What If...? Season 3 Review

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This is a DynaMic Network podcast.

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Make Duel Podcast, a weekly show where we review superhero films and debate the superiority between Marvel and DC by comparing their characters and stat-based battle simulations. I'm Johnny DC. And I'm his twin brother, Marvelous Joe. And welcome to the first episode of 2025. This is our year, guys. This is our year. Year for what? It's just our year. I don't know. It's a saying. I don't know what it means. I thought you were saying it's like Marvel's year. I was like, what?

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Superman's coming out that too. That too. Well, we're kicking off this year with a Marvel review. At the very least, this episode will be talking all about season three of What If Marvel's animated series on Disney Plus. Yeah, you know, the show's hit or miss. But was season three more hit or more miss compared to the other hit or miss seasons? We'll find out later on in this episode. Before that, we're going to break down the comic book movie news from the past week, of which there was just one news item.

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and that was that Jason Momoa has been cast as Lobo in Supergirl Woman of Tomorrow. 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. Guys our artificially intelligent Duel simulator AJ9K has a quick message for our listeners, so listen up.

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Why hello there, do you want even more from this podcast? Then become a part of the dynamic Duel community on Patreon, where you can choose from three tiers. The dynamic two-o tier gives you access to our Discord chat server. The fantastic four tier gives you two bonus episodes each month, and the X-Force tier makes you an executive producer of this show. Lastly,

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The DynaMic Podcast Network tier lets you create your own podcast using this Monte Carlo simulator. Johnny and Joe will help you develop your show, provide graphic support and consultation, and get you simulation results. Pitch the twins your ideas via email at dynamicduelpodcast at gmail.com. Check it out at patreon.com slash dynamicduel. Pip pip cheerio. Thanks AJ9K and thanks to everyone who supports the podcast. Be sure to tune into the other shows in the DynaMic Podcast Network this week.

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Including Max Destruction, which pits your favorite action heroes from film and television against each other. This week hosts Scotty and Gilly are finding out who would win between He-Man and Lion-O. And I gotta say that's one I've been looking forward to for a long time. Yeah, me too. On the Sinjyo World podcast, host Zachary Hepburn speculates on fights between fan favorite anime and manga characters. Zach is off for the next two weeks, but make sure to check out his latest episode if you haven't already.

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On the Console Combat Podcast hosts John and Dean simulate battles between popular video game characters. In yesterday's episode, they reviewed the first season of Secret Level. Visit dynamicpodcasts.com or click the link in our show notes to listen to all the shows in the DynaMic Podcast Network. But with that out of the way, quick to the note prize!

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A no prize is an award Marvel used to give out to fans. Our version, the Dynamic Duel No Prize, is a digital award we post on Instagram for the person that we feel gave the best answer to our question of the week. Last week we asked you guys, from 1 to 10, how excited has the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man trailer made you for the series, and why? And of course this is coming off the back of the trailer that was released last week for the upcoming Disney Plus television show that's going to debut at the end of January. We got only a few answers this time.

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for this question, three of them to be exact. So let's go down our two honorable mentions as well as the no prize winner. The first honorable mention goes to Travis Herndon, who said. What's up dynamic dudes, Travis here. Shout out to my evil twin. So all in all, this trailer looks pretty good. I like the art style. I love the designs. Me, I know a lot of people are kind of iffy about the whole race swapping of Norman Osborn, but hey, at least it makes the waves make more sense for him now.

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Now I'm giving it a chance and so far I'm going to give it like an 8 out of 10. It gets me hyped. It looks promising and I can't wait to see more of it. You're not going to lie. The rows of red and black hair in the comics never quite made sense to me for Norman Osborn and Harry Osborn, but interpreting them as cornrows is kind of cool. Yeah, I actually like that a lot. I think if you could race band anybody, Norman Osborn would be a top contender. I'm really excited to see how that plays out.

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But I'm also excited to see that Travis is fairly excited for the upcoming show because I need to kind of latch on to that sort of excitement and see if I could experience it vicariously for myself being someone who's not as excited for the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man show. Because personally I put myself at maybe like a four and a half or a five? I'd put myself probably in that same spot. To me the most exciting thing about this is seeing Peter Parker in high school. Like on film...

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There's always this rush to get him out of high school because the actor keeps aging, but with animation, you don't really run into that problem. Yeah, that is definitely one of the more beloved iterations of the characters, you know, young Peter Parker. Well, great answer, Travis. Let's move on to our next honorable mention, Mason Thompson. Who said? What's up? If I had to rate it from one to 10, I would rate it a solid 4.3 because I do not like the art style. I don't like how it's mixing 3D with

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Hootie like that one wish movie did and I don't like how he has the future foundation suit like you guys said. I do like how he has the like the web shooters in a backpack though. I think there have been some successful iterations of flat three-dimensional art out there so I don't think I would knock your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man for its art style especially since it's evoking those early Ditko drawn comics but like Mason Thompson said we both had gripes about the future foundation

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being his first superhero suit that he gets after his homemade one. Although I will say, luckily, according to some promo art that was released last week, it does look like Spider-Man does get his classic red and blue Spidey outfit by the end of the season. So that news alone actually gets me more excited for the show because I guess I'm more of a stickler for Spider-Man's look than I ever thought I was. It's one of the reasons why I didn't like the Amazing Spider-Man movie. The first one with Andrew Garfield.

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So the purist in me is happy to see the character don that suit. Thanks Mason Thompson for that answer. But the winner of this week's snow prize goes to Daniel Alonso. Who said, okay, I definitely agree with Joe. It definitely should have been a Tom Holland's origin of Spider-Man. Um, I'm about a three out of 10 on this one. It kind of looks like how DC makes shows. So I'm not really too excited, but I'm probably still going to check it out. I'm not sure yet.

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So Jonathan, if you're wondering why he gave Daniel Alonso's answer the no prize win, it's because even while he's shitting on a Marvel show, he still manages to also shit on DC. And I think that is an admirable skill. I mean, I'm still confused as to what he's talking about. Because like, if it's a show that DC would make, it would look good and he would be excited about it. I cannot comprehend his answer. What DC show is good? Name one. My Adventures with Superman.

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Wrong. Batman kids crusader, suicide squad isekai, Harley Quinn. Actually they're all pretty good. I'm not gonna lie. That's what I thought. DC puts out some pretty good animated shows as well. No, I chose it because it's fun to dunk on DC whether or not the claim is accurate or not. Oh, okay. You're just jealous. Jealous of all of DC's awesome animated shows. Quantity is not quality, my friend. Quality? What quality? What if season three? No, I'm talking about like.

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X-Men 97, okay? Fuck you, Jonathan. Hahaha. Moving on, congrats to Daniel Alonso 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. And now that that's done, on to the news.

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Okay, so during interviews for his film Aquaman The Lost Kingdom, Jason Momoa was doing press rounds talking about the upcoming DC Universe, saying that he hoped James Gunn, the head of DC Studios, would give him a call regarding the role of Lobo. Well, apparently he got the call because he made a social media post announcing that he has been cast as Lobo in the upcoming Supergirl Woman of Tomorrow film.

