Free Guy joins the, still small, pantheon of “good” video game films, immediately ranking up there with other recent entries like Detective Pikachu, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Ready Player One. And not since Ready Player One have I seen a film that captures gaming and gaming culture SO well (this may be the only instance of tea-bagging being genuinely amusing). Meeting Molotov Girl allows Guy to break his programmed loop (I have to admit that I am not a programmer; no doubt there are actual programmers who will watch this and say ‘that’s nonsense’, but the explanations given make enough sense and have enough internal consistency to make a layperson like me go ‘yeah I buy that’) and, in order to try and impress her, he acquires a pair of player sunglasses which, à la They Live, lifts the curtain by allowing him to see things normally only players would be able to see, such as mission options, health packs and the like. Molotov Girl is actually the avatar of Millie (both roles played by Jodie Comer), a programmer with a legal case against the publisher of Free City and its CEO Antwan (played with wonderful “hipster douchebag” energy by Taika Waititi) and is looking for evidence that he stole her code and used it to create the game. In order for Guy to help her he has to level up, and this is where the film uses video game mechanics to its storytelling advantage.

Like GTA or Fortnite, Free City is a sandbox game where the player is free to behave as well or as badly as they wish. But instead of levelling up by causing pain he does so by doing good, and his altruism captures people’s imagination, to the point where “blue shirt guy” becomes a global phenomenon. Much to Antwan’s displeasure, as he thinks that this is ruining the game. The film has several real life YouTubers and Twitch streamers playing themselves—Sean McLoughlin (AKA Jacksepticeye) for instance, a fun little bit of serendipity as some will be aware that, as part of the press for Deadpool 2, he made a video where he and Reynolds played the 2013 Deadpool video game—who end up acting as a Greek chorus, as Guy continues to learn and grow and slowly become more sentient. It’s a fun way of making us think about our online behaviour without being too glib or too preachy. Also like Ready Player One, Free Guy is chock full of Easter eggs, references, and cameos, including one that, when I went to see it, made the entire screen I was in, myself included, go nuts (and that doesn’t happen often in British cinemas).

Great complementary from the rest of the supporting cast—including Joe Keery as Millie’s coding partner Walter “Keys” McKeys and Lil Rel Howery as Guy’s best friend Buddy—help to make the experience akin to getting a shot in the arm of liquid fun, and it seems the majority agree with this assessment. The day after the film’s release, Reynolds himself announced on Twitter that Disney had greenlit a sequel (an ironical development for a film which actively pokes fun at the fact that no one makes original IP anymore and that all people seem to want—or at least what corporations seem to think they want—are franchises and sequels, which Reynolds humorously pointed out). Like he said, if they don’t call it “Albuquerque Boiled Turkey” they will have definitely missed a trick.

What did you think of Free Guy? Tell us in the comments below!

The post Movie Review: Free Guy appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

SPOILERS AHEAD

After the logo and opening titles, we open on a van in the New Mexico desert, mirroring the opening of the first Thor film. Dr Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) and Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings) are on the lookout for activity/phenomena that could indicate extra-terrestrial activity. Well, Jane’s snoring and Darcy’s flicking peanuts into a jar, but then their computer—monitoring the Van Allen radiation belts around the globe—starts beeping. Apparently, two years ago, the same anomaly they’re witnessing struck Star Alpha Icarus and the entire star dimmed and disintegrated. So Jane tries to call S.H.I.E.L.D. to warn them that they could be looking at an alien invasion, but seemingly to no avail. A huge beam of light shoots across the sky and, as Darcy says, “they’re here”. The beam of light lands in front a casino on the Vegas strip, and a booming voice announces: “Citizens of Midgard, your dull lives are about to come to an end”. Everyone looks understandably scared, until the owner of said voice is revealed to be Thor (Chris Hemsworth), who finishes his declaration with “prepare yourselves… for the party prince!”

As the party starts, The Watcher tells us that “more than battles won or lost, it’s relationships that truly define a hero. The people who shape them, their stories.” Thor’s childhood with Loki taught him many lessons but in this universe, instead of raising Loki as his own son, Odin returned him to his people (Laufey looking overjoyed to have his child back), and without his trickster brother to keep him on his toes, Thor would grow into a very different prince.

We then cut to Asgard with Thor and Frigga (Josette Eales) by Odin’s bedside as he goes into the Odinsleep. Afterwards, Frigga is off to her sister’s to celebrate the solstice, and tells Thor that she fully expects him to use the time to study up on the Nine Realms that he will one day rule and warns him not to throw any parties. Thor assures her he’ll behave but the next thing we see is Thor, Lady Sif (Jaimie Alexander), Fandral (Max Mittelman), Volstagg (Fred Tatasciore), and Hogun (David Chen) sneaking into Odin’s treasure room (giving as another glimpse of that “fake” infinity gauntlet Easter egg). Thor is determined not to be a “boring king” like his father and plans to get around Frigga’s “no party” edict by going to ‘the most backward, backwater planet that not even Heimdall pays attention to.’ Earth, in other words.

Speaking of Earth, back in the present the party is in full swing and it’s a smorgasbord of cameos including Yondu and the Ravagers, Skrulls, Skurge, Howard the Duck (Seth Green), members of the Sovereign, the Grandmaster (Jeff Goldbum), Topaz (Rachel House), and various other partygoers from Sakaar. Jane and Darcy arrive and the alien invasion is not what they expected. Jane identifies Thor as the first extra-terrestrial to arrive and we get a slow-mo shot of Thor flipping his hair, complete with romantic music, leading to this particularly hilarious exchange:

Jane: ‘I expected him to look more like…’
Darcy: ‘Like What? E.T. ? And less like a hottie McScotty, beach body Ken, old-school Abercrombie catalogue? I could go on. Let me.’

Jane approaches Thor anyway and they introduce themselves, Jane recognising Thor from his connection to Norse mythology, and we find out that the collapse of Alpha Star was due to one of Thor’s epic parties (a party so epic they lost Fandral for three days and found him in a barn curled up next to a baby goat, whom Fandral named Gary). Jane starts to chastise him for destroying a planet but Thor starts flirting and Jane falls hard.

We then get a montage of the party as it goes on through the night: the Grandmaster once again turns DJ (Thor, Zemo called, he wants his dance moves back); we meet Nebula (Karen Gillan) and Korg (Taika Waititi) at the craps table (‘momma needs a brand-new eye’); Volstagg tries to fly using a water jetpack but crashes into a fountain, which Valkyrie, Drax (Fred Tatasciore) and Sif find hilarious; Darcy and Howard the Duck are married by an Elvis impersonator, and Thor and Jane get matching tattoos (a Mjolnir that says ‘magic’ for her and a microscope that says ‘science’ for him).

Then we have the inevitable morning after as they wake up hungover in a trashed hotel room, underwear and other items strewn about, Fandral is covered in Possums and Rocket Racoon is asleep in the sink. Then S.H.I.E.L.D—in the form of Brock Rumlow (Frank Grillo) and Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders)—literally come knocking, as it seems they paid attention Jane’s attempt to contact them after all. Maria introduces herself as the ‘Acting Director’ of S.H.I.E.L.D. and a flashback reveals why: Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) tried to shut the party down before someone got hurt, only for that someone to be him when Korg ploughed into him cannonballing into the fountain; he’s still unconscious. Since Jane was the first to warn them of this alien “threat” Maria hopes she’ll also be the key to eliminating it.

We then cut to a helicarrier hovering above Vegas. Coulson (Clark Gregg) informs them that Thor is spreading the party atmosphere worldwide—leaving Jane a bit miffed that he left without saying anything—and is now in Paris. Rumlow arrives with a briefcase containing ‘the last resort’ which Jane panics at as it sounds very final. She tells Maria that this is Earth’s first encounter with alien life and how they react now will affect the tone of diplomatic relations between their worlds for generations to come. But Maria tells her that this isn’t S.H.I.E.L.D.’s first ‘alien rodeo’, as the briefcase is opened to reveal Captain Marvel’s pager.

