What If…1x06: What If Killmonger Rescued Tony Stark

[jedi_of_urth]

So I was scrolling back through my recent entries, and realized something bizarre, that I had forgotten to post one of my What If reviews. This is actually somewhat hysterical to me as it was for the episode I regularly forget happened.

Hmm, maybe I should check and see if there were any other forgotten posts lately…


What If…1x06: What If Killmonger Rescued Tony Stark

I suppose in the end I feel about this one kind of how I feel about Black Panther; I don’t really like it that much, it kind of bugs me, but I mostly am just super meh about it. Sure, one day I should actually get on the project of reviewing the MCU movies, I keep meaning to do it, but I haven’t done it yet.

One of my big problems with Black Panther is that I really don’t like Killmonger, and I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to. The vibe I get is that I’m supposed to see him as evil but kind of right; but I don’t think he’s right at all so I’m left with just evil. His backstory is a little sympathetic, but I don’t think it justifies any of what he does and I have some serious questions for his world view that still aren’t addressed here (like, he really just seems like a race supremacist just not in the way people usually mean that and who happened to grow up in an environment where not only was he not seen as superior but his feelings of superiority just made him more bitter. Like what are his views of Chinese concentration camps or women’s rights in Arab countries? He’s not about helping the oppressed, he just wants to overturn the (perceived and definitely more complicated than he acknowledges) racial hierarchy around him).

…I kind of meant to leave that for if and when I ever review the movie, but it is slightly relevant to one of my complaints about this episode in how it uses Rhodey. Because I don’t like the words they give him about why he’s serving, even as an answer to Killmonger. Rhodey is in the air force, because he believes in serving the country, not because he’s trying to change it; I will grant it as something he isn’t opposed to, but it’s not why he does it. But because this is more focused on being a Black Panther story than an Iron Man one, Rhodey has to get caught up in the messaging of Black Panther.

Really, this story doesn’t seem to quite get the Iron Man cast. It probably doesn’t help that basically none of the cast came back and you can largely tell that those are the wrong voices. Mainly the problem is that this isn’t an Iron Man story, it’s trying to have a Killmonger focused story, when I still don’t like Killmonger.

Another element of the problem is it’s basically just crashing Iron Man and Black Panther together without thinking about the larger world built in the MCU. Where’s SHIELD in all this? Or Hydra, however you look at it? Was T’Challa already the Black Panther at the time of IM1? Would he have had the kind of suit he has when I would have thought Shuri made those later (and we know he wasn’t using nano-tech until BP)? I have questions and things that don’t seem like they fit into the world of this AU very well.

I don’t think this episode is going to sit with me well as I sit with it. I’ll either forget about it an hour after I’m done writing this review (editing note: this was clearly true, and kind of ironic), or I’ll keep coming up with little things that nag at me about it. There isn’t anything that just wrecks it necessarily, but it’s got some death by a thousand bites going on.

Is it wrong that I kind of hope this is the last episode with T’Challa in it? It seems kind of appropriate that we leave him on the afterlife plain, waiting for others to come to him. I am sure they’ll find a way to use him somehow in the BP sequel, but it’s not a thing yet and I’m okay with this being where we see him last.

(editing note -from when I meant to post this-: I had indeed completely forgotten this episode existed. Like, asking myself how many episodes were left in the season kind of forgetting. It could have been eight episodes, that would be logical. I may have forgotten what story came before the final arc, but I knew there was one there. This one I completely forgot.) (And then I forgot it again.)

Comments

[hamsterwoman]

Heh, I'm glad you forgot to post this one originally, because this time I got to see it :)

It was interesting to read how forgettable this episode was for you, because it was one of my favorite ones. I do like Killmonger (he was my favorite thing about Black Panther, which I also liked on the whole), but I also liked it for the Tony content -- I find the interaction between the two of them quite interesting.

(How the timeline and whatever works with the larger MCU timeline I have no idea... not sure if it's supposed to, but I wasn't sure if any of the episodes worked on that level, or at least tried not to think too hard about it.)

[jedi_of_urth]

Having mostly forgotten about it, I don't remember how I felt about the Tony content. On the whole I do remember thinking that it seemed like What If didn't really like Tony very much and that was something that annoyed me, as Tony is my favorite character (in movie level canon). I seem to recall thinking that some of what was here worked, but then Tony was dead halfway through the story. Plus the story seemed to be taking Killmonger's side and that bugs me.