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It's a role he was pretty much born to play considering the fact he looks and acts exactly like the character from the comics. Of course, Jason Momoa was Aquaman in the DCEU, a role that I actually enjoyed him in, but anyone who says he's not a better Lobo is kind of kidding themselves. Well, I mean, he never fit into the Aquaman mold according to what was set in the comic books, right? I do think he was an interesting adaptation for film.

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And I thought it was pretty cool how they cast an actor, a Pacific Islander descent to play Aquaman. That totally makes sense. But you're right. You look at the dude and he looks exactly like Lobo. As far as I'm concerned, this is dream casting. And I think he's totally up for it. Oh yeah, totally. He's been talking for years how much he likes the character of Lobo. So it was kind of surprising when he was cast as Aquaman. There's a lot of mixed reactions.

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when the first image of him as Aquaman was released by Zack Snyder and it said, like, unite the seven. It was an early Justice League promo image. And, yeah, everyone looked at that and I was like, oh, look, it's Lobo. I wonder if we're going to get some like Aquaman gags in the Supergirl movie on behalf of Jason Momoa. I who are you expecting? Aquaman. Right. Yeah, maybe. Lobo is the character where you can kind of get away with breaking the fourth wall, kind of like Deadpool in that regard. So it might happen. Who knows?

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If the character is done right, if he's given a good enough part in the Supergirl movie, I could totally see Jason Momoa headlining his own Lobo movie in a style of film that's very much in the same vein as Deadpool. Although Jason Momoa isn't funny, so he'd have to have good writers. Jason Momoa is funny? What are you talking about? He was like partial comic relief in Justice League. Look at the end of Peacemaker. Yeah, you're right. You're right.

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I think he's definitely funny enough and charismatic enough to hold his own film or maybe appear like in a Superman movie as a major character. For all we know, maybe he makes a cameo in the upcoming Superman movie. I would not be surprised if he did. Like in a mid-credit scene or something? Yeah, end-of-credit scene, mid-credit scene. Loba has often appeared in animated Superman projects such as Man of Tomorrow and the Superman animated series. I think that's actually how a lot of the general public are familiar with the character.

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Of course, the character of Lobo was not in the Supergirl Woman of Tomorrow series, although I think he was originally intended to be. I'm not sure what role he's going to serve in the upcoming Supergirl film starring Camille Alcock, but I actually think the characters of Supergirl and Lobo work pretty well together. So I'm excited for this news a lot. Of course, the Supergirl film does not come out until the summer of 2026, so, you know, it's still a ways out. But like I said, if we see Lobo maybe in an end credit scene,

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Maybe we'll get an early look at the character before we see him on screen. I'm really hoping that audiences aren't too confused when they see Jason Momoa not as Aquaman because you know the first Aquaman movies were received fairly decently. I'm not talking about critically but just in terms of like box office performance. The first Aquaman movie made over a billion dollars and is still DC's highest grossing film of all time I believe.

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I don't think audiences will have too hard of a problem seeing Momoa in the Lobo role considering that he's probably going to be in heavy makeup. Right, yeah, like white body paint and red eyes, the works. Hopefully, fingers crossed. But speaking of past DCEU actors returning for the DCU, that brings us to our question of the week.

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If you could recast any other DCEU actor in a DCEU role, who would it be and why? I'm getting real confused by all these DCE acronyms, man. Well, if you're a Marvel fan, so I would expect nothing less. Recording answer at dynamicduel.com by clicking on the red microphone button in the bottom right hand corner of the screen, which will prompt you to leave us a voicemail. Your message could 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.

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and award that person a dynamic Duel no prize that will post to Instagram. Be sure to answer before January 11th.

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So that does it for all of the news for this episode. Let's go ahead and move on to the main event in which we review the third season of Marvel's and Disney Plus's What If series.

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Alright, What If Season 3 is an animated series on Disney+, directed by Brian Andrews and Stephen Frank, written by Matthew Chauncey, and starring many familiar names and voices from the live-action Marvel Cinematic Universe. Based on the What If comic books, the show explores the multiverse with a series of anthological tales told from the perspective of Uwatu the Watcher, who is the cosmic entity that oversees the events happening in each episode. Each story is set up with a question of what if that explores

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how a change in the primary MCU timeline would affect continuity, and each episode unfolds the universal effects from that change. Season 3 is the final season of this animated series, and over these past few years, this show has been hit or miss in regards to the quality of the stories it tells, though I would say there have been many more hits than misses. We found that season 1 focused more on its overarching narrative of the multiversal guardians to the detriment of its indiviDuel stories.

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focused more on its indiviDuel stories and succeeded more because of that. Season 3 also focuses more on its indiviDuel stories, saving its greater arc of Uwatu and the Watchers for the final episodes. And you'd think that would make it as good as season 2, but unfortunately you'd be wrong. With that said, here's your spoiler warning for what if season 3 and probably season 1 and 2 as well will be discussing plot points from the entire series and revealing fun

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Definitely better discovered by watching the show and not listening to two nerds talk about it. Yeah, honestly, I'm really torn on this season because well, I think some of its episodes pose the absolute worst What if scenarios? I also think the closing episodes were incredible. Oh for sure Yeah, the season ends with a bang not a whimper. They did a really good job on closing out the season

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in a way that may make you look at season 3 as a whole with rose tinted glasses, but we're going to break down each episode piece by piece and figure out what was good and what was bad. The showrunner stated that the What If series is ending because the MCU's multiversal saga is going to start wrapping up here, but that's not going to happen until 2027 with the Avengers Secret Wars film. So my big takeaway from season 3 already knowing that the show avoided the pitfalls of season

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20 episodes into the series, for some reason it seems like the writers were beginning to run on fumes. All three seasons have had some great premises that introduced lasting characters like Captain Carter, Doctor Strange Supreme, Nova Prime Nebula, and K'Hori. But season 3 overall seemed to lack that same enthusiasm, that magic that comes when you ask a simple question that unlocks a universe of wonders. That's not to say that season 3 didn't have great ideas like Hulkazilla.

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or the Western Legend of the Ten Rings. It's just that it seemed like there were fewer of them in this season. I don't like either of those premises. Hulkzilla, dumb. Western Shang-Chi, dumb. You're fucking wrong, bro. What? Those were both fantastic, and I'm gonna slap the shit out of you next time I see you. I freaking fell asleep for the Shang-Chi one, absolutely. That was one of the better episodes this season, and history will judge you harshly. Okay, fine, come at me, bro.

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Come at me, history. Okay, all right. Just wait. Next time I see you on the street. Overall, I'd say that out of the nine episodes in season one, I enjoyed about six of them. And for season two's nine episodes, I enjoyed actually eight of them. There was only one episode that I didn't really like out of season two. And for this season, out of the eight episodes, I'd say I only enjoyed about five of the stories. So like totaling it all up, 19 out of 25.

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is not too bad for the series overall, which is why I said the show has more hits than misses. And I gotta say, despite that track record, I'm gonna miss What If? I'm really sad that the series is ending because even when the episodes weren't firing, the show still always had the potential to be jaw-dropping amazing. And I think that was the best thing about it. Yeah, the question of What If? and the premise of What If? is 100% all about potential. I just think that they never really asked more interesting questions.

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Like Howard the Duck and Darcy having an egg? Who cares? It was nice to get Howard the Duck content out there. This is the most that we ever got of the character. But we'll break down that episode once we get to our story breakdown. But specifically regarding season three, I do appreciate that the writers ventured further outside the world of the original Avengers to include newer characters because the main detriment to the MCU as a whole currently.