In Paris, Thor’s party continues (even the Golden High Priestess of the Sovereign has got in on the act) and we’re just in time to meet some new arrivals: Loki (Tom Hiddleston), who in this universe is a full sized Frost Giant, and his entourage. Admittedly, the fact that Loki’s a full sized Frost Giant here doesn’t quite make sense, as he was supposed to be the runt of his family—even the Frost Giant Loki variant we saw in the TVA still looked to be Loki’s usual size—did being raised by Frost Giants really make that much of a difference? Was his size due to Odin’s magic too? Or is it that, in this universe, he wasn’t born a runt? As ever, I suspect the answer is something along the lines of “don’t think about it” followed by “too hard”).

But then there’s a sonic boom, heralding the arrival of Captain Marvel (Alexandra Daniels), who definitely knows how to make an entrance. She also tells him to clean up the mess and go home, but Thor proves recalcitrant, so she decks him. This starts an epic fight as the two quite literally punch each other across the planet (countries’ names appearing on them like something out of Looney Tunes), from Stonehenge—which Thor deliberately knocks over like a set of dominoes—to the Grand Canyon and then back to Paris. Thor wins round one by pinning her with Mjolnir and Carol is shamed as a ‘party pooper.’

Needless to say, Hill is not happy, as Fury told her that Carol’s punch was ‘equal to ten nuclear bombs’ and that her ‘cat could devour whole armies.’ Cue the Top Gun references when Darcy finds out the cat’s called Goose. Speaking of which, where is Goose? We haven’t seen her since the Captain Marvel post credits scene. All I’m saying is that, if we don’t see any more of that badass adorable flerken in at least the next piece of Captain Marvel-related media, I will not be a happy camper…

Carol points out that if she were to go all out she would risk blowing a crater in the planet and that bringing down Thor wouldn’t be worth the fatalities (though Darcy “helpfully” suggests one of the Dakotas). Jane gets a phone call from Thor asking her when he can see her again and Jane asks him to be honest with her, did his party at Alpha Star destroy the planet? Turns out, it wasn’t really a planet but a meteor, and it was burning apart anyway so they just helped it along. No one died and everyone, even Gary the baby goat got home safe (eventually). Hill thinks there are places on Earth that could withstand a hit from Captain Marvel. Jane points out that while Thor’s not the brightest crayon in the box, their plan is overkill and she refuses to be part of it. Hill tells her that her assistance is no longer required and she and Darcy are dumped back in Vegas. Jane tries to call Thor to warn him but Loki answers instead and, after a hilarious attempt at flirting, ends the call when he accidentally drops and smashes the phone. Then Darcy inadvertently comes up with the answer. What do you normally do when a teenager’s throwing a party that’s gotten out of control? Tell their parents. Jane realises that if there’s a Thor and a Loki, there must be an Odin, a Frigga and a Heimdall.

Meanwhile, the party is indeed getting wildly out of hand: the Frost Giants cause a Ferris wheel to detach and spin off; Surtur (Clancy Brown) flirts with the Statue of Liberty and breaks her arm off; Loki and the Frost Giants use the Casket of Ancient Winters to deface Mt. Rushmore and Surtur tries to limbo under some power lines and accidentally cuts plunges a huge swathe of America (I’m assuming) into darkness. We catch up with Thor in Australia, where the party has moved to the Sydney Harbour Bridge (where you’ll be able to spot Mantis and Miek in the crowd). Thor announces that he’s going slide down the Opera House but Captain Marvel arrives for round two, punching him out mid descent. Jane and Darcy (with some offscreen help from Eric Selvig) have managed to configure things to allow her to contact Heimdall. Heimdall beams Jane up to Asgard and then to where Frigga is where she tells her that Thor’s in trouble. Carol throws Thor to Siberia and Hill and Rumlow prepare to arm the nukes but, at the last moment, Frigga intervenes, projecting her image to Earth to ask Thor what the hell he’s playing at. Thor, realising that Jane told on him, tries to style out his presence on Earth as being part of a cultural exchange trip. Frigga says she has to see this for herself so she’s cutting her trip short, expecting to see his full syllabus when she arrives.

Hill orders everyone to stand down and Rumlow is rather petulantly disappointed that they never get to fire the nukes. (Not something you should be disappointed about! Though he is technically HYDRA at this point so it probably shouldn’t be surprising). Thor panics and begs Captain Marvel for her help but she just gives him the unhelpful advice of ‘start in the corners, clean your way outward.’ He returns to tell everyone that the party’s over and asks them to help him clean up… only to find that they’re not that keen, forcing him to show everyone why he’s the God of Thunder and uses his powers to scare everyone into listening to him, telling them that his mother is coming and that she is not happy. It seems that Thanos isn’t the only intimidating space parent as, at the mention of Frigga, everyone panics and agrees to help. Cue the “frantic-cleaning-up-the-evidence-before-the-parents-get-home” montage, while Frigga draws ever nearer (yes, normally Bifrost travel is instantaneous but “rule of funny”). When she arrives, it really does look like they’ve been studying the whole time. Carol even shows there’s no hard feelings, doing Thor a solid by arriving with ‘the information on human civilisations’ he “asked for”. She introduces herself to Frigga, who replies that she knows who she is and thanks her for helping ‘educate’ her son. Thor’s ruse almost works until he summons Mjolnir, giving him away by being covered in graffiti and a pair of underpants (yes it was fine a moment ago but, again, “rule of funny”).

We then cut back to Jane and Darcy’s van in the New Mexico desert. Thor arrives with a bouquet of flowers. He tells Jane that telling his mother on him wasn’t a cool thing to do but acknowledges that it was the right thing to do. They arrange to go on a date (apparently Thor knows a planet where everyone, even the waiters, are Unicorns) and the Watcher begins to wrap things up: ‘a world restored, love blossoming. As children, both human and Asgardian, say, together, they lived happily ever after.’ But then he blinks and says, ‘wait, what?’ Yes, the even the supposedly omniscient Watcher appears to have blind spots. What he didn’t see coming was a load of Ultron sentry drones, along with Ultron himself, in Vision’s body, with all six Infinity stones, appearing through a portal out of nowhere.

It looks as though the sh*t is about to well and truly hit the fan. Well, the levity was great while it lasted.

The post What If…? Recap: 1.07 ‘What If… Thor Were An Only Child?’ appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

SPOILERS AHEAD

After the Marvel Logo and opening titles, we begin with the most detailed depiction of the Watcher yet—full body, clothes, and everything—as he introduces this episode’s premise: ‘every journey has a beginning, but one step along the way, and you could end up at a very different destination’.

We’re back in the territory of the very first Iron Man film, in Kunar Province in Afghanistan (and, in light of recent world events, that film’s social commentary sure takes on a whole new level of relevance), the beginning of Tony Stark’s journey and the MCU itself. As before, Tony’s military convoy is ambushed by the Ten Rings and Tony (Mick Wingert, who this time gets to flex his muscles a bit more, helped in part by the amount of brilliant one-liners he gets) gets uncomfortably up close and personal with one of his own weapons. But instead of the missile exploding—embedding his chest with shrapnel that would force him to develop a miniaturised arc reactor and, consequently, the first Iron Man armour—he’s saved by Lieutenant Erik “Killmonger” Stevens (Michael B. Jordan), who throws the missile away like it’s nothing and guns down the approaching Ten Rings reinforcements that were coming to kidnap Tony.

As the two of them walk away from the carnage, the Watcher tells us that ‘heroes are not born, they’re forged in darkness. Shaped in battle. Defined by sacrifice.’ Alongside this we see three iconic moments from MCU Tony’s timeline: him forging the Mark I armour, the famous “Avengers Assemble” shot, and his universe-saving sacrifice in Endgame. Without Tony’s capture in Afghanistan, Iron Man wouldn’t have been born; the man has been saved but the hero has been lost. We see this at the Stark Industries press conference—without his experience in Afghanistan to make him realise the need to pay attention  to whose hands his weapons have ended up in and take accountability for what they’ve done, the lesson he takes instead is the need to ‘build bigger’ and ‘fight badder.’ And to that end, in return for saving his life, he makes Killmonger his new head of security, to the surprise of Pepper (Beth Hoyt) and Happy (Jon Favreau), the latter of which points out that that was supposed to be his promotion (though let’s face it Happy, you weren’t very good at it). Christine Everhart (Leslie Bibb) asks Killmonger what he was doing in the Kunar Province, since at the time of the attack his unit were stationed 400 clicks away. Killmonger than reveals that he was on a deep cover operation inside the Ten Rings and uncovered plans to assassinate Tony. Obadiah Stane (voiced here by Kiff VandenHeuvel, who does a pretty good impression of Jeff Bridges) desperately tries to end the conference but Killmonger reveals that it was Stane who organised the hit, backed up with a plethora of evidence that he just dropped online. Stane tries to make a run for it but receives a very satisfying punch to the face from Happy.

