Spoilers What If...? discussion thread

MCU Captain Marvel looks even more like a Super Saiyan in animation than she did in live action.

 

Unless they actually got them from the prime timeline's past and then returned them...

Only working in their universe is consistent with the comics: both Hickman's Avengers books and the JL/Avengers cross over.

 

Wow.. what an epic episode. To me easily the best episode in this season and that includes the fantastic Evil Dr. Strange episode that was my frontrunner up until now.

What if Ultron won? That is indeed a scary proposition and in the first few minutes we see how that plays out and it's heartbreaking and depressing but some small sliver of hope remains with Natascha and Clint not giving up by grasping at straws. However i was not expecting this to blow up so spectacularly in scope and even though this is a spoiler thread i won't talk about the details for now until most of us have seen it but it's an epic episode full of twists and turns and the biggest twist comes right at the end and i nearly leapt out of my seat yelling " They can't stop now!!"

Be prepared for one hell of a ride!

 

I liked it well enough, though there were some minor issues here and there. It's a bit iffy that Ultron with one stone can insta-kill Thanos with five of them. And I've got to say neither Natasha nor Clint really feel like the characters I know here, though I suppose these events are the most devastating they've ever encountered, so it's not implausible that they've been deeply affected. Also, I like the Zola angle overall, but if I understand their plan correctly wouldn't it just end up with Arnim Zola in control of a super robot body and all six Infinity Stones? I mean, he'd still be an improvement over the guy who wants to destroy literally everything but, eh...

That said, I mostly enjoyed it overall and I really loved all the stuff with the Watcher. Honestly my disappointment is probably at least partially because of too much time spent overthinking things last week, where my mind spun whole theories about maybe it wouldn't be a story about Ultron winning but perhaps one about Ultron and Vision merging into a single entity and that maybe the Ultron army might even be the good guys fighting to save the multiverse from the Marvel Zombie plague.

In any case, my original instincts about Ultron invading the multiverse were correct and this is clearly going to lead to a big multiverse team-up for the final episode which I am very much looking forward to. Who do we think is going to be on this team of (dare we call them?) Exiles?

Dark Strange is clearly there and presumably Black Widow and Zola have to be there. I'd bet highly on Captain Carter and Star-T'Challa. Party Thor is an obvious possibility given the end of his episode. Does there need to be a hero from each episode or will they perhaps leave some out? I could see King N'Jadaka showing up. Maybe Nick Fury from the ant-man episode? A really left-field possibility would be zombie Scarlet Witch.

 

It was a pretty cool episode leaving one wanting a resolution right now instead of next week.
And I’m sure we will get both an analogue team up shot of alternate universe Avengers and a combined infinity stones/Watcher “snap” scene returning everything to “normal” in the multiverse.

However, some things to ponder on how we even got here.

It all started with Ultron winning, so he ended up in Vision’s body, or rather Vision didn’t end up in his.
I don’t remember, but was the original Android body equipped with the Mind Stone already, or was that added by Tony in his attempt to hijack the body for Jarvis?
And if so, what happened to enable Ultron to get rid of Jarvis for good this time and win?

Second thing. When Thanos arrived on Earth he already had all other 5 Infinity Stones.
All of them where off world at the time of AofU, so shouldn’t intersect with Events on Earth too much, except one.
Where exactly did he get the Time Stone, which should still be housed in the Eye of Agamotto, savely guarded by the Sorcerer Supreme (unsure of the timeline, but I think it wasn’t yet Strange)?
Something else must have been drastically different for Thanos to make his move this early and manage to retrieve the mind stone in the midst of the Ultron Chaos.

 

Gods damn, that was incredible. This episode and presumably the next episode are properly capturing the potential of viewing the wide multiverse and dealing with a threat so powerful, so chaotic, so ruthless that it threatens all of their existences.

