What If…? 2×04 shook off the drudgery of the predictable previous episode and gave us something truly unique in “What If… Iron Man Crashed Into the Grandmaster?” And it did so in a way that would have changed Tony’s story in its entirety. Because at the end of the first Avengers, he was experiencing this cataclysmic horror at the hands of aliens that wanted to destroy New York City. But instead of making it home, he traversed time and space and ended up at the Grandmaster’s planet Sakaar. From there we got to see Tony do what he does best: prove people or aliens wrong when it comes to who he is and what he stands for. And Sakaar ended up better for it with Valkyrie as their new leader.
Like all great What If…? episodes, it’s always about combining characters we know and love (or hate) to see how their stories would have changed drastically. In this story, Tony took down the Grandmaster with the help of Valkyrie, Korg, Gamora, and a really cute chinchilla. For Tony, this adventure gave him an opportunity to experience alien life in a vastly different way than what he experienced with the Chitauri. For Valkyrie, she had an opportunity to seek redemption for herself and become king way sooner than expected. For Korg, he got to spend less time in those dungeons and now is the hand of the king. And for Gamora, she set about defining the kind of person that she wants to be outside of her father.
Besides all the great character moments that we got to see in What If…? 2×04, this episode was also really creative when it came to the space race and the vehicles they had. It was like NASCAR but with life and death on the line. Each car or chariot was meant to take out the competition and feed into the Grandmaster’s twisted sense of entertainment. Except Tony of course. Tony’s suit transformed into a car and it left me as shook as when a drag queen pulls another reveal on the runway on RuPaul’s Drag Race. And it was quintessential Tony that when you think he’s done, he shows you that he’s just starting.
This episode was also just plain old fun. The stakes were high of course. But there was this edge of fun to everything that happened, even when the Grandmaster died. And this spark reminds me of some of the early days of the MCU and what I used to like about this universe to the point of obsession. Because things have gotten really complicated in the MCU in 2023 to the point that it’s hard to enter into this world unless you want to watch tons of movies and TV shows. But this episode of What If…?, gives a different entry point into this world and simplifies things. And I really hope that What If…? explorers what comes after this for Tony, Valkyrie, Korg, and Gamora. Because they’ve changed the world and a ton of movies that follow the first Avengers in one simple episode.
New episodes of What If…? will be released daily from December 22nd to December 30th on Disney+.