We then cut to Tony’s Malibu mansion where Tony’s throwing a party to celebrate his return, enjoying a drink with Killmonger (Marvel didn’t allow Favreau to explore Tony Stark’s struggle with alcoholism in as much detail as he wanted to at the time—by adapting the famous “Demon in a Bottle” storyline—but it’s worth noting that this Tony drinks a lot more than MCU Tony). Tony feels he owes Killmonger his life and wants to make him his partner, telling him he needs a ‘killer’ on his side. They drink to their new partnership but Pepper Potts is a little more cautious about their ‘knight in shining camouflage’ and discreetly leaves the party to ask Colonel Rhodes (Don Cheadle, retroactively replacing Terrence Howard) what he’s managed to find out about him. Rhodey gives Pepper Kilmonger’s file, revealing that, like Tony, he’s skilled with technology and that since joining the SEALS he’s made a name for himself as part of an ‘elite ghost squad that specialises in high-target wetwork’ (i.e. assassinations). He asks Pepper what her concern is, other than the killing part, and Pepper replies that a lot of people come looking for their moment in the sun with Tony Stark and that it’s her job to sniff out what it is they want from him. Only this time she can’t find an angle, which concerns her because everyone wants something.

Tony then takes Killmonger to his workshop. Killmonger picks up a prototype weapon and asks ‘repulsor’ tech?’ Tony replies that he’s trying to miniaturise the Jericho—the missile he was demonstrating in Afghanistan – into a portable firearm. Killmonger then brings up Howard Stark’s philosophy of ‘peace means having a bigger stick than the other guy,’ to which Tony remarks that it didn’t do Howard a lot of good (referencing his parents’ deaths) and asks Killmonger whether he’s close with his father. Killmonger replies that his father is also dead, killed by gang violence, which both we and Killmonger know is a lie (as in Black Panther we find out he was murdered King T’Chaka) but manages to ingratiate himself with Tony further by preying upon his daddy issues. Tony says ‘weapons in the wrong hands. Wish no one had to fire them at all’ and Killmonger mentions that in his MIT doctoral thesis he developed plans for an automated combat drone but that he could never crack the interface. Tony is excited by this and, wanting to return the favour for saving his life, offers to help build them. (This leads to a funny moment when Tony has Jarvis bring up the design for Killmonger’s ‘Liberator’ drone from the MIT doctoral thesis database and comments on the design choice – which looks very similar to a well-known mecha franchise—Killmonger replying that he likes anime – a reference to the fact that Michael B. Jordan is a huge anime fan, reportedly basing Killmonger’s costume on Vegeta from Dragonball Z—and Tony says ‘worst case scenario, we’ll end up with the world’s most expensive Gundam model.’)

We then get a montage of Tony and Killmonger building and testing We then get a montage of Tony and Killmonger building and testing the drone, similar to the montage we got in Iron Man when Tony was building his Mark II armour. The operations test proves unsuccessful and JARVIS (Paul Bettany) says that the drone’s regulating processor is overclocked, meaning they need another power source. Tony briefly contemplates the idea of miniaturising an arc reactor before dismissing it. Killmonger says what they need is Vibranium—as with the right power it can act as a self-sustaining energy source—but Tony points out that Howard used up all he had during the war. Killmonger then shows him his (father’s) vibranium ring, revealing that vibranium items pop up all over the globe on the black market, you just have to have the right contact. Tony says he may have just the guy: Ulysses Klaue

Unsurprisingly, Pepper is not enthusiastic about the idea of fraternising with a black market arms dealer and tries to dissuade Tony. To her surprise, Killmonger agrees with her, pointing out that it would be company PR if things went south and that they need to secure diplomatic cover. Tony gets the idea to send Rhodey, as he’s both US Air Force and the company’s military liaison,.

We then cut to the salvage yard on the African coast, where Rhodey meets with Klaue (Andy Serkis, who chews the scenery with great gusto), with Killmonger listening in over Rhodey’s comm. The deal is interrupted however by Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) who takes down Klaue’s men (Klaue himself having melted into the shadows and Killmonger being suspiciously quiet). T’Challa tells Rhodey that his quarrel is not with him and asks him to let him take the vibranium back to where it belongs. But then Killmonger takes them both down with a Stark-tech sonic taser (an earlier version of which Stane used on Tony in Iron Man) before using it to kill T’Challa (which obviously now hits a lot harder than I’m guessing anyone thought it would when the show was still being made). Rhodey asks why and Killmonger answers with a question of his own: ‘why wear the uniform of your own oppressors? Fight for them? Die for them?’ Rhodey argues that you’ve got to be a part of the system in order to be able to change it but Killmonger disagrees, ripping off the American flag from Rhodey’s uniform and killing him, before putting the sonic taser in his hand, making it look as if Rhodey killed T’Challa and implicating Stark in his murder. Klaue reappears and it’s revealed this was set-up between the two of them from the beginning, Klaue leaking news of the sale in order to lure T’Challa to them.

T’Challa and Rhodey’s bodies are brought home (the Wakandan script on T’Challa’s coffin spelling out ‘Wakanda Forever,’ in another fitting tribute to the late Chadwick Boseman). We then cut to news footage of T’Chaka at the UN—as the headline reads ‘U.S. Military, Stark Industries implicated in death of Wakandan Prince’—saying that they will not sit idly by while their resources are pillaged and their people killed by American Imperialists. We then see it’s Tony watching the news, as Killmonger arrives carrying the Dora Milaje spear, which he jokingly offers as a souvenir. But it turns out that, while Killmonger saw to fact that it was Tony’s name on the paper trail, through JARVIS, Tony saw that it was Killmonger who murdered Rhodey and he wants justice. The room locks down and the fully functioning Liberator drone appears, as Tony melted down his vibranium ring to get it to work. Killmonger goes toe to toe with the drone, only for him to get thrown across the room, Tony reminding him that Killmonger programmed the drone with his moves. Killmonger says he’ll have ‘to freestyle it.’ He dodges the drone and gets his hands on the spear (his shirt getting ripped off in the process, exposing his scars that tally the amount of confirmed kills he’s racked up) and using it to get the upper hand, disabling the drone and hurling it at Tony, pinning him to the wall through his shoulder and causing his glass of whiskey to fall to the floor and shatter. Tony tells him that, for a moment, he really thought that it was them against the world but Killmonger replies that they aren’t fighting the same battles. Tony then says ‘two gear-head orphans trying to do right by their fathers? We sound the same to me.’ But Killmonger replies that ‘the difference between you and me… is that you can’t see the difference between you and me,’ pushing the spear in further and killing Tony.

The Watcher looks on, his eyes transitioning into the flashing of a crime-scene investigator’s camera. General Ross (Mike McGill) concludes that Tony’s murder was a hit job by the Wakandans. Happy asks how no footage was captured on security, to which Pepper replies that JARVIS was conveniently wiped clean, looking to Killmonger as she says this, whom she clearly still doesn’t trust—as she says, ‘three murders in two days and one man at the center.’ Ross sticks up for Killmonger though as he’s still a highly decorated Naval officer, ordering that the Liberator drones be put into production and telling Pepper and Happy that the U.S. Military is seizing control of all Stark Industries assets (something MCU Tony worked so hard to avoid) and that they now work for him.

The drones are put into mass production and flown to Africa with Killmonger. He’s met by Klaue who’s glad to see that his vibranium has been put to ‘good use.’ He then takes Killmonger to the edge of the Wakandan force shield. Killmonger is pleased to have finally found Wakanda but Klaue tells him they need to leave before they find themselves at the wrong end of a spear, derisively calling them ‘savages.’ Killmonger echoes his words of a few seconds earlier—‘Wakandans are full of surprises’ – and shoots Klaue point blank.