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is that it's less cohesive than it's ever been. You know, throughout the entire Infinity Saga, it was easy to keep track of everything and everything felt more intertwined. Whereas nowadays, there are so many random projects and nothing is really connected. And it's so disparate that it's hard for people to stay on top of everything. Right. Yeah, absolutely. Like the ten rings from Shang-Chi that cliffhanger has not tied into, you know, Atlantis, which is not tied into the Eternals.

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which is not tied into, you know, secret invasion and the scrolls and everything like that. Right, right. It's like, what am I supposed to be following here? Exactly. Yeah. You know, a lot of the Phase Four and Five characters have yet to be revisited. So it was really nice to hear from those actors like Simu Liu, who plays Shang-Chi, Oscar Isaac, who plays Moon Knight, and Kamel Najiani, who plays Kingo from The Eternals, and Tionna Paris.

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It was really nice to get this next generation of Marvel characters and actors in the mix. Yeah, if anything, just to remind audiences that they exist, just in case you forgot about them, which one will be in the Avengers? Who knows? Find out, keep watching. If there's one thing about this season that I actually really liked over past seasons, and I thought was an improvement, was the animation style. Now I know it's largely the same as what we've had before, but there were moments in this season, particularly towards the end,

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where they were able to use lighting in a way that they haven't done before. And I thought it went a long way in showing actually just how interesting this animation style is. For sure. Yes, cinematography is a term that's largely applied to live action content, but it also applies to animation as well. I think that's easy to overlook. But the cinematography of this show, episode to episode, is spellbinding. Everything looks so gorgeous, which is no surprise because the show is produced by

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Marvel who is owned by Disney who produces some of the greatest animated content the world has ever known. But to review what if overall is really difficult because each story in itself is its own tale. So let's go ahead and get into our episode breakdown. Episode 1 was called What If The Hulk Fought The Mech Avengers? It stars Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson, Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner, Teona Paris as Monica

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David Harbor as Alexei Shostakov, Simu Liu as Shang-Chi, and Oscar Isaac as Mark Spector. In the episode, Bruce Banner becomes friends with Sam Wilson, who counsels him in his trauma support group. An accidental Hulk transformation leads to Banner trying to separate the Hulk from himself using gamma radiation. However, the experiment manifests a powerful radioactive monster called Apex that is capable of growing in size and spawning kaiju monsters.

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Tony Stark develops mecha-sized Hulkbuster suits for the Avengers, and though the original team falls to the Kaiju in battle, the surviving heroes win the Gamma War. However, ten years later, the beasts return, prompting Sam Wilson as Captain America and Photon to investigate the radioactive anomaly in the Arctic. There they find the Apex still alive and leading a massive Kaiju army. Photon and Winter Soldier learn the location of Bruce Banner, believing he's the key to stopping the Kaiju.

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Captain America visits him in the Astra Islands to convince him to join the fight. Banner refuses, but provides Sam with a plugin he wrote for the mech suit's interface called the Mighty Avenger Protocol that will allow the Avengers to combine their strength. The merger proves effective in defeating many of the kaiju, but the apex still proves to be too strong for them. Banner arrives on the scene with a nuclear gamma bomb that he detonates. The Hulk absorbs the full blast.

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permanently transforming him into Mega Hulk, who uses his gamma breath to disintegrate the apex monster. Mega Hulk acknowledges his friend Sam, proving that Banner's mind is still somewhere inside the creature, and he leads the remaining Kaiju into the sea, to the Astra Islands. I heard you diss on this episode a few minutes ago.

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And I'm here to reiterate that you are wrong. I thought this was a fantastic homage to the Godzilla stories and mecha stories like Gundam, Evangelion and Pacific Rim. To me, the whole thing felt very gimmicky. It was like Power Rangers meets Godzilla, which sounds cool. But the whole time, I was just wondering how the hell was this Apex Hulk created? Like, why is it a separate being from Bruce Banner's Hulk? It was Bruce's attempt to separate himself from the Hulk, but

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We don't know how gamma radiation works. You know, it created the Hulk. I think it's entirely plausible that instead of separating the two beings, it would separate another yet more monstrous creature. I really liked the great camera work in this episode, especially like that split screen style that they would do that made the show feel like Voltron or Power Rangers. That was a lot of fun. And it really served to highlight the cool wide cast of characters that they got for this episode. You know, I mentioned before it was really cool to see people like Oscar Isaac back in the role.

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you know, despite how small that role may be for this episode. What'd you think of this Avengers lineup? Like is this the new official lineup that you would like to see on the silver screen? No, but I thought it was a great representation of international characters, you know, really taking that global approach. You had Nakia from Wakanda. You had the Red Guardian and Malia Vostokov from Russia. You had Moon Knight who was in this very like Egyptian type armor. You had Shang-Chi representing Southeast Asia. It was pretty fascinating stuff.

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I thought that was all really cool to get that international feel. I guess in that regard, it was more like Pacific Rim than anything else. Exactly. I liked the lineup. I'd actually be really happy if this was the Avengers lineup going forward, but maybe replace Nikiya with Shuri's Black Panther. That'd be dope. Yeah, and maybe toss in Namor or something like that in there. Have a Talokhan-style suit of armor made out of vibranium. Hell yeah! I'm still really offended that you didn't like this episode. I don't think you've given a good enough reason to not like it.

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I mean, seeing Hulk turn into Godzilla and then using that gamma breath to melt the apex, I thought was fantastic. It was such a good homage. I don't even know if I have a good reason for why I didn't like it. I just remember watching the shows. Well then shut the hell up. Okay? I think I was just upset that I had to watch another season of What If? And I was like, ugh, okay. Maybe try to step up as a critic then, you know? Just because you have to watch a show doesn't mean that you should go in hating it. Okay? This was a great premise.

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I thought it was one of the better executed what if premises that the series has ever done actually. You might be right. Maybe I'll rewatch this episode specifically and I'll completely change my mind. Because on paper actually it does sound interesting. Yeah, I think you need to do that. And also slap yourself on behalf of everybody else out there who is listening to this and wish you would. I don't know about slapping myself, but I'll watch it. Let's go ahead and move on to episode 2, which is called What If Agatha Went to Hollywood?

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It stars Catherine Hahn as Agatha Harkness, Kumail Nanjiani as Kingo, Dominic Cooper as Howard Stark, and James Darcy as Edwin Jarvis. The story of the episode is, in her quest for power, Agatha Harkness learns of the celestial Tiamat growing in the Earth's core and plans to siphon its power. During the Golden Age of Hollywood, she becomes an actress who convinces her director Howard Stark to add star power to the motion picture by hiring the famous Bollywood actor Kingo.

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of the Eternals. Kingo arrives at the set in Hollywood and performs a large dance number with Agatha. He reveals during their scene that he knows about her plan to harness celestial power and attacks her. Agatha defends herself using the other Eternals powers, revealing that she has already siphoned those abilities and that Kingo is last on her list. She convinces him of her heroic intent and his own humanist tendencies, getting him to agree to transfer his power to her.

