Welcome to the Heavy Spoilers show I'm your host Paul aka Michael A Hole Jordan and in this video we're breaking down the sixth episode of Marvel's What If. The episode has several easter eggs that call back to the beginning of the MCU and throughout this we'll be talking about the hidden details, things you missed and also giving our thoughts for where things are going with the series. Because of this there's gonna be a sh** load of spoilers so if you haven't had a chance to check it out then I highly recommend that you check out now. If you enjoy the video then please smash the thumbs up button and make sure you subscribe for a partnership between us that's gonna be more iconic than Kilmonger and Tony Stank. With that out the way, thank you for clicking this, now lets get into the video.
Ok so the episode is heavily tied into not only the beginning of the MCU but also Black Panther and Age Of Ultron. Michael B Jordan returns as Kilmonger who is regarded by many as being the best baddie in the entire Saga. In the same Year that Thanos rocked the universe in Infinity War, Michael B was picking up best villain trophies at the MTV Movie awards and it's clear his character left a big impression. Not only does this see the return of several dead characters such as Tony Stark and Killmonger but we also get Ulysses Claw which Andy Serkis teased at on his Instragram the other day. Now we pick up in the Kunar province of Afghanistan to see Tony stark travelling out to do the Jericho missile demonstration for the US government. Not to get to Woki but I've always viewed Iron Man as a metaphor for War On Terror in the Middle East and Asia.
Don't click out yeah, no but the first Iron Man film is very much about a man who sold weapons in Afghanistan realising how bad that was. Though there's a lot of people who think the MCU only started doing social commentary recently that movie very much set the stage for how superheroes would operate if they existed in real life and the issues that they would wrestle with. After seeing first hand the damage that had been done he decided to take not only his company but also his personal drives and ambitions in a completely different direction. Up until this point his genius
had been used for personal gain at the expense of others whereas he realised that he should try and help the world rather than hinder it. Western might could be used in a positive or negative way and it's interesting to see how things are changed up for this episode with his path completely changing. Now this shot is actually the first thing that we ever got in the MCU and it's amazing how the creative team have perfectly managed to recapture the scenes.
This entire sequence is pulled directly from the opening of Iron Man and it works so well. I've placed the opening side by side here so you can see how they line up but we watch the Funvee convoy as it moves across the desert before moving inside of it to watch Tony taking a photo. Tony mocked the idea of peace because he'd be out of the job with peace but throughout the saga he changed his mind and often used peace as a driving force for his actions. Upon leaving the cave in the first Iron Man film the first thing he did to the helicopter was hold up two fingers to symbolise this.
In the senate hearing during Iron Man 2 he also help up a peace sign and used the phrase peace in our time when talking about why he and Bruce needed to create Ultron. This all came full circle in Avengers Endgame when Tony fully buried the hatchet with Captain America. Upon returning to Avengers HQ and giving him the shield he said that all he wanted was peace and I love how this entire thing comes full circle from this. The first time we were introduced to Tony was his hand holding up a glass of whiskey and the subtext of this scene painted him out as an egotistical and self centred character who was only really out for himself. The MCU is great at bringing things full circle and though it might not be intentional I've always loved the way that we were introduced to Tony with him doing something self centered with his hand which juxtaposes his death in which he's doing something with his hand that's for the betterment of everyone.