Because yeah, I think you and I might have come at it from pretty different angles regarding Killmonger and Black Panther. I really don't like Killmonger, either the character or his presentation in the movie (or here); I just don't find him compelling on almost any level. Maybe the acting, but I think that ultimately contributes to me feeling like the show wants me to take his side and yet I can't, which kind of makes it worse. He's part of what drags Black Panther down to a meh movie for me.

You are, as always, welcome to go back and read my other reactions. For more controversial opinions like Steve Rogers is the Worst.

[hamsterwoman]

On the whole I do remember thinking that it seemed like What If didn't really like Tony very much and that was something that annoyed me, as Tony is my favorite character

I could definitely see reaching that conclusion -- I noticed Tony kept getting killed off in episode after episode (and maybe part of that was that they didn't have RDJ to do the voice, and wanted to use Tony sparingly, but they didn't have to KILL HIM to have him offscreen, so it did start looking vindictive after a couple of episodes of this trend). Tony is my favorite MCU character, too, but somehow that did not interfere with my enjoyment of What If..., I do actually wonder why... -- I guess I was seeing it as a distinct thing that didn't even necessarily have the same Tony?

me feeling like the show wants me to take his side and yet I can't, which kind of makes it worse.

For me, Killmonger is a similar kind of antagonist as Magneto (movie-verse Magneto in particular) -- I don't feel like the story expects us to think he's right, but I do like it that their motives make sense to them, and I can see how they would plausibly arise given their experiences (I do feel like Magneto has better reasons for his attitude, given what he's lived through, than Killmonger does). But anyway, that's just why he works for me -- that of course doesn't mean he has to work for anyone else.

You are, as always, welcome to go back and read my other reactions. For more controversial opinions like Steve Rogers is the Worst.

Haha, that is a hot take! (I may well go back and read up when I have a chance, at least on the other episodes I had particularly strong opinions about.)

Oh, speaking of things I should do when I have time -- I haven't forgotten about your Sheridan meme prompt from, like, two months ago, I just haven't had time to get back to that one (but I did have a blast filling out the other memes for your other prompts :)

[jedi_of_urth]

but they didn't have to KILL HIM to have him offscreen, so it did start looking vindictive after a couple of episodes of this trend). Tony is my favorite MCU character, too, but somehow that did not interfere with my enjoyment of What If

It wasn’t my main problem with What If, but it did seem to be there. I found most of the plots weak and only a couple of the premises interested me, and the character work seemed pretty flawed most of the time. Partly because while these aren’t our versions of the characters, they’re very much relying on our knowledge of who they are in the MCU universe when changes are made for the different worlds.

And I do agree that not having RDJ was probably a contributing factor to how Tony was portrayed. On the other hand, it seems there was supposed to be an episode that set up the versions of him and Gamora we see, so they had planned to do more with him in spite of lacking RDJ. Really, a lot of my opinion that this show was anti-Tony came from the last couple episodes more than this one; but that also hardened my view that this show was largely only interested in focusing on Tony’s negative qualities instead of everything else.

For me, Killmonger is a similar kind of antagonist as Magneto (movie-verse Magneto in particular)

I can see a case for that. But where I do find Magneto sympathetic, I don’t with Killmonger. Black Panther as a movie and Killmonger as a character made very little impact on me since I found it so meh, but the thing that lingered with me was not liking Killmonger; and feeling like the story didn’t understand how wrong he was.

This actually isn’t entirely different from what I’ll have to say about Cap, but we’ll get there.

I think the X-men movies had a better handle on how Magneto was wrong for the right reasons, a sympathetic and understandable -bad guy-. I think, in part, I have a better handle on who Magneto sees as the enemy, and why; and what he’s afraid of. I can’t line up Killmonger’s motivations into a picture that makes sense. For you it’s enough that it makes sense to him, but it doesn’t work with me. To me it comes across as all of these motives are contributing factors, but at any given moment he just picks whichever one suits to try and explain his goal at any given moment. Which doesn’t tell me anything about what actually motivates him towards those goals besides plot and maybe his own superiority complex (who is superior to, everyone).

But that’s going on fairly dim memories of the movie, and not much better recall of this episode.

Haha, that is a hot take!

Yeah, it basically boils down to two things:
-Stave hasn’t made a single right decision since TFA (maybe the Avengers), and I don’t think the narrative knows it.
-Stave is never the one to suffer the consequences for his dumb decisions. He shirks responsibility for the fallout of his choices but is held up as some sort of moral paragon because it was his sense of right and wrong that motivated the initial choice without consideration for the aftermath.

Oh, and the cherry on top: I never liked Steve/Peggy. It’s Peggy/Daniel forever; the more the MCU tries to take it away from me, the tighter I hold on to it.