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Arishem signals his arrival to Earth and Agatha and Kingo get Stark to shoot the finale at the Griffith Observatory where they perform the ritual. Agatha absorbs Tiamat's power and becomes a celestial as Arishem arrives and the two fight. She uses magic to restrain Arishem and defeats him, absorbing his power as well. Agatha then reveals her deception, that she was seeking power all along and not to save the world. But Kingo convinces her that she could bring about more change as an actress.

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than as a celestial. Agatha relinquishes her power, and she and Kingo attend the world premiere of their movie Cosmic Queen as more celestials arrive on Earth. This episode fucking sucked, man. As beautiful as it looked and as well as it evoked the golden age of Hollywood with fantastic art deco style, I really hated the story. Yeah, the whole story kind of felt like it was two concepts merged into one. I feel like writers were like...

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Oh, I really want to do like a Kingo Bollywood dance episode. And now the writers were like, oh, what if Agatha absorbed the power of a celestial? And at the end, they were just like, oh, fuck it, combine them. Yeah, I'm not entirely sure that the worlds of Agatha's witchcraft and the Eternals really vibed as well as they thought it would. But the biggest problem I have with the episode was when Kingo convinced Agatha to relinquish the power of the celestials, because I don't think that was in character.

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for Agatha. I think Agatha is and always has been someone who seeks out and craves ultimate power. And I think during that turn, Kingo forgot the simple fact that Agatha is not actually an actress. You know, she came to Hollywood as part of her ruse. So for Kingo to convince Agatha that they were the same, you know, insecure actors looking to show the world they were big and that she didn't need her celestial power and that she only needed to be famous, like that was such a

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weird self-absorbed perspective, as if being an actor was the most important thing a person could become, like more important than a world creating life-generating celestial. Like the narcissism to that idea was astounding to me. Yeah, only Hollywood could have come up with something as ridiculous as stardom being something greater than a god. Exactly, which is weird because it's not like this episode was written by actors, but it certainly felt like it.

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was. And in that regard, yeah, the episode just felt too self-serving. And, you know, like if you want to give an homage to classic Hollywood, you got to look at WandaVision. I think that show did it way better than this episode of What If did. That said, I do think the episode was aware of how ridiculous it was being. Sure, yeah, it was meta in that regard, but that doesn't do anything for me. Like you look at Kingo too, you know, Kingo was convinced to betray Arasham.

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because Agatha promised him a three-picture deal. It kind of makes the character of Kingo pretty petty. Yeah, I guess if we're gonna talk about things I liked about the episode in addition to the visual style, I also did like Howard Stark in the episode because like he's often seen as a parallel to Howard Hughes, but in this episode, he seemed more like an Orson Welles type. I thought that was pretty clever. Yeah, it was like Orson Welles or maybe even like Walt Disney.

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I did think that Dominic Cooper gave a great voice performance as like a classic Hollywood director type. Oh yeah, he does that old timey voice really well, which we saw in Captain America, the first Avenger. I forgot that I'm rating each of these episodes as we're talking about them. I would rate episode two, what if Agatha went to Hollywood, two and a half out of five stars. Didn't really like it, but I would rate the first episode, what if Hulk fought the Mech Avengers four out of five. I don't even want to give my ratings now because I feel like my-

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rating for the first one is probably going to be very different from yours. But yeah, I would agree with episode two's rating. Episode three was called What If the Red Guardian Stopped the Winter Soldier? It stars David Harbour as Alexei Shostakov, Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes, Laurence Fishburne as Bill Foster, and America Ferrera as Ranger Alessandre Morales. Wait, what? Really? Yeah. Why? I don't know. In the episode In Early Nineties Russia,

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Alexei Shostakov, the Red Guardian, ignores his orders from the Red Room to become a sleeper agent in Ohio with the young Natasha Romanoff. Instead, he shadows the Winter Soldier on his mission to acquire Howard Stark's newly created Super Soldier Serum in New York. Alexei prevents Bucky from killing the Starks, and the two fight. When the police and S.H.I.E.L.D. arrive on the scene, the two flee and receive notice from the Red Room that due to their failure, they are on their own for extraction.

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Shield agent Bill Foster investigates the scene and stops Alexi and Bucky at a traffic stop while on their way to Las Vegas. Bill Foster gives chase, turning into Goliath, but the pair drive their car off a cliff to escape. Alexi and Bucky survive and mend their wounds by breaking into a veterinary hospital where Alexi tries to get Bucky to remember his past. The pair arrives in Vegas where they meet with a Rook, an American informant who leaked the Super Soldier Serum's existence to Russia, who turns out to be Obadiah Stane.

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Alexei is saddened to learn that the Rook is a capitalist, and Obadiah attempts to shoot them before Bucky knocks him out the window of his penthouse hotel room. Goliath and S.H.I.E.L.D. arrive on the scene and chase Alexei and Bucky to a construction site. There, Hydra handler Vasiliy Karpov tries to get the Winter Soldier back under control, but S.H.I.E.L.D., Alexei, and Bucky team up to take him out. Ultimately, the Winter Soldier is captured and taken back to the Red Room.

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but Alexei defects and retires as a gym teacher before Bill Foster recruits him into SHIELD and he becomes a member of the original Avengers. Now on paper, I don't think that episode sounded too bad, but in execution, the Red Guardian was so fucking dumb that this episode was really hard to get through. He was kind of like a Soviet flag waving communist poster boy but with the IQ of a kindergartener. It was bad. Yeah, his whole shtick got.

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real old, real quick. From his opening scene with Drakov in the red room, like the way he's yelling at him, like he's not acting like a real character, he's acting like a cartoon character. And yes, I understand that this is a cartoon. And yes, the character is still a little bit goofy in live action, but not to this extent. They went way over the top here in a way that made me kind of hate the episode. Like every line out of David Harbour's mouth, like smash the capitalist pigs and like you gotta seize the means of production and it just, it didn't work.

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I don't understand why the Red Guardian didn't want Bucky to kill the Starks. I'm guessing it's because he fancied himself a hero who doesn't kill, but that doesn't seem quite in keeping with the character that I know from live action. At least Bucky Barnes as the Winter Soldier was solid. I gotta say that Sebastian Stan's voice performance in season 3 far and away was better than his appearances in season 1. He's really grown as a voice actor.

33:21
evoked classic films like Party Thor was a riff on risky business. You had Nebula joining the Nova Corps as a kind of tribute to Blade Runner. Yeah, that was cool. They even parody Die Hard with the Christmas episode from season two that I thought was really good. That's right. Here it seemed like they were trying to pay homage to Thelma and Louise evading the police and, you know, driving their car off of a cliff and everything like that. But god, this was just such a piss poor tribute to that movie.

33:49
If I have to say a good thing about the episode, I did think it was neat that the Russian intelligence regarding Bucky's mission came from Obadiah Stane. I do think that it makes sense that he would be the one to have Howard killed considering, you know, he tried to kill Tony Stark in Iron Man 1 in a similarly underhanded way. I like to think of Obadiah Stane as the Rook as like main MCU sacred timeline canon, because we never really know where Hydra got that intel from.

34:16
that Howard Stark had recreated the Super Soldier Serum, I totally think it makes sense that Obadiah Stane would have sold him out. Yeah, I liked that too. I didn't even realize initially that that was Obadiah Stane. It took me a while, but once I did, I was like, oh yeah, that's awesome. There's one character in this episode who worked with Bill Foster. They called her Ranger Morales. She's actually a character from the comic books named Alessandre Morales, who was a SHIELD agent. I don't know why they adapted her as a Ranger in this episode, but I thought that was at least a cool Easter egg.

