Watching – Marvel What If … ? Season 2 Ep 5 & 6

Two very different What If … ? episodes.

One is a return to a previous What If … ? character / world and another creating an entirely new one.

Episode 2.5 – “What If … Captain Carter Fought the Hydra Stomper?”

Up front confession, I’m a fan of Captain Carter, with or without super powers so I was happy to see her returned to. I’d watch a whole mini series based around her and her alternate world so this was welcome.

This episode was very much a response to Captain America: Winter Soldier and Black Widow movies, starting off with Senator James “Bucky” Barnes and a rogue Hydra Stomper and leading Captain Carter and the Black Widow to the site of a Red Room training site. The underlying themes of loyalty, trust, and mental domination from those movies are played to and I thought it was well done. The final scene hints at the series two story arch but with no clues as to what has gone wrong with the multiverse this time.

Episode 2.6 “What If … Kahhori Reshaped the World”

As the episode opened up, I had some high hopes for one of two alternatives. Alternative one would be involving one of the Native American super heroes of Marvel like Thunderbird or Forge or Mirage (three mutants setting things up for an X-Men introduction) or even Wyatt Wingfoot (another step towards the Fantastic Four introduction to the MCU) or the remote chance of Shaman or Talisman from Alpha Flight. Alternative two would be a connection to the Marvel 1602 series by Neil Gaiman and Andy Kubert.

I got neither. What I got was a new character who connects to the Tesseract, the MCU equivalent of the Cosmic Cube. I’ll overlook a lot when a Cosmic Cube is involved, even the controversial Secret Empire (2017) story arc, just like I will for a Star Trek episode that randomly throws a time warp or tech malfunction of the teleporter (ST:TOS), holodeck (ST:TNG), or replicator (ST:DS9 and ST:VOY). It’s a universal plot device for explaining away the all those pesky plot holes.

The short version with minimal spoilers is that Kahhori gains superpowers and becomes a superhero of her people in defense against invaders. Like the MCU Scarlet Witch, exposure to the Tesseract gives her essentially the Power Cosmic and whatever abilities she needs at the moment like speed and telekinesis. It felt a lot like a filler issue to create a character that didn’t need to be there when there’s a whole universe of characters who could fill that role, either as a wielder of cosmic power like Adam Warlock (one closer to the comic version than the recent movie version) or a Native American superhero enhanced by exposure (I’d support Thunderbird or Mirage in this role, even if they did a gender swap or set in another timeline).

I don’t hate Kahhori and she could be a cool character or even a herald of some form of Galactus might be an interesting connection into the Marvel Multiverse. This episode was an opportunity to take some risks like the use of subtitles with Kanien’kéha, the Mohawk language and I will admit What If … ? as a comic was often used as a testing ground for trying our old character concepts with new twists, and this almost fits the bill but I’m not seeing any sort of connection to previously existing characters here and that bothers me for a What If … ? story. If in the end there’s some sort of Tesseract / Cosmic Cube connection or even a Time Variance Agency intervention or even a cosmic bangle that links her to a pre-existing concept or character I’d be satisfied. Though the more I think about it, connecting to Mirage who creates objects from peoples minds would fit really well.

I came close to an entire rant as to the backstory of the Cosmic Cube and how it has reshaped the Marvel and the DC universes a few times, but I’m putting off that to another time …