We then cut to inside the force shield, as Killmonger, carrying Klaue’s body, approaches a line of Dora Milaje. He tells them he has brought Klaue as an offering of justice, introducing himself as N’Jadaka, son of Prince N’Jobu, and revealing his Wakandan lip tattoo. He’s then brought before the royal family. Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett) is incredulous at his very existence and Shuri (Ozioma Akagha) points out that they’re at war and Killmonger is still an American soldier. Killmonger says that the Wakandans are his people too and that at he brought them the man who stole their vibranium as proof of his loyalty to them. T’Chaka (John Kani) warms up to him (obviously under the impression that Killmonger is unaware of the exact circumstances of his father’s death), especially after Killmonger tells him that his father told him stories about watching the sunset from top of Mount Bashenga with his brother. We then see a shot of the drones approaching as Killmonger explains that, like their weapons, they’re made of vibranium alloy and virtually indestructible. Okoye (Danai Gurira) is dismissive, since Americans built them, but Shuri argues it won’t be so easy, pointing out that the drones operate via a hive matrix, communicating with each other in real time to maximise strategic efficiency. Ramonda asks how they cut the drones off from their network and Killmonger answers that they let them inside the force shields. Shuri is incredulous but Killmonger says it’s the only way to disconnect them from JARVIS, as the electromagnetic interference will block their satellite uplink. After that, they destroy them and the Americans won’t have any vibranium left to rebuild. Shuri asks why they should trust him with their people’s lives and he replies that he knows what it’s like to have someone taken from him, and that if he had a chance to avenge his father, he wouldn’t hesitate, appealing to (or preying on) their grief for T’Challa.

We learn that Ramonda is a general of the Wakandan army, and the next shot we see is of her, in full regalia, outside the palace with the army behind her, ready to take revenge on the people she believes are responsible for the death of her son. They see the lights of the drones approaching in the distance. Even now, Shuri is still suspicious of Killmonger but her father reiterates that he’s family and orders the shields opened, revealing the truth of Wakanda to Ross and those watching back at the drone command centre in Nevada. Once the drones are inside the shields are closed again and they all shut down, proving Killmonger right. But before they can celebrate, Killmonger secretly reactivates the drones, saying that Tony must have built a backup transmitter, as he was a villain who didn’t trust anyone (has anybody else’s irony-meter exploded?). The Wakandan army goes into battle, their vibranium weaponry enabling them to take the drones on at close quarters. Killmonger himself even joins the fight, riding in on a rhino and arriving in time to save Okoye, earning her and Ramonda’s approval in the process. In the end, the Wakandans are victorious.

It then cuts to Mount Bashenga, where Killmonger stands in victory (an inversion of the scene in Black Panther where he was slumped in defeat) watching the sunset. T’Chaka asks him if it meets his expectations and Killmonger replies that it surpasses them. He asks T’Chaka to let him be of service to Wakanda and his uncle gives him the herb that will allow him to become the next Black Panther. He takes it and arrives on the ancestral plane, where he meets T’Challa and they talk.

Back in America, the military are preparing to continue the war with Wakanda with Jericho missiles, invoking Tony Stark—with a poster that reads ‘only you can avenge Tony Stark—the same way the Wakandans did with T’Challa. Pepper asks whether that isn’t a lot of firepower to aim at ‘a country most Americans can’t find on a map.’ Ross merely replies that by tomorrow they won’t need to. Pepper then goes back to her office only to find Shuri there. She tells Pepper that she’s here to help, showing her the evidence that confirms Pepper’s suspicions that it was Killmonger who murdered Tony, as well as T’Challa. Shuri says that it appears that they have a common enemy. Pepper agrees but points out that both sides refuse to see it, Shuri’s solution for which is for the two of them to work together to reveal the truth.

The Watcher then ends with the assertion that ‘heroes are never really gone. They live forever. As do the ones they inspire to carry on the fight.’

The post What If…? Recap: 1.06 ‘What If…Killmonger Rescued Tony Stark?’ appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

SPOILERS AHEAD

After the logo and opening titles, we begin with the Hulk hurtling through space after Heimdall sent him back to Earth via the Bifrost to warn of Thanos’s impending arrival at the beginning of Infinity War, but Bruce (Mark Ruffalo) is about to discover that it’s unrecognisable as the world he left behind.

As in Infinity War, he lands in the Sanctum Santorum only this time it’s empty, the Cloak of Levitation watching from the shadows. After raiding the wardrobe for a pair of purple sorcerer’s robe, Bruce steps outside to find the streets of New York empty too and wonders if he’s already too late. He isn’t, as it turns out, because Cull Obsidian and Ebony Maw (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor) choose that moment to beam down. Bruce and the Hulk have their internal disagreement and Maw begins his speech, only for a portal to open up behind him and a very familiar gauntleted hand to blast him in the head. Alan Silvestri’s triumphant ‘Avengers’ theme plays as the silhouetted figures of Iron Man, Doctor Strange, and Wong walk through. Bruce is happy to see them but we can see that something’s not quite right. They go to town on Obsidian and Maw, and though the fight is partially obscured by dust and lens flares, we can still see and hear how unusually brutal this fight is. Bruce asks if this isn’t overkill, and we have the famous Resident Evil zombie revelation shot, complete with Psycho strings. For those who are unaware, this episode is loosely based on Robert Kirkman’s ‘Marvel Zombies’ comics.

It also seems to be the fastest acting zombie virus ever, as Maw and Obsidian are turned almost instantly. Bruce tries to get away but, like the comics, the zombies are still able to use their powers/technology. He’s saved by the Cloak of Levitation (which causes Wong to literally lose his head) and the Wasp (Evangeline Lilly) who beheads Tony and disintegrates the other zombies with a swarm of flying ants. Bruce asks her who she is and Wasp replies ‘all that’s left’, (her name’s Hope and ‘hope’ is all that’s left, get it?) before he’s picked up by Peter Parker (voiced by Hudson Thames, not Tom Holland due to his contract with Sony—possibly the same reason why he’s wearing a slightly different version of his suit which is the Avengers Campus version that Disney owns) introducing himself as ‘your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man’, to which Bruce understandably replies, ‘well, then, what the hell happened to the neighbourhood?’

The Watcher (who seems to be getting closer to being an actual character rather than just a narrator/impartial observer with each week, as not only is he much closer to the camera than he’s ever been before but now we can see his mouth moving, skin tone, and facial features) then proceeds to tell us what the hell did happen to the neighbourhood. Two weeks ago (during the events of Ant Man & the Wasp) Hank Pym travelled into the quantum realm to rescue his wife Janet but in this universe she’d contracted a quantum virus that corrupted her brain (presumably after she’d managed to communicate with them unless, in this universe, they located her another way), and the first thing she does after being reunited with her husband is not to pull him in for a romantic smooch but to bite him. Upon returning to the lab, zombie Hank and Janet attack Hope and Scott (Paul Rudd), Hope shrinks and manages to escape but they get Scott—the last thing we see being the classic horror film “hand-slowly-sliding-down-a-pane-of-glass” shot—and within 24 hours the entire Pacific Northwest is infected, which means this is now the second time the Pyms have been responsible for the ensuing disaster. The Avengers— consisting of Ironman, Captain America, Hawkeye, Black Widow (with her Infinity War blonde hair), and Black Panther—arrive almost immediately (nothing like the zombie apocalypse to end a feud), but it’s their heroism that ultimately dooms everyone. Cap is bitten by zombie Hank and the rest are overwhelmed by the horde, and as the Watcher says, once ‘Earth’s mightiest heroes’ became infected no one else stood a chance…

Unless they knew the ‘rules.’ We’re then treated to perhaps the greatest thing the MCU’s ever produced: Peter Parker’s educational “so you wanna survive the zombie apocalypse” orientation video, where with the help of Happy “never actually happy” Hogan (Jon Favreau), “resident weirdo” Kurt (David Dastmalchian), Bucky “silent but deadly” Barnes (Sebastian Stan), and Sharon “the blonde bond” Carter (Emily VanCamp), he outlines the rules of surviving a zombie apocalypse, Zombieland-style.

1. Wear long sleeves: the infection is passed through saliva so the less skin you’re showing the less there is to bite.
2. Hygiene: zombies are attracted to the smell of human flesh so keep clean.
3. Always aim for the head: it’s the only way to kill them.

