virus from the Quantum Realm while trying to rescue his wife Janet, causing a zombie apocalypse. With most of Earth's heroes as the Walking Dead, a small band of survivors try and find a potential cure at Camp Lehi. They find Vision, who can cure the virus using the Mind Stone, but not the Scarlet Witch, who is too powerful. He rips out his Mind Stone in atonement for feeding victims to the Scarlet Witch and gives it to the Black Panther, Spider-Man, and Ant-Man.

01:02:20
who head to Wakanda to broadcast the stone's frequency around the world. However, a zombified Thanos is already waiting for them there. This was, I think, a really fun episode in that it played almost exactly like how a zombie movie would, albeit with Marvel superheroes that we know and love from other movies. Yeah, that was cool. Yeah, I love how Peter was like, haven't you guys ever seen a horror film? When they were talking about splitting up and stuff like that. Yeah, it was good. It was almost like meta in a way. Yeah.

01:02:49
Most zombie movies involve, you know, a small group of people just trying to survive and slowly but surely most, if not all of them get picked off by the zombie hoard. Most zombie movies don't have a great ending and the same goes for this one. I like how they started out with like a large group and that they each started dying like happy Hogan on the train and then Bucky when he discovers the Scarlet witch. Scarlet witch was so freaking scary. Like when she blasts open that door and you just see her silhouette.

01:03:17
and how she's like hunched over the way they animated her movements kind of reminded me of the chick from the ring. And I was like, oh, shit, Baba Yaga. It was a really dark turn. Like this is probably some of the darkest shit that Disney has ever done when like you have the reveal that the vision has been feeding people to Wanda. Yeah, he fed Wanda like Black Panther's leg, I think. Yeah. Fucking crazy.

01:03:41
And it was so weird. Like, I think he was rationalizing it by saying that he was preventing her chaos from unleashing upon the earth. But he could have easily destroyed her. And they ask him why he didn't. And like, at that point, he realizes how much he fucked up because he doesn't have a good reason for why he didn't just kill her. You know, obviously, it's because he loves her, but it wasn't worth the lives of all those innocent people, you know? Right. Love is not always logical. And he's supposed to be this logical creature. When he realizes that.

01:04:09
His decision making wasn't based in logic like he claimed it was. And he was like, yeah, just take my Mind Stone. Ripped my brain out. That's pretty hardcore. As hardcore as I wanted a Marvel zombie story to be. So I was really glad to see this one. I'm not sure if the whole Thanos lying in wait and what kind of thing made sense. No, it didn't. It was what it was. They needed some kind of ending like that. Yeah, they were taking the Mind Stone right to him. So what's worse than Thanos? Zombie Thanos with the Infinity Gauntlet.

01:04:38
But overall I do think that this was a fun episode, I gave it 4 stars out of 5. It was pretty much exactly what I wanted it to be. I didn't think I liked this episode, but just talking about it made me realize that yeah this was a good episode, one of the better ones I think. I'll give this like 4 stars. Episode 6 was called What If Killmonger Rescued Tony Stark? It stars Michael B. Jordan as Killmonger, Jon Favreau as Happy Hogan, Chadwick Boseman as Black Panther, Angela Bassett as Ramonda, Danai Gurira as Okoye, Andy Serkis as Klawe,

01:05:06
Don Cheadle as War Machine, Paul Bettany as Jarvis, and Mick Winger again as Tony Stark. In it, Killmonger saves Tony Stark from being taken by the Ten Rings and reveals Obadiah Stane's involvement in the abduction plot. Tony takes Killmonger in as a confidant and helps him build a humanoid combat drone out of vibranium. Killmonger manipulates Tony Stark into arranging a vibranium purchase by War Machine from Ulysses Claw. Killmonger kills War Machine and Black Panther who shows up to stop the deal.

01:05:35
He also kills Stark, who confronts him regarding his manipulation, making it all look like a Wakandan attack. Killmonger travels to Wakanda and helps them fend off the US retaliation, gaining their trust and becoming the new Black Panther. Shuri visits Pepper Potts, who both distrust Killmonger and propose an alliance to stop him. Now this episode was called What If Killmonger Rescued Tony Stark, but what it should have been called was What If Killmonger...

01:06:02
went about his plan from the Black Panther movie in a more convoluted and more boring way. That's what I was gonna say. I was like, this whole thing was so convoluted, way more convoluted than it needed to be. He was almost like a double agent against himself. It was weird. It was strange, especially the way it ended. I kind of figured that maybe he was going to fulfill his goal and then realize the evilness of his actions or something, learn some kind of profound lesson through it all about maybe family or something like that.