34:45
I don't understand why they cast America for her to voice her. I wonder if that signals that she'll be playing the role in live action as well. Yeah, maybe she'll be playing a shield agent in the future in the MCU. That'd be pretty cool. I give episode three two out of five stars. It was actually one of my least favorite. What if episodes that they produced? Oh, wow. That's lower than I would have given. I think I would have given it like.

35:08
two and a half, maybe just a half star higher. Why would you give it a 2.5? You fucking hate bathos more than I do. And yet this entire episode was the definition of that. Doesn't make any sense. That's true, I don't know. Let's go to move on to episode four, which was called What If Howard the Duck Got Hitched. It stars Kat Dennings as Darcy Lewis, Seth Green as Howard the Duck, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Tom Hiddleston as Loki, Clark Gregg as Phil Coulson, Michael Rooker as Yondu Udanta,

35:36
and Josh Brolin as Thanos. This episode is a sequel to the What If Thor Were an Only Child episode from season 1. In it, Darcy and Howard the Duck meet after one of Party Thor's celebrations in Las Vegas and they go out for nachos, falling in love and getting hitched. They have a baby egg raising it in their New York apartment where they're served an invitation to one of the Grandmasters intergalactic cruises. There, the egg is taken for childcare while Howard and Darcy are invited to brunch.

36:05
Upon realizing that their child is going to be served as brunch, Yondu the Ravager crashes the scene, stealing the egg to take it to the Collector on nowhere. Howard and Darcy steal a ship and en route contact Nick Fury of SHIELD for help. On nowhere, Yondu meets the sorcerer Kyselius, who zealots captured the Collector in order to get the egg. Yondu reveals that other parties expressed interest in the egg, including the Dark Elves and Zeus, but Kyselius incapacitates him.

36:33
Howard and Darcy infiltrate a dark ritual trying to use the egg to birth Dormammu. However, S.H.I.E.L.D. intervenes and acquires the egg, losing it in the ensuing chaos, allowing Howard and Darcy to escape with their egg and hide out on Jotunheim. Loki is eager to help, but King Loffi wants to use the egg as a weapon. The frost giants, S.H.I.E.L.D., the Olympians, the dark elves, the zealots, and Thanos' black order all converge on the scene, all fighting for the egg.

37:02
Amidst the chaos, the egg radiates a cosmic energy that incapacitates everyone but Howard and Darcy and hatches, revealing a baby human-avian hybrid that they name Bertie. They take Bertie back home and put her to bed. Now let's address the elephant in the room here with this episode. In that a woman and a humanoid duck had a baby. You know, Howard the Duck has had romantic tension with human women like Beverly Switzler, who was in the comics and even in the Howard the Duck movie.

37:32
His stories have always tiptoed that line without ever explicitly venturing into human animal relations territory. And I don't know if it's just my mind, or maybe it's just the paradigm shift of seeing Howard as a dad, but like I had trouble getting over the idea of Darcy banging Howard. Like I just kept wondering, how would that even work? Am I the only one? No, absolutely. I was thinking the whole time I was watching this episode, like really they decided to base an entire episode.

38:00
of Howard the Duck's implied coupling with Leah Thompson in his movie. That's ridiculous. Yeah, I mean, it was also implied in the comic book, so it wasn't just in the movie. But it raises questions. Ducks have corkscrew-shaped dongs, right? And Darcy was in labor and she gave birth to this egg, like the size of the egg would have just left her whole downstairs totally demolished. So I'm thinking it had to be a Caesarian birth at least, you know?

38:29
And I came to the following conclusion. The Howard the Duck movie taught us that females on Duckworld have human-like chests, right? Like they totally show duck boobs in that movie even though ducks aren't mammals and they wouldn't have memory glands. So maybe the ducks of Duckworld evolved to have more mammalian-like sex organs despite remaining avian in an appearance.

38:56
I don't necessarily think it's out of bounds to say that Howard maybe doesn't have a corkscrew dong. Maybe it's more like a human-like feather dong or something like that. But then I remembered that if Darcy gave birth to an egg, as the female, she would be the one to produce the egg. But human ova do not have hard shells. So at that point I was like, fuck, I do not understand any of this. And I flipped my office table.

39:21
So I will say that you thought about Howard the Duck's dick way more than I did. But everything you're saying is valid. I just don't get it, man. I don't get how it would work. I just don't understand. But, you know, trying to get past that, this episode was another silly one. It was really hard to go back to back with the silly episodes, but I wanted to give this episode a little bit more leeway due to the fact that Howard the Duck stories from the comics are a little bit more silly by their very nature.

39:50
Yeah, well, the two stars, both Howard the Duck and Darcy, are pretty much comedic relief, I would say. So I'm more forgiving of this episode being goofy than I was of the last one for sure. Yeah. I mean, there were some jokes that just didn't land for me. Like when Ebony Ma was saying that the Black Order is on Jotunheim for a company retreat because they have a group on. I was like, what the fuck is going on here? But bad jokes aside, I tried to give the episode.

40:19
a little bit more grace in terms of the cringe worthiness on display here. I did like the theme of new parenting, being a new parent myself as the father of a one-year-old. I can appreciate that. But there was also like another part of me that was like, why is that baby sleeping with a blanket in its crib? Like it's just born, like get that blanket out of there. They shouldn't be sleeping with blankets until they're one. You notice stuff like that in movies all the time when you're a new parent. There was something sweet about Darcy and Howard's relationship.

40:48
They just seemed really comfortable together. And it seemed like they were great parents concerning what Bertie became, which we find out later on in the series. I didn't even care for that payoff. Like, who cares by the end of it? I'm like, I don't know anything about this character. Why is it that important to me? I thought Bertie was fine. I think conceptually, she's pretty cool as a character, especially because she kind of looks like Lea Thompson's Beverly Switzler from the 80s movie. Well, that's one of the problems I actually had with it.

41:17
She was just way too 80s, I hate 80s style. What? Yeah. Dude, you're so wrong.

41:30
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41:49
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42:16
Let's move on to episode 5, which was called What If The Emergence Destroyed The Earth. It stars Dominique Thorne as Riri Williams, Emily Van Camp as Sharon Carter, Tessa Thompson as Valkyrie, and Jason Isaacs as The Eminence. On a post-apocalyptic Earth that was ripped apart by the celestial Tiamat's emergence from the planet's core, Mysterio takes control of humanity's last vestiges using Tony Stark's drones and his own holographic illusions.

42:46
Riri Williams tries to create a weaponized suit of armor using the technology available to her, but is captured by Vision, who has been commandeered by Mysterio. She is rescued by the Alliance, the last remaining force united against Mysterio composed of heroes such as Wong, Okoye, Valkyrie, and Ying Nan. Riri is taken to the Alliance's base to complete her weapon when Vision attacks. She is able to complete her weapon just in time, using it to defeat Vision,

43:12
then uses his components to become a human-synthesoid hybrid to infiltrate Mysterio's tech systems. Alongside the Alliance, Riri attacks Mysterio's base, able to see through his illusions. However, her suit malfunctions and she falls victim to Mysterio's trap. He reveals that he too is a tech hybrid, having uploaded his network's nanites into his body, allowing him to control his illusions with his mind.