The survivors have made their hideout in a bunch of train cars and buses that have been webbed together and then webbed between two buildings, and Okoye (Danai Gurira) is with them too, searching for T’Challa who went missing with the Avengers. Using an Ironman gauntlet, they’ve picked up a signal from another survivor camp that claims to have found a cure. They figure out that the signal’s location is SHIELD’s Camp Lehigh in New Jersey (obviously a part of it that wasn’t blown up in Winter Soldier), to which Happy remarks ‘well, just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse, we gotta go to Jersey.’ (Nice to see you have your priorities in order there Hap.)

Using the Pym-Tech van (which we realise they’re in when, in a comedic bit of gore, they explode a zombie with it by enlarging) they arrive at Grand Central Station. Okoye wants them to split up, with Hope, Bruce, Peter, and Kurt going to hotwire the train while the rest of them guard the perimeter. Peter states that splitting up is not a good idea, asking if they don’t have horror movies in Wakanda, and Okoye replying they don’t need them as they have American reality shows. As Kurt says, “boom goes the dynamite”, but we of course know that Peter is right. But split up they do.

Hope’s group are unable to get the train started, so Peter gets the idea to use his webs to pull the train to build up thrust (essentially a giant slingshot). Meanwhile, Sharon and Happy get ambushed by zombie Hawkeye, Happy getting turned in the process, while Bucky and Okoye find zombie Falcon. Sharon manages to turn Happy’s  palm repulsor on himself before escaping and Okoye literally cuts Falcon in half. Leading to this brilliant exchange: ‘That was your friend. Sorry about that.’ ‘I should be sad, but I’m not.’ Back at the train they’re nearly ready to go. Peter inadvertently backs up into a group zombies but is saved by the Cloak, while Hope saves Bruce and Kurt from the zombies that start to swarm the train. Sharon, Bucky and Okoye make it on board, the brake is released and the built up thrust helps the train to start, and the Cloak gets Peter onto the train. Okoye apologises, acknowledging that they should’ve stayed together.

But they didn’t quite make it out cleanly. Sharon hears something on the train roof before that something falls through the ceiling. Bucky hears her screams and rushes to her aid, only to find her being eaten by zombie Cap (and the fact that it’s Steve Rogers eating Sharon Carter is just several levels of wrong). The two old friends fight. Hope comes to help but ends up in zombie Sharon’s mouth, while Bucky manages to use zombie Cap’s shield to bisect him. Hope escapes zombie Sharon by enlarging and blowing her up from the inside (“guys, I’m covered in Sharon”) but then Bruce notices that Hope’s suit has a tear. Up until now, the zombie infection seemed to be instantaneous, but here we have the obligatory ‘victim-slowly-succumbing-to-the-infection-for-some-emotional-and-dramatic-tension’ trope. Hope argues with them to kill her before she turns, that they can’t afford to take the risk even if they are minutes away from a cure. Peter says it’s not a risk, it’s hope, and anyone who’s seen a zombie movie knows that that’s the key to survival. Hope asks him how he manages to stay so upbeat, and here the mask slips a little, as Peter admits that’s already lost a lot—his parents, his uncle Ben, Tony Stark , Happy and (implicitly) his Aunt May—but that his aunt used to say that ‘if we don’t keep smiling when they can’t, then we might as well just be gone too’ and that they’d want them all to keep going.

But Kurt has some bad news: the train has run out of fuel, and while they’re closer to Camp Lehigh than they were before, to get there they’ll have to go through a zombie horde. Okoye rightly says that they won’t make it through them, to which Hope counters that they can make it over them. Hope blames herself for the whole situation, that she was so fixated on getting her mother back she didn’t stop to consider what her mother could bring back with her, and that if she has to go out, she wants to go out fixing what she started. As the horde rushes the train, Hope turns giant and carries them over, zombies crawling up her like, well, ants. She gets them to Camp Lehigh, asking Peter to keep smiling for her before she’s overwhelmed by the horde and the infection and collapses (with a shot reminiscent of a really sick Gulliver’s Travels).

Bucky notices that the zombies aren’t climbing the fence. Even weirder, the fence has already been breached but they’re all just standing there. Kurt has a bad feeling about the place (‘Baba Yaga nears’) and we get an amusing little jump-scare conga where Peter scares Kurt and they’re then both scared by Vision (Paul Bettany) who it turns out was the one who sent the signal. As an android, Vision’s not on the menu, and the reason the base isn’t overrun by zombies is because the Mind Stone in his forehead emits a sub-frequency that repels them. This leads Bruce to deduce that the virus is a form of encephalopathy (as Peter helpfully explains, ‘brain stuff’). Vision says the virus overloads the brain’s limbic system (the part involved in our behavioural and emotional responses, especially when it comes to behaviours needed for survival, like feeding) and that once he discovered their aversion to the Mind Stone, he experimented with more targeted exposure to see if that could reverse the condition. And it turns out he was successful, sort of. He managed to with Scott Lang… but just his head, which is now a Futurama-esque head in a jar. He acknowledges that he’s lost weight but that he won’t let it go to his head.

At their unimpressed reaction, he apologises saying that he tends to process traumatic events with Dad jokes, something which he will continue to do for the rest of the episode. But whilst Vision has found a cure, the problem is that the technology required to broadcast the Mind Stone’s frequency worldwide is beyond current human capability. But not in Wakanda, as Okoye points out, and due to their force shields, it’s the last human sanctuary on Earth. Bucky goes to look for transport but Vision rather ominously tells him he won’t find what he’s looking for. And indeed he doesn’t, instead he finds a zombie Wanda Maximoff and a captive T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) with his leg missing as (like in the source material) he’s being used as a source of food. Bruce finds security logs that show they’re not the first ones to respond to Vision’s signal, and it’s revealed that he’s been luring people to the base in order to feed them to Wanda, as her powers resisted the treatment, so his only course of action was to keep her contained and her hunger sated. When asked why he didn’t just kill her, he said that he couldn’t, and that even he still cannot entirely fathom what he’s done. Unfortunately, zombie Wanda chooses this moment to break out, and she hasn’t eaten in days…

She enters with a shot whose composition is worthy of a live-action horror film (seriously, it’s one of the scariest shots I’ve seen in an MCU project) and poor Kurt is her first victim. The Cloak saves Scott from smashing on the floor and the rest fight to keep Wanda contained, but it’s a losing battle. Bruce convinces Vision to help them escape and he uses the Mind Stone to blast a hole in the bunker. They use it to escape (with time for a quick Harry Potter reference from Scott) but Wanda uses her powers to snatch Okoye at the last moment before Vision collapses the bunker completely. He tells them there’s a Quadjet in the hangar as he won’t be going with them, as he needs to atone for what he has done but he cannot bring himself to leave Wanda. He then rips the Mind Stone from his forehead, allowing the zombies already surrounding the base to enter. Zombie Wanda bursts forth from the bunker’s remains and Bucky tells the others to run while he buys them some time. Wanda finds Vision’s lifeless body and, even as a zombie, is still able to express sadness. She uses her powers to stop Bucky’s bullets and hurl him into the distance, his fate unknown. The others make it to the Quadjet but Wanda and the zombie horde are still approaching. Bruce says he can buy them some more time but Peter pleads with him not go, saying that he doesn’t think he can take losing another friend. Bruce gives him the Mind Stone, telling him to avenge them instead. Bruce finally manages to talk the Hulk into emerging and proceeds to fight off Wanda and the other zombies while T’Challa finally manages to start the jet. They take off and, after briefly being accosted by a giant zombie Hope (much to Scott’s dismay), finally make their escape.

On their way to Wakanda, T’Challa asks Peter if he’s alright. Peter replies that last year Tony asked him to join the Avengers and that he turned him down. Now they’re all gone but he’s still here. T’Challa comforts him by telling him that ‘in my culture, death is not the end. They are still with us, as long as we do not forget them.’ Determination renewed, Peter agrees, stating that once they get the Mind Stone to Wakanda they’re going to save the world.

