This review contains spoilers for Episode 9
What If…? finally comes to a close this week, giving us a team up not unlike the one that occurred in the original Avengers Assemble in 2012. Right off the bat, it's fair to say that a lot like the Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame situation, the set up to this was more entertaining than the climax. Seeing a new version of Ultron completely destroy almost the entirety of the multiverse was an exciting and thrilling experience. Seeing an extremely ragtag group of heroes join forces to fight him wasn't quite as cool. Though that's not to say it completely lacked a cool factor, but there were a lot of questions raised.
The most important question to ask this finale is why did The Watcher select these particular versions of these characters to become the Guardians of the Multiverse? Other than the fact that these were the characters that we've been introduced to? Out of all the Thors that the Watcher could have chosen, why did he pick the most immature and childish version? Surely a more somber and grounded Thor, more like the one we see in Age of Ultron, would be more reliable in a fight? The same goes for Killmonger, why him? He's a villain, how can he be trusted? Indeed he's also not really that powerful, the same going for Star Lord. No matter who is under the Star Lord helmet, Peter Quill and T'Challa are both still just more well equipped versions of Han Solo. Why didn't The Watcher just gather up a team of various Thors and Wandas to take down this multiversal threat?
The introduction of a Gamora who has killed her father was interesting, but it would have been nice to have given her a whole episode. She seemed to have an intriguing world that she resided in, it would have been cool to find out why Tony Stark was dressed in that very different Iron Man suit. Of course, like with Captain Carter, there's a possibility that these characters will be further explored in series 2, so watch this space.
With the niggling nit picks aside, this episode was still a lot of fun. There were great musical queues to all the characters, the moment where the Guardians do the iconic Avengers team up stance is a very nice little nod and it was great to hear so many voices that actually matched the characters.
It did feel like this uber-powerful version of Ultron was defeated slightly too easily, given that it took every single MCU character to defeat Thanos without his Infinity Gauntlet and this version of Ultron killed Thanos with the Gauntlet with basically a single glance. It seems unbelievable that a small group of heroes, some of whom are powerless, would be able to kill him. Then again, this leads more into the issue of having this character in a 30 minute show.
The finale of What If…? rounds up the first season very nicely. It's a lot of fun, despite the fact that it's clearly not been very well thought through. Though it's probably better for the next series to be a complete anthology rather than another build up to a forced team up.
All of What If…? Is now available to stream on Disney +