Yes it's a reach but back to the episode. Now after the convoy is attacked we see as the ride is fired upon and Tony flees the vehicle to hide behind a rock. I believe he calls out to Obidiah who we learned in Iron Man was actually behind the attack. It's at this point he comes face to face with his legacy when a missile lands and we see the Stark Industries Logo emblazened on the side of it. This iconography would be later brought up in Age of Ultron and Wandavision when Wanda talked about her childhood trauma in which one of Stark's missiles was used to kill her parents and destroy her home. Again looking at all these moments side by side they line up so well and it really shows the attention to detail that Marvel have put into this show. Now whereas in the original
film, the shrapnel from it embedded itself into Tony's armour and then cut through to his heart. Tony is saved by Killmonger who arrives and throws the missile away. Here are two very important distinctions as this was the first time that a suit of armour saved Tony's life whereas in What If he is of course saved by someone that he goes onto strike somewhat of a partnership with. Because of these moments diverting, the MCU version would go onto create a minature Arc reactor and it does kinda annoy me that he didn't call it the Stark Reactor, which is what I would have. Interestingly Killmongers father's ring which he wore around his neck is missing but we'll talk about that later on in the video. Now Kilmonger actually mentions in Black Panther
that he was operating in the Middle East so it makes sense that he'd appear here. When fighting T'Challa he said: "I killed in America, Afghanistan... Iraq. I took life from my own brothers and sisters right here on this continent! And all this death... just so I could kill you." Killmonger was a highly decorated Navy Seal and it's great seeing him back in the same soldiers uniform that he showed up wearing in Wakanda. It's one of the coolest character designs in the MCU for me and it's so good to see it back. Now we learn that Kilmonger had actually infiltrated the Ten Rings which were of course the organisation that kidnapped Tony Stark. The Ten Rings of course popped up recently in Shang-Chi and
the Ten Rings were the criminal Empire that Wenwue had built up over millenia. They're heading inbound but Killmonger saves the day and thus Tony retains some of his more charming personality traits. Cut to a shot of the MCU version in which he hammered away in the cave and created the Mark 1 suit. This black vest that we see is a very important and it has appeared at several points throughout the saga including Iron Man 2, Iron Man 3 and Avengers Endgame. It tends to be used when Tony is at his weakest point and he needs to build his way out and it's very important iconography.
The sound of his hammering also appeared at the end of Avengers Endgame as the credits rolled and with the multiverse opening up there is potential for his return. Now in my first video I said this might be Kilmonger due to the cracks but you know, your boy takes Ls too so shoutouts everyone who said I was wrong. You got me. Next we get the infamous Avengers Assemble shot and close out on Tony's final act. These
are all perfectly recaptured by the What If animators and it makes you realise how much the MCU would change without tony. Now his film of course ended with a press conference with him announcing to the world that he was Iron Man. Here we see a similar scene but instead he's annoucing to the world that Killmonger is here. With him is Obidiah Stane who now is no longer a villain because Tony is continuing down this selfish path, Pepper and Happy. I love how they sneer at Killmonger as they have him sussed out already.
We learn that he's now the chief of security and as we know from Iron Man 3, Happy would end up becoming Forehead of Security which he remarks was meant to be his promotion. Rather than learning any introspective lessons from the cave, this Tony states that they need to build bigger and badder. Amongst the journalists you might also recognise Christine Everheart who did a big...big spread on Tony in the first Iron Man movie. She correctly figured out that Tony was Iron Man and at
the press conference when he announced it she was the only one who didn't stand up because she already knew. Again she asks the tough question and it was actually Christine that spurred Tony onto act when she presented him with Photographs of his weapons. Killmonger reveals he knew of the assasination op and Obidiah panics and tries to shut it down because as Killmonger reveals, he was involved in it. Man brought the receipts and amongst them we see the Ten Rings. In the centre are two swords and you might have noticed in the post credits scene of Shang-Chi that this was changed once [SPOILER} Happy gets to show off his boxing prowess and we journey to Tony's Miama beach house.
Killmonger is appointed as the new COO much to Pepper's disapproval and she of course went onto get this poistion in Iron Man 3. Rhodey arrives and we see him played by Don Cheadle rather than Terrence Howard who of course took the role in the original film. He brings up that Killmonger was from Oakland which is where we were introduced to the character at the start of Black Panther. They travel into tony's garage and we see the set of sports cars that he has including the hot rod on the end which would go onto inspire the colours of the Iron Man Armour. We discover that he's been working on repulsor tech but rather than being for his suit its for the jericho missile which has been minaturised into a portal firearm. See women, size does matter, sometimes the smaller the better.