But zombie stories also often have a sting in the tail and, as they approach Wakanda, the Watcher says that ‘even in the darkest of times, humans will give all to save their planet. Even if it might bring an end to the universe.’ Why would it bring an end to the universe, you ask? Because we then see that the zombie infection has already overrun Wakanda and that zombie Thanos is there, Infinity Gauntlet near completion, requiring only the Mind Stone which the heroes are unwittingly bringing right to him.

Hey Marvel, how about something a little less traumatising next time, ‘kay?

The post What If…? Recap: 1.05 ‘What If…Zombies?!’ appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

SPOILERS AHEAD

After the Marvel Logo and opening titles, we begin with the Watcher overlooking New York as he introduces this episode’s theme: “We have watched how one moment, one choice, can ripple across space and time, giving birth to new stories, heroes, whole universes. But what if it’s the wrong choice? What if the best of intentions has very strange consequences?”

Doctor Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) arrives in his black Lamborghini to pick up fellow Doctor Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams). In this universe they seem to have managed to maintain their romantic relationship and are on their way to an award dinner held in Strange’s honour after successfully performing a “radical hemispherectomy” (a surgery where half the brain is removed or disconnected from its other half— essentially split in two—and is very difficult to perform successfully, two things that foreshadow what happens later). The accident occurs in a slightly different way from the way it did in the film, Strange trying to overtake a semi and nearly colliding with an oncoming car, avoiding it only to be rear ended from behind. The wreck itself is recreated from the film frame by frame, landing in exactly the same position, teetering in the water. Strange comes to and finds that Christine did not survive the crash, framed in the shattered back windshield which resembles a broken heart.

In this universe, Stephen Strange didn’t lose the use of his hands but the love of his life. We then cut to Christine’s funeral, where the Watcher tells us that, in his grief, he wandered the world in search of answers and found the Mystic Arts. From here we get a quick recap/retelling of the Doctor Strange film, with emphasis on a couple of key scenes: Strange’s discovery of the Eye of Agamotto and its ability to manipulate time (as it holds the Time Stone), including another frame by frame recreation of him using it on an apple (instead of Mordo however, it’s Wong (Benedict Wong) and the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) who warn him that tinkering with time can weaken the fabric of the universe, giving him a much less furious telling-off, which may contribute to how things pan out) and his confrontation with Dormamu (the scene that launched a thousand memes). But despite becoming the Sorcerer Supreme, Strange still can’t let go of the past.

We find him, on the two year anniversary of Christine’s death, sitting alone in the Sanctum, drowning his sorrows in whiskey and contemplating the Eye. Wong goes to put the kettle on for some tea and suggests that Strange join him before he does something ‘reckless.’ Unfortunately, this seems to act as an invitation and Strange uses the Eye to reverse time and go back to the night of the accident. What follows is a time-loop montage of how much the universe has it out for Christine (also, look out for a little “blink and you may miss it cameo” from the Watcher in the reflection of Stephen’ car door): overtake the semi properly? Rear-ended anyway and death. Take a different route? Death by truck. Make it to the dinner (somehow)? Death by heart attack. Go out for pizza instead? Enter random armed robber and death. Stand her up? Her building catches fire and she dies anyway (reporter Christine Everhart from Iron Man & Iron Man 2 makes a small cameo during this part, Leslie Bibb returning to voice her). Even swapping places in the car with her—after Strange’s increasing despair makes Christine think he’s had too much to drink and she decides to drive instead, Strange effectively sacrificing himself so she can live by sitting in the passenger side—doesn’t work.

After this last failure, Strange crawls from the wreck and unleashes a heartwrenching scream at the heavens (Cumberbatch gives a brilliantly nuanced and heartbreakingly emotional performance throughout—no phoning it in here). Then a portal opens and the Ancient One arrives, as at this point in the timeline she is still alive. She sadly informs him that nothing can be done to save Christine because her death is an Absolute Point in time (another rule added to the MCU’s time-travel logic; think Doctor Who’s “some points are in flux others are fixed” rule as it’s very similar) : her death sent on him on his journey to become Sorcerer Supreme, if he didn’t become the Sorcerer Supreme he’d never defeat Dormammu or become guardian of the Eye of Agamotto, and the world wouldn’t have been saved. If Strange erases her death he risks erasing the universe. Strange argues that she taught him that nothing is impossible and that he only requires more power. The Ancient One pleads with Stephen to stop torturing himself with false hope, that this path only leads to darkness and the end of this reality and if he continues down it she will be forced to stop him. Strange answers that she’d have to find him first, so before he can use the Eye again, she hits him with a powerful blast of magic.

Strange seems to survive whatever she did to him relatively unscathed however, finding himself in a jungle forest, and is happened upon by a stranger dressed like a  master of the Mystic Arts. The unspeaking master leads him to the lost library of Cagliostro (obviously before it was lost). We learn that the fellow sorcerer’s name is O’Bengh (Ike Amadi), librarian for the books of Cagliostro (fun fact: Strange says to him ‘please tell you’re not Cagliostro’—in the comics, he is) and is apparently fine with Strange searching through them to find a way to do something that could endanger reality. Strange then finds the same book on time manipulation that Kaecilius would go on to steal from the Kamar-Taj library, even turning to same page with the Dark Dimension symbol on it that Kaecilius tore out. Changing a fixed point in time requires an enormous amount of power and the only way to gain it is through the ‘absorption of other beings.’ So he starts out by summoning what looks to be a variant of the tentacle monster from episode 1 (if so, it’s not having a good time). He tries to negotiate with it but apparently mystic beings that aren’t Dormammu don’t bargain and he gets thrown around for his trouble. O’Bengh tells him that their powers aren’t meant for man and also warns him: ‘there is a fine line between devotion and delusion. Love can break more than your heart. It can shatter your mind.’

Of course Strange takes the wrong lesson from this and decides he’ll take their powers by force. What follows is something that wouldn’t be out of place in a horror film, with Strange a number of beautifully animated but increasingly demonic looking mystic beings, briefly taking on some of their physical aspects as he does so, starting with a gnome and ending with a monkey/bat monster (he does get a cool new cloak out of it though). This last one exhausts Strange and, as he recovers, for the first time the Watcher comments on events not as a narrator but as a character. He comments that Strange is going down the wrong path and that he could intervene by warning him, but that the fate of his universe isn’t worth risking the safety of all the others. He also doubts that Strange would listen to him if he did, but as he says this, Strange turns around, having either sensed or heard him, and asks who’s there (so maybe if Uatu if had tried Strange might’ve listened). Then it’s back to monster absorbing and more blink and you’ll miss it body horror as time is shown to pass outside. Finally, the last creature Strange summons is the tentacle monster from earlier, slicing off said appendages and absorbing them (it’s really not having a good time).

When Strange goes to find O’Bengh, he finds he’s now a very old man on the verge of death, as Strange used magic to stay frozen in time for centuries while he absorbed all those mystic beings. He goes to use the Eye of Agamotto, his first instinct to reverse time so O’Bengh can live (showing that while he have lost his morality he hasn’t lost his humanity), but O’Bengh stops him, saying that even in their world—the world of the Mystic Arts— death is a part of the plan. Strange replies that he can’t accept that (really summing up his problem). O’Bengh acknowledges this but says that maybe the “other” Strange will. It seems that O’Bengh let Strange proceed, despite the risks, because he is only ‘one half of himself and therefore cannot reach full power.

The Watcher then reveals that there’s another Doctor Strange within this universe. We then return to the Sanctum Sanctorum, but this time Strange decides he’s had enough ‘living in the past’ for one evening and follows Wong instead. The next morning he leaves the Sanctum, only to find that everything around him is melting away into inky cosmic sludge. After understandably questioning what on earth was in that whiskey last night, a portal opens and the Ancient One appears again, a more see-through version of her this time as she’s dead by this point (‘a psychic impression sent through a splinter of reality…just think of me as an echo’). She tells Stephen that it’s he who’s causing this and revealed what happened: when the Strange who used the Eye to try and save Christine used it again to travel into the past, she was unable to follow, so she drew on the power of the Dark Dimension to split Stephen in two, allowing for two of his possible timelines to exist within the same universe. Anyone else’s brain hurt yet? Basically it seems that branch timelines can co-exist within the same universe, but the more there are the less stable that universe is. She explains that if the other Strange succeeds in reversing an Absolute Point, the resulting temporal paradox will destroy their reality (very Doctor Who), and that the only sorcerer   strong enough to defeat Doctor Strange is…well, Doctor Strange.