01:06:32
He never got his comeuppance. It ended on a cliffhanger, which I didn't know why at the time. We learned later that, you know, he kind of needs to remain the bad guy. But as a whole, this episode just didn't work. Well, yeah, like Killmonger when the Black Panther movie came out, he was such like a fan favorite character. Like people really liked Michael B. Jordan as the character. So I'm with you. I also thought that he was going to have like some kind of turn in the story where he became a good guy, you know, when the episode ended on that really weird cliffhanger.

01:07:02
I was also like, what the fuck was this episode? It was not a good episode. Yeah, I give it two and a half stars out of five. I would give it like two stars, maybe one and a half. The next episode, episode seven, was called What If Thor Were an Only Child? It stars Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Natalie Portman as Jane Foster, Tom Hiddleston as Loki, Kat Dennings as Darcy Lewis, Jeff Goldblum as the Grandmaster, Taika Waititi as Korg, Jamie Alexander as Sif.

01:07:30
and Alexandra Daniels as Captain Marvel. Brie Larson didn't contribute to this one. The story goes, when Odin neglects to adopt Loki as his own after the war with the Frost Giants, Thor grows up an only child, craving attention through hard partying. When his father enters the Odin's sleep, Thor travels to Earth to throw a party, his arrival detected by Jane Foster. Thor and Jane fall in love, though the party's craziness threatens the planet.

01:07:59
and she and Thor fight. Jane reaches out to Friggo with Heimdall's help, and Thor scrambles to clean up the planet before his mother arrives. They're successful, though as Thor asks Jane out, they're interrupted by a variant of Ultron invading the universe and wielding the Infinity Stones. This episode was fucking dumb. Like, it was my least favorite episode. Really? Yes. I didn't think it was too bad. I thought it was funny. The whole thing was just played for laughs. They, like, traded every character.

01:08:28
as a joke from Loki to Jane to Frigga. Well, this was like the comedy episode. It was kind of like a riff on party movies, you know, where like the teen throws the big party and then has to clean up before the parents get home. Who the hell cares? Like, why was that one of the story ideas that came up in the writer's room? Like, you know what would be funny? If like Thor was like a frat bro. It's like, ugh. Yeah, I mean, there's not too much substance here. I think there is a lot of charm.

01:08:55
And I do think that the fight between Thor and Captain Marvel was pretty epic. I thought that was done really well. But yeah, I mean, there was not really a huge plot, largely a vehicle, I think, for Chris Hemsworth to be funny. Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly what it was. And of all the different episodes that we got here, this was the one I was least interested in, like learning the whole what if story behind. It was so pointless. Well, what did you think about Thor and Loki's relationship in this? How despite the fact that they weren't brothers, they still called each other brothers.

01:09:25
Brothers from another mother? Yeah. Loki is more interesting as Thor's brother, not as a frost giant. Not as his bro? I think so. What did you think when you saw Infinity Stone Ultron come through at the end? I thought, oh they found a way to tie all these stories together. Because I knew that the next story was going to be, you know, what if Ultron won? Overall I give episode 7, What if Thor Were an Only Child, a 3.5 out of 10. What? This one gets like a 0.5 for me. This was pointless.

01:09:54
It would get a point five if it was drawn in crayon and was spoken in gibberish. Fine. A one. Episode eight was called What If Ultron Won? It stars Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, Lake Bell as Black Widow, Toby Jones as Arnim Zola and Ross Markand as Ultron. I don't think Ross did as good of an impression of James Spader as he does of Hugo Weaving as Red Skull. To me, Ultron's voice took me out of this a little bit. I thought he did a decent impression.

01:10:22
In the story, Ultron assumes his Vision form and defeats the Avengers, unleashing a nuclear holocaust on the planet. He kills Thanos upon his arrival and acquires the other Infinity Stones. Which was dumb! Oh man, we'll talk all about that. Alright. With the stones, Ultron wipes out nearly all life in the universe, except for Hawkeye and Black Widow who plot to defeat him using Arnim Zola's analog artificial intelligence. They arm one of Hawkeye's arrows with their upload device,

01:10:50
But Ultron evades defeat by leaving his universe after becoming aware of the Watcher's presence. He attacks the Watcher and begins destroying other realities. The Watcher approaches Doctor Strange Supreme and asks for his help in forming a team to stop Ultron. So let's talk about Ultron killing Thanos so easily. The vision from Infinity War has really got to be kicking himself. If he knew that's all he had to do to defeat Thanos when he arrived in Wakanda, then the Avengers would have won easily.