Killmonger brings up his father's catchphrase that Peace Means Having A bigger stick than the other guy which Tony mentioned during the first Iron Man film. Now as my wife says sometimes it's better to have a smaller stick Paul, and we see Dum-E come in and grab the gun off him. See even Dum-E knows. Dum-E was actually Tony's first invention and it was a cool bit of comedic relief throughout the iron man trilogy. Killmonger says that his father was killed by Gang violence and later see that he kept his ring but rather than having it on show he hid it away so that questions wouldn't be asked about it.
In black panther he has it on show at all times but this changing highlights that his mindstate has changed and he's somewhat hidden his motives away in order to infiltrate Wakanda through a different means. He inspires Tony to create a drone army and as Ivan Vanko said Drone better. Clearly the idea of drones was matched by Vanko who shared similar technological skills and I like that this is somewhat a callback to Iron Man 2 to show us where weapons technology would've gone had Tony not became Iron Man. We see Killmongers design for this which looks like it was ripped right out of Gundam and Tony creates a more efficient design. Now you might catch that the character is starting
to drink more and more and this idea of Tony being an alcoholoic is ripped right out of the pages of Demon in a bottle. In that Tony became dependent on Alcohol and though the MCU dealt somewhat with his mental health issues in Iron Man 3 they never out and out painted him out to be an alcoholic. What I appreciate about What If is that even though it's a cartoon they still go after dark themes and there's a lot of subtext to Tony constantly ordering up drinks. We see him taking the design apart and the scene massively mirrors him creating the Iron Man suit. They even have an operations test which feels like it's ripped right out of Tony testing the flight pattern of the mark too. Jarvis will be put in control of the drones and this
is somewhat this timelines version of him getting to be in a synthetic body. Tony theorises building a minature arc reactor but he shuts the idea down and Killmonger ends up using his father's ring which is made of Vibranium. Tony says his father used the last of it during the war and this was of course to make Cap's shield in the first avenger. It wasn't really the last of it but Wakanda hid away their source and this is why Klaw ended up attacking the country so that he could get more. They scan the ring and this circular mesh that breaks down it's elemental structure. Something similar appeared in Iron Man 2 when Tony was creating a new element and it's sort of like poetry they rhyme.
Realising they need more they reach out to Klaw who is operating out of the salvage yard on the african coast that we first saw pop up in Age Of Ultron. It's at this point that the US military start dealing with black market sellers and this is the type of thing that Tony wanted to avoid in the first Iron Man film. In Age Of Ultron we learned from Klaue that he knew Tony due to the machines speech patterns. Turns out Klaue has a wealth of Vibranium including not only a dora milaje spear but also several containers of the stuff. At this moment the lights go down and it's when bLack Panther rolls into town taking everyone down one by one including Klaues right hand man who you might recognise from Age Of Ultron. This scene including the flash lights and the firing on T'Challa feels like it's ripped right out of the opening of Black Panther and it's such a cool action scene in the middle of the movie. It's kinda heartbreaking and the actor was of course severly ill at this
point but still pushing through it even though every day would've been extremely painful. What If has managed to be the perfect way to say goodbye to his character and he's left behind several brilliant performances in the series. Klaue calls him cuz and the pair were of course cousins and then he uneleashes the paralysing sonic taser which Obidiah had a minature version of in the first film. Killmonger kills T'Challa and takes his armour before revealing his true plans and making a union with Klaue much like how he did in the MCU. Turns out that he's been using Tony's wealth and privelge to open doors that he never could have and he's been working his own agenda in order to overthrow Wakanda.
T'Challa and Rhodey's body are taken away and we see the similarities between the fallen soldier coffins which are carried by the soldiers of their country. We see King T'Chaka, Ramonda and also a younger Shuri. In the timeline we were in 2008 rather than the age she was in Black Panther hence why she's still a kid. I think that happens in 2016 but Homecoming kinda messed everything up so who even knows at this point. Screw you sony. We also see General Ross meeting Rhodey's and you will of course know him from several films in the MCU. T'Chaka goes to the UN and this is similar to the post credits scene of Black Panther.