Back inside the Sanctum, Strange and Wong (also now in the process of melting away) are setting up a spell. Wong asks Strange if he wants to stop his “evil twin”, as wasn’t he in love with Christine? Strange replies that he thinks he has to, to save Wong if nothing else. Wong finishes the spell—a ‘heavy duty protection spell’— and places it upon Strange. The other Strange finds them as the floor opens up underneath Stephen and he falls through (somewhere there is a Loki indulging in a moment of schadenfreude similar to the one he had in Ragnarok when the Hulk threw Thor around) as Wong calls good luck after him.

Strange lands in a summoning circle in the middle of a cavernous, dark empty space. Strange Supreme then reveals himself (and the fact that he apparently hasn’t been getting much sleep lately, the pale skin and eyebags making him look like he wouldn’t be out of place in a Dracula look-alike contest—not helped by the fact that his shadow sometimes morphs other appendages and he occasionally speaks with the ‘voice-of-the-legion’). They have a rather tense conversation, Strange Supreme pleading with Good Strange to help him save Christine, Good Strange telling him that all his efforts have led to is reality breaking.

Strange Supreme takes Good Strange back to the scene of the crash. He explains that, split apart, their powers are diluted but if they become whole they can save her. Good Strange tries to get through to his other self: ‘the Ancient One warned us. If we save Cristine, we destroy the world… This isn’t love… This is arrogance. This is our need to fix everything.’ But it seems that Strange Supreme won’t listen to his better half and they fight, seeming pretty evenly matched at first but Strange Supreme gains the upper hand, slowly chipping away at Good Strange’s protection spell. The two Cloaks of Levitation even get in on the act, Good Strange’s cloak sadly sacrificing itself to save him. Good Strange fires a powerful magic at Strange Supreme, which seems to only leave behind a small ball of light. While distracted, Strange Supreme pulls Good Strange into his own shadow, where he attempts to trick him with an illusion of Christine. Good Strange sees through it and Strange Supreme punches him back to reality and then punches away the rest of the protection spell. Strange Supreme is victorious and he absorbs Good Strange.

He activates the Eye of Agamotto and the time-stone turns red (red being associated in the MCU with reality-bending, chaos magic) and turning Strange into a monstrous chimera of all the beings he absorbed. He revives Christine only for her to be terrified by his new form and by reality collapsing around them. Speaking of which, Christine begins to melt away and Strange returns to his human form as the entities leave his body. They’re reduced to a small piece of land floating in the air as Strange uses his magic to desperately try and keep reality from collapsing in on them. He calls out to the Watcher (who we see clearly in physical form for the first time and they’ve done a good job of making him resemble Jefferey Wright), admitting that he was wrong and that the world shouldn’t have to suffer for his arrogance and pleads with him for help. The Watcher merely replies that Strange was warned and that if he could undo this and punish Strange instead he would, but that Strange, more than anyone, should know that meddling with time only leads to more destruction, before returning to astral form and leaving. Strange dolefully cries out that he didn’t mean for this to happen, but it’s too late and reality collapses, condensing down to a small purple crystal. Inside, Strange holds Christine as she melts away, tearfully apologising. Like in WandaVision (let’s face it: this whole episode is “Stephen does a Wanda” with a much bleaker outcome), Christine’s face is the last part of her to fade away, as she asks: ‘Stephen, what did you do?’ Strange breaks down, his sobs and apologies echoing through an empty reality, as the Watcher ends with: ‘one life, one choice, one moment, can destroy the entire universe.’

Now can whoever is cutting up onions please stop.

What did you think of the episode? Tell us in the comments below!

The post What If…? Recap: 1.04 ‘What If… Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?’ appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

SOILERS AHEAD

After the Marvel Logo and opening credits, a title card tells us it’s Monday. This episode uses days of the week to structure its five acts as it’s set during the period of time known as “Fury’s big week”—arguably the most important period of time in the MCU—where the events of The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, and Thor all take place concurrently.

Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) is in a car and starts reciting his ‘there was an idea’ speech— that he used to bring the team together in the first Avengers film—only for Black Widow (Lake Bell, doing a really good job of standing in for Scarlett Johannson) to finish it, in a slightly bored tone, telling him that she’s read the speech. They go back and forth, Fury telling her that if she’s read it then she knows what’s at stake and Natasha responding “which is why I’m surprised you’d wanna bet the future of the Avengers Initiative on that” just as the giant doughnut with Iron Man (Mick Wingert, who’s something of an old hand by this point, having voiced Tony Stark in previous Marvel animated titles) sat in the middle, pulls into view in the windshield.

Fury replies that Tony Stark may be eccentric but that he has potential. Natasha is sceptical but Fury reminds her that he’s taken big swings before, herself being an example. We then get the doughnut shop scene from Iron Man 2, with Stark telling Fury that he doesn’t want to join his “super-secret boy band” and Natasha injecting him with lithium dioxide to abate the symptoms of his palladium poisoning. Only this time something goes wrong, Tony appears to have an adverse reaction and dies.

Nick Fury looks on in shock and cross dissolves into the Watcher, who says: “Humanity, so eager, so willing to face the impossible, yet blind to the bigger picture.” He narrates a slideshow that summarises the events of the three films and how these events would act as the crucible that would “transform this collection of individuals into a team of heroes.” Or, at least, that’s how it played out in the universe we know…

Tuesday. Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) finds Mjolnir in a crater in New Mexico and calls Fury, who is at the Project Pegasus base where Natasha has been detained by Brock Rumlow (Frank Grillo) and the SHIELD Strike Unit. Fury tells Coulson to set up a perimeter around the hammer and to tell the team he’s en route. Natasha is being led away for questioning, under suspicion of murdering Tony Stark. Both she and Fury know she didn’t do it but as SHIELD has protocols, and she’s a former Russian spy, his hands are tied as much as hers. He discreetly hands her the injector, telling her that’s he’s counting on her getting away as he wants to find out who in their organisation sabotaged Tony’s antidote. He watches as she’s led into a truck and taken away.

Sure enough, the handcuffs don’t hold her for long and she soundly thrashes the rest of the strike team despite the confined space (once again, showing off how fluid the fight animation is) and escapes.

Back at the Mjolnir site, night has fallen and thunder is rumbling. Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) briefs Fury, telling him that all they’ve been able to surmise about the hammer is that it’s extremely powerful and that it’s not from Earth. Meanwhile, someone is taking out the agents patrolling the site. Clint also reveals that no-one has been able to lift the hammer, and Fury remarks that when something that powerful goes missing someone always comes looking for it and they have to hope that someone is an ally. Hawkeye asks what their next move is and Fury replies, same as always: “hope for the best, prepare for the worst.”

Coulson finds one of the agents knocked out by the mysterious assailant and sounds the alarm. The intruder is revealed to be Thor, and even in the midst of an emergency, Coulson knows a hot man when he sees one—“he’s a Caucasian male, mid-twenties with…really great hair… Sir, he’s gorgeous.” Cap wouldn’t be happy to hear you’re cheating on him, Phil! Fury orders Clint into position but to hold his fire, as he wants to see what Thor will do. Thor approaches Mjolnir (Clint even getting in on the ‘ogling Thor’ act—“Coulson wasn’t lying about the hair”) and goes to lift it but somehow Clint’s fingers slip and his arrow impales Thor in the chest, killing him.

Clint is detained, not understanding what could’ve happened as he doesn’t slip or misfire. Fury tells Coulson that not only is Thor dead but that his blood samples revealed him to be both over a thousand years old and not human. Coulson remarks that that’s two high value SHIELD targets seemingly killed by their own agents within the last twenty four hours. Fury goes to try and talk to Hawkeye only to find him on the verge of death. He calls for a medic and Coulson yells at the guards, angrily demanding to tell him who they let in the cell, but they insist that hadn’t let anyone in. Fury tells Clint to stay with him but it’s too late, and our next shot is in the morgue. Coulson ponders whether it could’ve been a cyanide capsule but Fury points out that Clint had a wife and kids, and so if he was going to go he wouldn’t do so willingly, and speculates that he was murdered by the same person who killed Tony Stark, despite the fact that he was in a locked cell under observation, with no sign of forced entry, struggle or entry wounds. (Put a pin in that.) But what could connect a billionaire playboy, a SHILED assassin and a “space corpse that looks like a Chippendales dancer?”