43:41
so he needs Vision's components to keep him alive. He attempts to extract Riri's synthzoid pieces from her, but with the Watcher's prompting, she pulls them back to herself and phases through Mysterio, assimilating his internal nanite network. Having defeated the villain and dismantled his federation, Riri projects the Avengers logo to Earth's remaining survivors, giving them hope. Meanwhile, three Watchers known as the Eminence, the Incarnate, and the Executioner witness Uatu's prompting of Riri,

44:11
pleased by his interference. I liked the premise of this episode. The concept of Tiamat's early emergence was solid, and I think it makes sense that someone like Riri, if she was a survivor, would prove to be a vital asset to the rest of humanity given her technological prowess. I think the episode had promised that it largely lived up to. The one thing that I would have changed that would have made it better was the use of more prominent hero and villain characters.

44:40
Like, Mysterio was an interesting choice for the leader of the Federation, but it also seems a little unlike his character to take such a commanding role. Like the character's accomplishment in this episode is probably greater than anything Mysterio has ever done in the comics. I wouldn't have been surprised if his role was someone more like Dr. Doom or Norman Osborn or even like the Kingpin that had taken over what remained of Earth, but I consider this like a step up for Mysterio. Not that I want to disparage him, because I do like Mysterio.

45:09
Yeah, I think Mysterio is one of the more interesting villains in the MCU as a whole, so I was actually glad to see him return here. As a master of illusion, he is hands down the best candidate to have done the things that the character did in this episode. I also liked the fact that they adapted his cancer arc in the comics into this, like he was a sick dyke man who was trying to prove himself in a way, except instead of cancer, they went with nanites. Yeah, his look...

45:37
in this episode was very similar to the look that he had in the Guardian Devil story arc in the comic books. You're right though, for what this part required in this story, Mysterio was the best candidate. I also think that Mysterio, he's had some pretty impressive feats in the comics, you know? He was the only one from the main universe to go into the ultimate universe, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah. So I think this is in keeping with some of the more impressive things he's done. He never like took over Earth 1610 though.

46:06
No, but the guy is a technological powerhouse. Yeah, I do think that having Wong Ying Nan Okoye and Valkyrie as the last surviving heroes was a little bit weak for this episode. Like, Dan, you couldn't even squeeze in like a bee lister in there. It was very random. I felt like, oh, this was the cast you could afford. OK. Yeah, I would have liked to have a stronger supporting cast for Riri Williams. I got the overall impression that what if season three was supposed to come out?

46:34
after the Ironheart series given that we had Riri's inclusion in this episode and the Hood's inclusion in the next episode. Yeah, that makes sense because Ironheart, the series has been pushed back, I think a number of times. Right, right. After seeing this episode though, I'm really looking forward to the Ironheart series. I hope that that show really portrays Riri as like adaptable and smart as she was in this episode. I actually really liked the Ironheart vision hybrid that she became. That was pretty cool.

47:04
That was pretty sweet. I rate episode 5 3.5 stars out of 5. I thought it was pretty good. Oh, and I don't think I mentioned my rating for the last episode too. The Howard the Duck episode, I gave 3 out of 5. Let's move on to episode 6, which was called What If 1872. It stars Simu Liu as Shang-Chi, slash Ten Rings. Hailey Steinfeld gave the voice of Kate Bishop Hawkeye. Wyatt Russell was in the episode as John Walker.

47:34
and Walton Goggins played Sonny Birch. In the days of the Old West, a group of gunslingers signal for the legendary fighter, Shang-Chi, known to them as the Ten Rings for his unique calling card. Partnered with the crack shot Kate Bishop, known as Hawkeye, Shang-Chi takes out the gunslingers. He gets John Walker to give him the location of the Hood, a mysterious villain abducting the Chinese immigrants building the region's rail lines who had taken Shang-Chi's sister, Sha Ling.

48:02
Walker's info leads Shang-Chi and Hawkeye to a town which they find decimated, with only a young boy named Kui-Jun-Fan left remaining. The boy tells them the town was attacked by the Hood, who left on a ghost train. Shang-Chi, Hawkeye, and Jun-Fan head the train off at the pass, discovering that it hovers off the ground using stolen Stark tech. They find the missing railroad workers under a trance, hypnotized by Sonny Birch, using a special musical pocket watch.

48:30
Jun Fan escapes Sunny's men, but they capture the boy and nearly throw him off the train, prompting the watcher's interference. The train arrives at the station where the hood waits and reveals to be Cha Ling herself, who is using the cloak's dark power to help enslave an army to fight for her vision of the country. She and Shang-Chi battle as Hawkeye is put under Sunny Birch's trance. Jun Fan rings the train's bell ten times to snap Hawkeye and the prisoners out of their trances.

48:56
and Shang-Chi decides that fighting his sister is not the answer. Just as Chao Ling is about to deliver the killing blow, Hawkeye shoots and kills her, ending the Hood's threat. Shang-Chi and Hawkeye watch as the Chinese immigrants celebrate, listening to Jun-Fan, referred to as the Iron Fist, re-enact the story of their adventure. The pair rise off into the sunset as Uwatu the Watcher is confronted by his peers for his meddling. They attack him, resulting in shards breaking from their observational plane and hurling into the multiverse.

49:26
I thought this was a fantastic episode. I really love how they were able to incorporate characters like Shang-Chi and Hawkeye in this old west setting, and even tossing in references to characters that haven't shown up in the MCU yet, like the Hood and Iron Fist. And they even fit in actual history, like the Chinese workers' mistreatment during the transcontinental railroad construction. It was just really well done, really well realized in a way that fit neatly together like a puzzle piece, it just made sense. I-

49:54
I completely disagree. I did not like this episode. It was one of the most random episodes, I think, of the entire series so far. And I understand that the watcher kind of set up that was on the far reaches of the multiverse, and therefore it was going to be a little bit more random. But there are a lot of things I didn't understand, like the Walt Goggins pocket watch. What the hell was that about? The iron fist connection. I didn't actually even make that connection. I guess that's interesting. Definitely interested in seeing.

50:23
Iron Fist make an appearance in the MCU at some point, hopefully at Shang-Chi's sequel. But also, like, why Kate Bishop and Shang-Chi to begin with? Like I didn't understand the connection there whatsoever. As far as Hawkeye goes, Hawkeye totally makes sense as a Western character, plus the story itself draws a lot of parallels to the film True Grit, of which Hailey Steinfeld made her debut performance as an actress. So one, they're playing that up.

50:51
casting Kayleigh Steinfeld in this role and to Hawkeye it just makes sense as an old west character being a crack shot. I think it makes a lot of sense that she would pair up with Shang-Chi. Tossing in Sunny Birch I think makes a lot of sense considering the actor Walton Goggins has been in a lot of westerns and he said that he got his pocket watch from Russia which I think was a tie-in to the hydra conditioning using the code words to brainwash the Winter Soldier but in this case it was a song that was doing it. They needed something auditory so that

51:21
Jun Fan can interrupt it with the 10 rings of the bell. OK, well, I mean, some of those explanations are just like meta rationalities. So I guess these sort of work. Did it explain where Shang-Chi's sister got the hood from? Yeah, she got it from a villain who was already exploiting Chinese workers at the time. She killed him and took the hood from him. I don't know. The episode was too different from the MCU for my liking. Who cares about that?