01:11:20
Tony would have even had to die. Like Tony's death is on Vision. Exactly. You know, I bet you even Scarlet Witch would have been able to do that. Like in Vision and Scarlet Witch together, like when Thanos was approaching, they should have just been slicing him in half. They really turned Thanos into a bitch in these episodes. That's what I'm saying. That should have been an epic battle, but maybe they were too cheap. Maybe they ran out of time to animate that. They just needed to get the story moving, I guess.

01:11:46
but my jaw like physically dropped when Ultron killed Thanos and I was just like, what the fuck? Okay. But I did like the rest of the episode. I especially liked how they handled Hawkeye here. He was such a fucking badass. Like they need to do more of that shit within the live action stuff. Oh right. With Jeremy Renner. The fact that he was like firing three arrows at a time and hitting his marks, all the different trick arrows that he had. He seems like such a powerhouse, which is what Hawkeye is. Anyone who hates Hawkeye.

01:12:16
doesn't realize that he could go up against freaking anybody with his trick arrows. He has an arrow for every occasion. Let's hope we see some of this in the Hawkeye TV show. Yes, we need to see that. We need to see him sniping people without even being seen, doing some serious damage with some like explosive arrows or some shit. And just like being this real wild card that can hit you no matter what. He was definitely the coolest he's ever been in the MCU in this episode. Yeah. And I appreciated that.

01:12:43
And I also thought that their plan to defeat Ultron, given that he's, you know, a digital artificial intelligence was pretty clever. Yeah, he's all powerful, but unlike Thanos, he's not an actual organic being, meaning that no matter how powerful he gets, he's still susceptible to the failings of all technology. Did it make sense though that they could upload, you know, an analog AI to a USB drive? Yeah. Oh, okay. It must've been some kind of like magnetic tape type upload.

01:13:12
device thing or something. I don't know. I was just wondering like what made Arnim Zola so much more powerful than Ultron? I wouldn't say he was a more powerful form of technology, but just as powerful of a mind, which I think in its analog form would have taken Ultron by surprise. Especially considering that it seemed Ultron didn't really know how to use the stones to their full extent, as we'll discuss in the next episode. Overall, I give What If Ultron Won four stars out of five, mainly because...

01:13:40
I like seeing Hawkeye in action. I really thought the fight between Ultron and the Watcher was cool. Yeah, I would agree. Four stars make sense. The last episode, episode nine, was called What If the Watcher Broke His Oath? It stars Hailey Atwell as Captain Carter, Lake Bell as Black Widow, Chadwick Boseman as Star-Lord, Michael B. Jordan as Killmonger, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange Supreme, and Cynthia McWilliams as Gamora.

01:14:05
Gamora was a surprise in this episode. I thought I had actually skipped an episode. Same. But what really happened was that this season was supposed to be 10 episodes. They couldn't finish the 10th one in time due to COVID. So what they're gonna do is they're gonna put the episode where Gamora defeats Thanos into season two. In this episode, the Watcher and Dr. Strange Supreme recruit Captain Carter, Star-Lord, Killmonger, Party Thor, and Gamora into a guardians of the multiverse team to stop Ultron.

01:14:34
They plan to use Gamora's Infinity Stone Crusher device to defeat him, though it needs to be powered by the Soul Stone. The team confronts Ultron and they fight, joined at one point by Zombie Scarlet Witch. Star-Lord swipes one of the stones, but Gamora's device fails since it can only destroy her universe's stones. Black Widow fires the Arnim Zola arrow, which takes over and seemingly defeats Ultron. Killmonger then takes control of the stones, though Arnim Zola fights him for them.

01:15:03
With the stones in between ownership, the Watcher seals them in a pocket dimension. The Guardians are returned to their respective universes, though Black Widow is taken to the universe where Hank Pym killed the Avengers so that she can help stop Loki's invasion. Back home, Captain Carter discovers the hydrostomper with someone inside. Oh, I think I missed that. Was that an after credit scene? Yes.

01:15:25
Captain Carter lands back on the Lemurian Star where she's fighting Batroc, and they find out that the mysterious cargo the ship is holding is Hydra Stopper, allegedly with Steve Rogers inside. All right, dang it, I have to go see that now. Yeah, I assume that's gonna play into season two, because I think Captain Carter's going to be a mainstay character throughout each of these what-if seasons. Overall, I liked the action in this episode, but some of the plot seemed a little bit questionable, like the whole needing the Soul Stone to power the Infinity Gem Destroyer.

