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tori_reviewsSo 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.)
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.)