It also riffs slighlty on Civil War as it was in that that Wakandans had been killed and he was about to address his people being killed at the hands of The Avenngers. We learn that Tony discovered what Killmonger was up to and he used the same holographic technology that appeared in Iron Man 3 to survey the site of the extremis explosion. Killmonger arrives to take him out in his own home and this was somewhat mirrored in Obidiah who did the same thing in the first Iron Man movie.
This time Tony is prepared though and we watch as he activates his own quoute unquoute iron man to kill Killmonger and much in the same way that Tony was able to scan Cap's fight patter and counteract it, the drone can do the same. Killmonger says he's gonna have to freestyle it and his shirt is ripped off revealing the marks that he made for every confirmed kill. There's actually a lot less here than he had in Black Panther and this is obviously because it takes place earlier in the timeline than the MCU one. Using the vibranium spear he impales Tony and does a nice pun about how he didn't want him to make the cut. You might also notice that Tony has a bracelet on and this is similar to the one that he had in The Avengers to line up his suit to his body. I'm guessing that this was used to summon the drone and it's great that Marvel managed to show he was already thinking of automation this early on.
Killmonger drops the great line the difference between you and me is that you can't see the difference between you and me. Killmonger of course said "Just bury me in the ocean with my ancestors that jumped from the ships because they knew death was better than bondage." It's up there for me next to lines like "what is grief if not love perservering" and of course "do you know what happens to a toad when it's struck by lightning" It's at this moment that the Watcher stares over everything and we see that Killmonger pins it on the Wakandans which leads to the US government going to war with them. Every
asset that Stark has is seized and the drones are mass produced which builds Killmonger an army that can take down the Wakandan Kingdom. With Klaue he travels into the jungle which is where the holographic entrance is revealed. Klaue calls Killmonger boy and this is often deemed as a racist term as throughout history White people used the phrase when talking to black people to show that they weren't on equal footing.
Much in the same way that Killmonger took Klaues corpse into Wakanda to infiltrate their security he carries him through after murdering him at point blank range like how he did in Black Panther. He reveals the tattoo under his lip and this was something that he did in Black Pantehr whilst revealing he was Wakandan to Klaue. He's taken before the king and we can catch Okoye to the right hand side. Okoye is the only Dora Milaje member to wear Gold and this is because she is the bodyguard for the King.
It's at this point that T'chaka reveals that he kept Killmonger hidden and this action of course came back to bite the Wakandans in Black Panther much like how it does here. Similar to Tony he's now operating as somewhat of a Trojan horse and hiding his true intentions. He lied about his father being murdered by a gang and T'chaka clearly only accepts him because he believes he doesn't know the truth. Shuri is the only one who suspects anything and it shows off her true intellect. The Americans roll in and under Killmongers command we watch as they wait on the outskirts of Wakanda in a scene that feels very similar to the battle there that happened at the end of Infinity War.
Cut to the Drone centre in Nevada where Ross leads the charge and the shields are opened much like how they were in IW. Their power is seemingly destroyed but this is actually a ruse by Killmonger who activates the drones, this time under his control. It leads to an epic final act in which Killmonger rides into battle against the Drones on the back of a Rhino. These were of course used in the finale of Black Panther and Erik pretty much can't lose because the Drones are of course inder his command.
It's very much a false flag attack that paints him out as the hero and he saves Okoye's life which wins the trust of the Wakandans. The drones are destroyed and Killmonger stabs one through the stark logo summising the destruction of his legacy. We cut to the Wakandan sunset and in Black Panther Killmonger remarked on how his father said that they had the most beautiful ones in the world. Whereas he died whilst looking
over them this is the beginning of a new chapter in his life. He convinces T'Chaka that he should reach out to their brothers and sisters who are in dire need across the world and T'Chaka agrees with him. This was of course his plan in Black Panther but going about it this way has worked out way better for him.