Unsurprisingly, I was correct in my assumption from the dark ending of the otherwise gleeful nature of last week's episode that this episode would follow up on that ending and how Ultron won...although I wasn't quite satisfied on the particulars of how Ultron got the upper hand. Yes, I get that he was able to upload into the vibranium body and gained access the nuclear codes as a result, but how was he able to get uploaded in time? What decision in that universe allowed him the achieve that? Was it that Wanda didn't question his motives? Did she not even get a chance to glimpse into his mind? Did that occur because she simply didn't place her hand on the cradle? Or did Ultron decide to eliminate her and Quicksilver before they became a threat? I wish the episode had taken a moment to show us what precise was the divergence that allowed Ultron to win.

One small curiosity that episode didn't address (in retrospect, more than one): Thanos shows up with five of the Infinity Stones...including the Soul Stone. So how did he get hold of it? We saw Gamora fighting alongside with the rest of the Guardians on The Sovereign. Which actually raises another question: What prompted Thanos to seek out the Stones sooner, because it appears between Ultron's activities and the Guardians' presence on The Sovereign, Thanos began collecting them sooner than he did in our universe? Furthermore, how was he able to get hold of the Time Stone and not realize that there was a powerful threat on Earth with the Mind Stone? He was clearly caught completely unaware when he showed up and I don't think even his level of arrogance would've allowed him to walk into that so blindly.

Getting back to the core of the story, I loved seeing Nat and Clint become the last survivors on Earth, although it is a little weird that didn't seem to be suffering from radiation poisoning. I also loved that it led to them seeking out a second copy of Zola, which apparently was in the same Siberian facility that appeared in Civil War even though it didn't come up there, but whatever. My heart broke when Clint decided to sacrifice himself to save Nat and Zola, a beautiful parallel to Nat's sacrifice in Endgame.

Seeing Uatu taken unaware by Ultron's ability to perceive him was a great moment, even if it felt a little off. For one, Dark Strange already id that previously, so surely Uatu should've been aware that such a thing could happen again and he would take the necessary precautions to prevent that from happening again (but I suppose that could be waved off as arrogance on his part). It's also a little weird to see that play out in such a manner considering how the previous episode ended. I guess we're to assume that Uatu saw that moment and decided to search through the multiverse to see how that Ultron came into being...but that makes it all the more peculiar that he didn't take the precautions to prevent Ultron from observing him and gaining access to his realm, which appears to be a nexus for the multiverse.

Lastly, I loved the (albeit weird) slugfest between Ultron and Uatu and how they kept smashing through the various universes. What if...Steve Rogers became president was the most obvious one they visited but I wonder if eagle-eyed viewers are able to tell if there were any other apparent universes they visited other than simply being in the presence of certain people such as Wakandans and Skrulls.

I'm very excited to see the final episode of the season with Uatu teaming up with Dark Strange to presumably gather up other worthy heroes of the multiverse to fight Ultron. Things are about to get really crazy!

We have an idea of who at least are on the team considering the Avengers pose we see in the first trailer (Star-T'Challa, King N'Jadaka, Captain Carter, Party Thor...and a yet-to-be-seen Gamora). Dark Strange was already a safe beat before the ending of this episode considering the second trailer showed a moment between him and Captain Carter.

Which leaves the question about anyone else. I definitely would love to see more Fury but I wouldn't be surprised if he's absent. I like your idea of Zombie Wanda which would be a great way to tie-in the Zombieverse, but on the other hand, I would love to see Headjar Scott on the team.

Now that I think about it, if the showrunners decide to include one person from each episode, which seems likely considering the ones we already know who are definitely part of the team, then it seems more likely that Fury will be there, too. Which leaves the question of whether it'll be Headjar Scott or Zombie Wanda or someone else from the Zombieverse. Plot twist: Zombie Thanos with his Infinity Stones!