01:15:54
that didn't even work? Right. Yeah, because all of a sudden they're like, oh, it must only work for my universe's stones, which is stupid and also highlights another complaint I have in that it's comic book canon that the Infinity Stones only affect the universe that they originate from. That's what I was thinking. Like, didn't they establish that in Loki? Yeah, that's what I thought. Outside of the time stream when Ultron was fighting the Watcher, he shouldn't have been able to use the stones.

01:16:23
Yeah, they would have just been paperweights and then Watcher would have wiped his ass with Ultron. So they're kind of going against their own canon as it were regarding the stones, which is also different from the canon from the comic books. So it's a little bit hard to understand. Especially considering that the stones could be used in other universes, just not destroyed in other universes. I don't know if I'm being nitpicky, but I don't know. I didn't buy it. One thing I didn't get was that the Watcher and Dark Doctor Strange said that they put this team together

01:16:52
because they each had like specific traits that they would need to defeat Ultron. And like, why the hell would you put Killmonger on the team? Like, what did he contribute other than turning evil? Well, the Watcher knew that he would betray the team and ultimately he needed Killmonger to do that, to wrest control of the Infinity Gems from Ultron. And during that transition point is when the Watcher had already planned to seal them in the Pocket Dimension. Really? Yes. Okay, that's convenient. He's the Watcher, he sees everything.

01:17:21
One of my favorite moments from this episode was actually seeing Dark Doctor Strange go up against Infinity Gem Ultron. I think that was probably the highlight of maybe the entire series. Just seeing these like two powerhouses go at it. Yeah, yeah, that was really well done. The main purpose of this episode was to spotlight that action between the Guardians and Ultron wielding the Infinity Stones. What kind of annoyed me was that Ultron wielded the stones in a very inefficient way.

01:17:47
Kind of like how the Hood did in the comics. Like he didn't realize that he had unlimited power with them and that he could do anything. He could just will them out of existence instead of fighting them. Right, like why go to alternate universes and take them over with robots when he could just snap everything out of existence? Yeah, he's taking too much of a warrior's approach, which seems a little off for an artificial intelligence character. You'd think he'd take the most logically efficient route and just snap everything away, including the Guardians of the Multiverse.

01:18:16
Tom, zero stars. No, overall, I thought the action really salvaged this episode despite some of the questionable plot points. I give this one three stars out of five. Yeah, I'll probably give it three as well. The action was pretty cool. And I just really liked Uwatu in this episode. Like whenever the watcher gets involved, I think it's just awesome for some reason. He's not supposed to, but he does it and it's always interesting. Yeah, I totally agree. Overall, like when averaging the scores that I gave each episode,

01:18:45
and factoring in the whole point about how the concept of the series has it going against itself, but also figuring the potential that the series could have in the future. Overall, I give season 1 of What If 3 stars out of 5. I'll always appreciate What If for its novelty, but in a multiverse where anything is possible, nothing matters. So to make audiences care, they have to do even better with their stories. Otherwise the show may as well be called

01:19:14
But why? Which is really how I felt with some of these episodes. Absolutely. Or like, what the fuck? I think Three Stars is pretty fair. Like you mentioned earlier, each episode was hit or miss. The hits were pretty awesome. The misses were fucking awful. It's like, why does this even exist? So like almost straight in the middle, Three Stars is a good rating. It's not horrible, it's passing.

01:19:42
But that does it for this review. Let us know what you thought about what if by writing to us at dyna or by visiting us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. You can find links to all of our accounts by checking out our show notes or visiting our website, dynamicduel.com. And on our site, you can also find a link to our Patreon page where we offer bonus content, including bonus episodes, monthly live movie watch alongs, collectible pinsets, and access to our Discord server.

01:20:09
Check it out right after this episode. Our lowest tier is only $2 a month, which is also the cost to subscribe to the show on Spotify. Subscribe now to access over 200 archived episodes of this podcast. Our next episode, we are going to review the DC animated film that comes out the day this episode drops, which is injustice. I'm really looking forward to this probably more than any other DC animated movie that I've heard announced.

01:20:38
So I probably have to check my expectations, but I expect good things. We're really looking forward to it, especially after the opening scene that we got to see during the DC fandom. That was really cool. It's like straight from the comic. I can't wait to see this movie. But that does it for this episode. We want to give a big thanks to our executive producers, John Spies, Ken Johnson, Jace Crump, John Storosky, Zachary Hepburn, John Beccinina, Mitchell Phipps, Steven Lovato, Dustin Balcombe,

01:21:08
Salvador Hernandez Contreras Jr. and Levi Yeaton for helping make this podcast possible. And we'll talk to you guys next week. Up up and away, true believers.