51:48
What do you mean, too different from the MCU? The show's called fucking What If. Yeah, but this was more different than other episodes. No, it wasn't. They just changed the time period. And in regards to Iron Fist, now there have been multiple Iron Fists throughout history in the comic books, dating back centuries. And there was an Iron Fist that was around in the mid 19th century named Jun Fan, who actually traveled to America during the days of the Old West. That was the character that they were incorporating in this episode. It was a really nice call out to the comics.

52:17
He was actually the Iron Fist before Orson Randall, who eventually passed his mantle down to Danny Rand. So really, really cool stuff. For that, I rate the episode four stars out of five. Episode seven was called, What If The Watcher Disappeared? It starred Hailey Atwell as Peggy Carter, Jason Isaacs as The Eminence, Devri Jacobs as Kihori, Allison Sealy-Smith as Aurora Monroe, Natasha Lyonne as Bertie.

52:43
Karen Gillan as Nebula, Taika Waititi as Korg, and Ross Marquand as Infinity Ultron. Following the events of What If Nebula Joined the Nova Corps from Season 2, the monstrous Hydra Champion tears into the dimension, threatening Xandar. Captain Carter and her team of multiversal guardians including K'Hori, Birdie, and Storm the Goddess of Thunder arrive on the scene and by propelling Captain Carter like a bullet through the monster's head, they defeat it. After the battle, the group discover the shards

53:13
deducing the Watcher is in trouble. They attempt to get to the 5th dimension to help Uatu, first using the shard's energies to augment their ship, then using another shard to augment Storm's hammer Mjolnir using a spell. Unsure of how to use their final shard, the team remembers that Infinity Ultron once breached the barrier into the 5th dimension so they make a plan to capture and reprogram him. Knowing the mission would be too dangerous for her friends, Peggy journeys alone.

53:40
and finds Infinity Ultron living in solitude in the universe he destroyed. The other Guardians realize Peggy's actions and go to rescue her, finding only Infinity Ultron and Peggy's broken shield. Ultron recounts to them that Peggy was attacked and taken by one of the Watchers. He tells them that after spending eons alone in his universe, he's realized that emptiness is not the same as peace, and agrees to help the Guardians in their mission to the fifth dimension. He uses the last shard to gain fifth dimensional power.

54:08
and pilots their ship into the Watcher's observational plane. I thought this was a pretty decent episode as a first parter. I thought there was a lot of good set up here. I thought the action was pretty top notch, including the battle against the Hydra champion. I thought it was really nice revisiting Nebula and Xandar from season two. And most of all, I thought it was really cool to see the variant of Storm that was the goddess of thunder. Voiced by the same actress that voices Storm in X-Men 97. I liked this episode. I liked these last two episodes.

54:38
a lot, particularly when it came to the action and just the premise itself. I thought the mythology of the Watchers, it was really, really interesting. The most interesting thing to come out of this entire what if series, all three seasons. That said, I do wish that they would have had a more familiar cast of characters to aid the Watcher in this final battle. Two of them are original. One of them I thought was kind of cheap and just turning Storm into a Thor.

55:07
variant, I don't think Storm should be a Thor variant. I think that's kind of a disservice to Storm. Why? Because she is not Thor, they are separate characters. I just wish they would have maybe just gone with Storm. No, I mean, considering that the characters are both masters of the elements, I thought it made total sense to have her as a variant of Thor in this episode. I thought that was really badass. I didn't think that. I think a lot of people thought that too. I know a lot of people who actually

55:36
questioned whether Storm was a variant of Thor and to me that's I don't like that. Whether she's a variant of Thor or whether she's a variant of herself I think it works either way. I definitely don't think it does a disservice to either of the characters. I do agree that it would have been cool if the Multiversal Guardians included more characters from the series past. It was nice to have Khori back. It was interesting to have Bertie in the mix here. Like what if they did really Williams slash Vision like that would have been cool.

56:04
That would have been cool. And also tossing like a novo prime nebula in there as well. It's almost like a multiversal a-force in that regard. Yeah, yeah. I really liked the opening to this episode where they switched perspectives from Uwatu to the imminence where he was like, a watcher must never ask what if, you know, I thought that was pretty cool. Yeah, the opening to the series, I never skipped it because I just loved the narration by Jeffrey Wright. The whole premise that it sets up about time and space and things like that.

56:34
leading up to the whole question of what if, it's a fantastic setup. And then to twist it near the end like this, I thought was also pretty cool. It was very meta in this very enjoyable way. Did you notice that Peggy's multiversal ship in this episode looked a lot like King of the Conqueror ship from Ant-Man and the Wasp quantumania? No. Oh yeah, like the sphere? No, it's like a clamshell type thing. I didn't notice that. That's cool. Yeah, that was a pretty cool Easter egg. I also really liked Infinity Ultron's Revelation.

57:04
toward the end of the episode that life must exist for peace to exist? Well, the philosophical ideas posited in this episode and the next episode I thought were very profound, probably more profound than they needed to be. And I definitely was not expecting that from this series considering we also got some very, very silly episodes. Oh yeah, the show definitely veered wildly back and forth between being profound and being goofy as hell. In all, I give episode 7 3.5 stars out of 5. I thought it was really good.

57:34
a great setup. I thought you would have given it a higher rating than that. I thought this was like at least a four. It was good, but it didn't have enough payoff. It all came in the next episode, which I thought was the best of the season. That was episode eight titled What If What If. In a flashback scene, the Eminence shows Uwatu the multiverse and has him take the oath, making him a watcher and instructing him to make only observations, not judgments. Uwatu wonders what if the Eminence was wrong about him.

58:03
but is told that what if isn't a relevant question. In the present, Uwatu makes his case to the other Watchers that his actions were for the betterment of the multiverse. Captain Carter is brought before the Watchers as well, convincing Uwatu that though a Watcher is supposed to be no one, everyone is someone. Infinity Ultron arrives with the Guardians and attacks the Watchers, allowing Peggy and Uwatu to escape. The Watchers destroy Infinity Ultron as the team plots a course for Strange Supreme's universe. But they're knocked from the fifth dimension.

58:32
onto a barren planet. Though the Guardians attack the Watchers, their efforts are useless and the team is nearly killed, prompting Gawatu to instruct them to take the Watcher's oath and granting them his powers. As Watchers, they attack the Eminence, the Incarnate, and the Executioner in an all-out battle. In an effort to win, the trio merge and begin erasing Peggy,

58:59
Peggy musters the strength to sacrifice herself, pushing the Watchers into Strange Supreme's universe where the Watchers have no power. With the Eminence defeated, Uatu reveals to him what he's learned, that what something is, is not the same as what it means. Mourning Peggy, Kihori, Birdie, and Storm join the Watcher on the observational plane to watch over the multiverse. I loved this episode. I thought it was enjoyable not only from an action and spectacle perspective from which it delivered in spades.