 

Well, I guess it was too much to expect a pure anthology series in this day and age. Everything has to have an arc and a big finale. Not that it isn't worthwhile to finally do a story focusing on the Watcher, I guess. I loved the bit where he was reacting to Clint and Natasha like a viewer on the edge of his seat. "No, no, don't give up, it's right there!" (Though the attempt to represent Cyrillic by reversing the R in "Arnim Zola" was stupid, because that symbol represents "ya," not "r." "Arnim Zola" in Cyrillic would be Арним Зола.)

I find it hard to believe Ultron could defeat Thanos so effortlessly when Thanos had five of the six Infinity Stones. Also, why did it look like Thanos was just a hollow shell when he was bisected? Not that I wanted to see gore, but I think they went too far in the other direction.

I also found it pretty silly that just destroying the few planets we've seen so far in the MCU represented conquering the entire universe. The universe is effectively infinite, so it would take an effectively infinite amount of time to conquer it.

It was also weird that Uatu was telling the story in the past tense while it was happening live, and that he was narrating Ultron becoming aware of him without even realizing what it was he was saying. That raises so many questions. Who is he narrating to? Does the narration somehow control him without him being fully aware of where it's taking him? Maybe his perception of time is different from ours, blurring the past, present, and future, so he's experiencing it in retrospect and in real time simultaneously.

This is probably the episode with the fewest movie cast members returning -- only Jeremy Renner, Toby Jones, and Benedict Cumberbatch. Well, also Ross Marquand, technically, but he was playing Ultron instead of his movie role of Red Skull. Everyone else was the usual cast of understudies -- Lake Bell as Black Widow, Alexandra Daniels as Captain Marvel, and cameos by Mick Wingert as Tony Stark and Josh Keaton as Steve Rogers.

 

What is Ultron making his clones from, stormtrooper shells? I thought Lake Bell dove in a little too deep on the monotone with Black Widow but Jeffrey Wright had a lovely turn with Uatu earning his paycheck. I agree with some of the problems laid out above but the actual Uatu/Ultron fight was rather nifty even bringing in some Kirby crackle. While the big MCU style final climax is familiar territory next week has potential to be pretty epic.

 

Thanos got his "half" theme, tho IDK how it was that easy with 1 stone vs 5 stones.

 

I think Thanos was just completely taken by surprise.

Ultron barely took a second look at him before one hitting him, doing what Thor should have done.

 

I guess a lot of people here didn't watch any of the trailers? There were shots of the team up of Multiverse heroes/anti-heroes in them.

Yeah, Ultron took Thanos completely by surprise. He wasn't prepared.

The first planet they crashed on looked a lot like Felucia from Star Wars. The plant life was identical.

 

Yup, that seemed pretty clear to me. I don't know why people are overthinking the scene.

...says the guy who probably overthought the divergence point.

Oh, of course! I knew that vegetation looked familiar but that moment happened so quickly that I didn't have time to process it.

Come to think of it, didn't the producers say they snuck in a Star Wars Easter Egg? I think that came up in the story where they said they wanted to use Luke but the idea was nixed by the higher ups.

 

Is that a crossover opportunity I sense???

 

Yes, but only in Lego form!

 

I was not expecting this show to end up having an actual, on-going plot of its own, but I'm certainly not complaining. With Ultron now posing a threat to the whole multiverse, I kind of want to see him take on some iteration of Kang. But it's probably just going to be resolved in the next episode.

 

Great episode, some nitpicks but I was hooked throughout. Loved seeing more of The Watcher in a different light, worried, overpowered. It's a nice bit of light shed on a character that seems omnipotent most of the time.

 

This story is actually more in tune with the actual Age of Ultron comic than the movie.

 

I wondered that when Uatu said "Age of Ultron." I've never read the comic but I knew the film was mostly in name only.

 

I love both anthology AND big arcs. I understand that with the comics, it was just anthology, right? I had kinda hoped that here too. But with everything with the multiverse and such in the MCU at the moment, I was expecting this to be big and connected to the multiverse for a while, to a point where I'm expecting an announcement of Jeffrey Wright portraying the live action Watcher in a movie after this season of What If is over.