He becomes the black panther and is given the herb that allows one to have the power. On the ancestral plane he sees the spirit of T'Challa who appears in his white garb much like how he did in the film. The pair debate back and forther and it really shows the difference between the characters as we watch Killmonger suit up in the gold uniform that he had in the movie. We see Tony's image is used in memorial and simialr things of course happened in Far From Home in which he becames an inspiring figure due to his sacrifice. The poster says only
you can Avenge Tony Stark and ey, no prize for guessing the wordplay there. Pepper sees the folly in attacking Wakanda and she finds Shuri in her office who of course suspected that her cousin wasn't all that he seemed to be. Now we know from the teasers for What If that Shuri and Pepper will be working together so expect to see a continuation of this story at some point in the season. Now if you've been checking out the trailers for What If them you'll know theres a big Avengers assemble moment with several of the characters from across the series. Amongst these you can catch Party Thor, T'Challord, Thanora and lastly Killmonger in his own Black Panther uniform. I think that the series is clearly heading towards a big big team up moment that will pull a character from each episode and have them come together in order to face off against one giant threat. We already know from the first look that the Strange Supreme version
of the Doc will be meeting with Captain Carter at some point and it just makes a lot of sense to have everyone team up to defeat a giant multiversal enemy that could be destroying everything. Now there was a big episode list leak when the season first started off that said which episodes had which concept and what order they would be coming in. Last weeks was actually listed as being Party Thors and because this was wrong I thought that the list might be made up, however it did state that Episode 6 would be the Killmonger one so bar that episode it's got everything right.
The list stated that the final episode would be Ultron Infinite and judging by the Hundai commercial we have a legion of Ultron bots that the heroes are teaming up to destroy. Now again the list so far has got everything right except for the Party Thor one so there is still potential that it could be wrong but judging by everything that's going on around the series it does look pretty accurate. There are rumours that Disney weren't getting the expected viewership for the series so after the Doctor Strange one they moved up the Zombies episode to help create some hype.
I still think that it's all heading towards a big team up because well...we've seen the trailers but whether the Ultron thing is true or not remains to be seen. However I'd love to see this Kilmonger amongst the ranks as he's such a great character. Marvel are of course known for building their teams up bit by bit and not only does it look like they're doing that with the dark avengers but also the what if heroes which I think will work really well.
Now as for my thoughts on the episode as a whole I think this probably ranks amongst the middle of the list for me. Zombies was probably my favourite with the Doctor Strange Episode in a very close second. However this one was great and I think it's probably better than all the other ones below it. I can't believe it's been six weeks now and the series has flown by but I've really enjoyed it. I dunno if I'm gonna include everything in my bi monthly MCU binge that I do but I think there are some episodes, this one included that i'll go back to every time as it worked really well. If Tony's destiny was changed early on then it has massive ramifications on the MCU and outside of the Zombies episode this is the one that I really hope gets somewhat of a continuation in the second season.
Now before we close up the video quick spoiler alert for some new leaks on Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. If you wanna dive out the vid then please hit the thumbs up on the way out and don't let the door hit you on the way back next week. You succccka. Anyway there's been a big plot leak for Doctor Strange In the Multiverse Of Madness dropped that says America Chavez will be in the film and that she will have the ability to open portals across the multiverse.
She will apparently come from a dimension in which she is chased by an evil doctor strange who is none other than What If's Strange Supreme. Now we did talk about an interview with Benedict Cumberbatch last week in which he had to hide his face because he had some spoilers for the film on and now knowing what we know I think it makes a lot of sense that this would be Strange Supreme. Anyway that's just a minor little update on what's happening with the ongoing story and I'd of course love to hear your thoughts on the brand new What if episode.
Make sure you drop em below and we're running a competition right now and giving away 3 copies of the Zack Snyder DC Trilogy on the 30th Of September. All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning is like the video, make sure you subscribe with notifications on and drop a comment below with your thoughts on the episode. We pick the comments at random at the end of the month and the winners of the last one are on screen right now so message me @heavySpoilers if that's you. If you want something else to watch then make sure you check out our breakdown of perfect scene in Spider-Man Homecoming. We break down the entire thing so it's definitely worth checking out if you wanna know more.
With that out the way thank you for sitting through the video, I’ve been Paul and I’ll see you next time. Take care, Peace
2021-09-16