59:28
But I think, you know, the episode was also philosophically profound. There were some deep lessons and real heroic struggles going on. I'm really curious as to how the mythology of the Watchers matches what's in the comics. It's a little bit different. Like, Iwatu doesn't watch from the observational plane. He watches from the blue area of the moon. So they play a little bit looser with the mythology of the Watchers overall. But the essence is there.

59:56
And also, like, I've never seen a Watcher throw down like the Watchers threw down in this episode. Holy shit, man. They were badass. Dude, so this battle between the Watchers and the Guardians of the Multiverse may just be the most epic battle to ever happen in any on-screen superhero project ever. It would be up there, for sure. Absolutely. Just in terms of epicness? Yeah, you might be right.

01:00:22
I mean, but the What If series has always had epic action. You take a look at the Guardians of the Multiverse against Infinity Ultron from the first season. And then you have Khori and Captain Carter against Strange Supreme in the second season where they were using all of those cool universe destroying artifacts against him and stuff. But yeah, I think this episode was the best of the lot.

01:00:43
and just kind of melted my face from all the awesomeness that it had to show. Like even towards the end, how cool the watchers were and how they were able to manipulate space, time and everything like that. The way they played with physics in this episode I thought was really cool. It was really fascinating when they joined back to back to back and became like one being spinning around almost like the living tribunal. It was really abstract in concept and so interestingly rendered on the screen.

01:01:12
Oh man, and the stakes. Holy cow, like erasing them from every multiverse. That was wild. And yeah, the final battle, the fact that they cracked a planet in half. I was just watching this and I was just like taking notes for like a future duel episode because it's just how cool it was. Yeah, I felt like we were put to shame in terms of how cosmic level fights go. Oh yeah. Right, because we've speculated on duels between cosmic level characters and I don't think they've been nearly as interesting as what we saw on the screen here.

01:01:41
Absolutely not. Like I could only aspire to get as awesome as this final battle was in our Duel speculations We got a separate game up. I have to ask why are there multiple watchers? Like if there's only one multiverse in the comic books who watch who looks over earth 616 So they just never explained that in this show No, the function is a little bit different of the watchers here I'm assuming that they have a whole lot of watchers looking after a whole lot of different parts of the multiverse

01:02:10
I found it interesting that the other two Watchers also had titles. I knew that there was the Eminence, but I didn't know that there was also the Executioner and what else? The Incarnate. That's weird. I can't off the top of my head think about the significance of those three names for those characters. Well in the books, I believe the Watcher that everyone else reports to is just simply known as the One, and they kind of like deposit all their knowledge there. But I like the names of the Eminence, the Executioner, and

01:02:40
incarnate. I think it makes them sound pretty badass. It's almost like one is a creator, one is a preserver, and one is a destroyer. Kind of like Hindu mythology. That's pretty cool. Yeah. But essentially, they almost played like God. And the philosophical questions in this episode almost border on the theological because it's essentially asking, well, why does God allow bad things to happen? And in that regard, Uatu is almost like a Lucifer type character.

01:03:09
where he's rebelling against the higher order. Yeah, you're right. I didn't even really think about that. That's pretty interesting. The concepts of like to preserve something when only needs to observe it, that was fascinating. There was a statement posited by one of the watchers that to essentially be able to see something from all sides, you cannot have a side. And Watu's response was, but things have changed. I didn't think there was a good answer at all. I don't understand like.

01:03:36
What changed? I didn't think they explained that well enough. No, they definitely could have dedicated, you know, an entire season toward the philosophical questions that were raised during this episode, I think, and really get into Uatu's mindset of why he chose to do the things that he did. Besides the fact that, you know, everyone is special and injustices need to be righted. But I think for the purposes of this episode, that was enough explanation for me. I still think I'm on the side of the eminence and his buddies.

01:04:04
because I don't think Watu put up a good enough debate, but no, yeah, it was still a fantastic episode, just for going harder on the philosophy than it needed to. Yeah, I gotta say I'm on the side of Watu. I think injustices need to be righted, and I think if you don't think that, then you're not a very good superhero candidate, Jonathan. No, I think that sometimes you do just need to observe things, that not all injustices can be righted, and not everything that you see as an injustice is an injustice.

01:04:33
because if you look down the line, maybe it all turns out for the better in the end anyway. Maybe if you look at the very end of things, things are good. You know, we can't always see the consequences of correcting certain things that you feel like you need to be corrected. Superheroes are guilty sometimes of playing God, and I think it's hard to know where that line is before you cross it. Uatu, you know, definitely has the eyes of a watcher, so you can kind of see everything. So maybe he did know.

01:05:01
But I don't understand then why he was disagreeing with people who also had his power. Because they weren't looking closely like he was probably. I don't know, they explore these ideas, I remember in the Captain Marvel comic book series back when Genisvel, who is the son of Marvel, was in the role. And he gained cosmic awareness and he basically was driven insane by questions like these. Whether or not to save one person or whether or not to save a whole planet of people. And the effects.

01:05:30
that resulted from his actions and he could see everything and he ended up destroying the entire universe and then recreating it basically. It was a really interesting read but I don't want to drive myself crazy thinking about some of these answers. One of the coolest things I thought about this episode was at the very end when the Watchers kind of like signing off, we got to see multiversal variants of characters like Riri Williams as the Punisher, he had like Thanos as Wolverine, a Samurai Ghost

01:06:00
That was all really cool to see. It makes me want the show to go on forever. Yeah, I would have loved to have seen some of those episodes rather than some of the episodes we got in this season. Absolutely. But that's the end of the show overall. The episodes in this season were pretty typical of the series as a whole in that they were hit or miss. There were some episodes that I really didn't like this season. There were some episodes that I absolutely loved. And I think when the show is doing well, it's really playing up to its potential. And when it's not.

01:06:29
it's really squandering that potential. And yeah, though I'd say the show did squander its own potential somewhat here in this season due to its hit or miss nature, I think it ends with a bang, not a whimper, due to its spectacular action and meaningful themes. I'm gonna give this season three and a half stars, a fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Again, I liked five out of the eight episodes here. Overall, I still think season two was the best. Yeah, I think season two had the best questions, but like I said earlier,

01:06:56
I also think that the best episodes of the series as a whole were the final two of season three, but I get it. I'd be interested in hearing what the listeners think, so be sure to reach out to us guys on Discord if you're a patron, or on Instagram. But that does it for this review. AJ9K helped close us out.

01:07:16
Thanks for listening to Dynamic Duel. Visit the show's website at dynamicDuel.com and follow us on Instagram at dynamicDuelpodcast. You can support the show on Patreon at patreon.com slash dynamicDuel and joining a tier that works for you, or by rating and reviewing Dynamic Duel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podchaser or on our website. Don't forget to listen to the other shows in the DynaMic Podcast Network, including Max Destruction, Senjoh World and Console Combat.

01:07:46
In our next episode, as a tie into this review, we will be doing a duel between the monitor and the watcher. Yeah, I didn't know how we were going to do this duel with the watcher prior to seeing the final episode of What If Season 3, but now I'm totally game for it. It's going to be fucking epic as hell, hopefully. So look forward to that next week. That does it for this episode. We want to give a big thanks to our executive producers, Ken Johnson, John Strosky, Zachary Hepburn, Dustin Balcom.

01:08:14
If everyone is someone, then someone is everyone. But if no one is everyone, and no one is also no one, then someone is also no one, therefore your mama.