Wednesday. We arrive in Virginia at Culver University, an important setting in The Incredible Hulk and where Bruce Banner conducted his experiments. Natasha approaches Betty Ross (Stephanie Panisello) and manages to persuade her to help examine the injector, as she’s not only an “expert in the tactical applications of cellular biology” but also good at keeping things off SHILED’s radar. Ross examines it under a microscope and reveals that not only are no traces of lethal pathogens but that the antidote never made out of the syringe, instead looking like a tiny projectile was fired from the needle, making Natasha think of nanotech (again, put a pin in that). Ross asks her to leave but, as she does so, she notices a hat and jacket for ‘Stanley’s Pizza Parlor’ (the pizzeria in the film where Banner has a job). Fury then calls to tell her that Hawkeye is dead—her devastation poignantly and effectively shown by a single line: “who do I kill?”—and that it looks like that the killer is going after the Avengers Initiative candidates. She asks who else is on the list and Fury answers her and Bruce Banner, so she needs to find him and get the two of them to ground. Natasha answers that she thinks she already has. She goes to open a closet but is prevented from opening it by Betty. Before tells her to move before she makes her, which makes Bruce (Mark Ruffalo—the model has even been altered to look more like him to keep in line with the current continuity) reveal himself, saying that violence probably wouldn’t work out for any of them. Natasha hears helicopter blades in the distance and tells them that they need to go.

In the New Mexico desert, the Watcher watches Coulson drive to the site. But as he arrives so does the Bifrost, from which Loki emerges and the entire Asgardian Army emerges (along with the Destroyer and Thor’s friends: Lady Sif and the Warriors Three). Fury and a convoy of SHIELD agents rush out to meet them. He and Loki (Tom Hiddleston) have a bit of back and forth as he introduces himself. Back at Culver, Natasha tries to get in touch with Fury and Bruce insists that it’s safer for everyone if he fends for himself as he can’t die, to which Natasha replies “then I guess you’re in luck”, as General Ross (Mike McGill) and his forces arrive. We intercut between the two locations as Fury finds out that Loki came to Earth for vengeance for his brother’s murder and Natasha tries to get Ross to stand down, but a crosshairs reveals that someone has Bruce in their sights and he is shot, much to the General’s confusion as he didn’t order anyone to open fire.

Natasha tries to calm Bruce down, promising she’ll get him out of this, but Bruce turns into the Hulk and Loki unleashes the power of the Casket of Ancient Winters on SHILELD. The Hulk fights Ross’s forces. Betty tries to intervene to get her father to stop but is prevented by Natasha, who tells her that the General isn’t the one who started this. Then something strange happens: the Incredible Hulk becomes the ‘Inflatable Hulk’ and explodes (no blood or guts of course, this is Disney, but still pretty disturbing regardless). Fury tells Loki that declaring war on Earth won’t bring Thor back and Sif (Jaimie Alexander) halts Loki’s attack, acknowledging that Fury isn’t wrong and that the All-Father would want them to listen. Fury tells him that whoever killed his brother also killed two of their own and offers him a compromise: give him time to find his brother’s killer and he can “have his pound of flesh.” Loki agrees, giving him until sunrise to do so, or he’ll reduce the planet “to ash and ice.”

Meanwhile, in Virginia, Natasha has snuck into a public library to get to a computer to try and access the Avengers Initiative files. She manages to get Coulson to tell her his password (which we learn is “Hashtag-Steve-Steve-Steve-I-heart-Steve-0-7-0-4”, no wonder he was reluctant to tell her) as she’s locked out of the system. She logs onto SHIELD’s server and accesses the personnel files—including Janet Van Dyne, who is presumed deceased—and notices something strange: “how did a woman who died two years ago access the database yesterday?” She calls Fury but hears something strange and realises she’s being watched. She tells whoever it is that they won’t win against her or SHIELD before she’s brutally attacked by a seemingly invisible assailant. Her phone call goes to voicemail and Natasha desperately yells “it’s Hope! It’s all about Hope!” (another pin) before she’s dragged away and killed off-screen.

In New Mexico, with only four hours to go before sunrise, Fury sits in a diner, replaying Natasha’s voicemail message over and over. Coulson reveals that there’s still one candidate left: Fury himself. Fury remarks that he’s not the only Avenger left and goes to his car, retrieving Captain Marvel’s pager from his glove compartment. He tells Coulson it’s their last hope and, as he does so, realises what Natasha was trying to tell him. As he’s about to set off, Coulson asks where he’s going and he says: “either make a pact with a god or a deal with the devil.” He arrives at the ice structure in the desert where the Asgardians have made their base and tells the Destroyer armour standing guard that he’s “here to see your boss.”

Thursday. The Watcher overlooks a misty San Francisco graveyard and Fury is standing at the grave of Hope Van Dyne, who in this reality was a SHIELD agent. Now tie all those pins together, as the assassin is revealed to be none other than Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), this time in the guise of Yellowjacket, and who has gone off the deep-end after the deaths of his wife and daughter. He blames Fury and SHIELD for her death (it’s revealed that she was killed on a mission outside Odessa Ukraine, meaning that in this universe Hope Van Dyne was killed by the Winter Soldier) and so he decided to get revenge on Fury by tearing down everything he built, able to kill the Avengers candidates undetected by his ability to shrink down to microscopic sizes (in a bit of nightmare fuel it’s revealed he killed Bruce by using a re-sizing disc on his heart, causing it to uncontrollably enlarge).

Throughout the encounter, Fury is uncharacteristically flippant, only shifting to serious when it comes to Thor and unimpressed to find that he killed him just because he could, as he was the sort of person Fury would recruit in a heartbeat. Pym goes to kill Fury only for him to be easily swatted away. They fight and when Fury starts duplicating himself and using ice magic, we quickly realise that this is Loki in disguise. Sure enough, Loki beats Hank and the real Fury shows up and gives him a ‘reason-you-suck’ speech—“SHIELD is people, people willing to give their lives for something greater than themselves to save the world from men like you”— before he’s taken away by the Asgardian army. Loki tells Fury it’s been a pleasure and Fury replies “Good. Now take your hammer and get off my planet.” But Loki’s decided that maybe they should be allies after all and says he plans to extend his stay on Midgard, and Fury warily asks him “how long?”

Friday. It turns out that Loki means to stay indefinitely, marching into the United Nations and giving a televised speech—the one he gave in Germany in Avengers—conquering the planet with no bloodshed whatsoever. Meanwhile, in a hanger Fury and Coulson look over a row of coffins containing the Avengers’ remains. Coulson says that the Avengers fell before they had a chance to rise but Fury says that the Avengers were not just a team but an idea, “the affirmation of humanity’s need to believe that in our darkest hour, we will find our heroes.”

The Watcher then states that he believes that hope never dies, no matter the universe, as long as someone keeps their “good eye” on the bigger picture. He says this as Fury explores the Captain America crash site and finds him frozen in ice. He says, “welcome back Captain”, and this turns out to be two-fold, as Captain Marvel (Alexandra Daniels) appears and asks “so where’s the fight?” Showing that, in a reversal of the ending of last week’s episode, all hope is indeed not lost.

So, this week was a murder mystery and next week looks like it will be shenanigans with Doctor Strange.

The post What If…? Recap: 1.03 ‘What If…The World Lost Its Mightiest Heroes?’ appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

SPOILERS AHEAD

After the Marvel logo and opening credits (which don’t appear to change with the subject of the episode), The Watcher introduces the episode’s deeper theme: “in a multiverse of infinite possibility, is your destiny determined by your nature or the nature of your world?” Nature vs nurture basically, which echoes the Guardians films, where part of Peter Quill Star Lord’s journey is whether he’s defined by his biological lineage or whether he’s capable of redefining himself with the family he chooses.

We begin on Morag, the planet where the Orb containing the Power Stone resides. Like in the first Guardians film, Star Lord goes to steal it and is interrupted by enforcers for the Kree warlord Ronan the Accuser (who is Sir not appearing in this show) led Korath the Pursuer (Djimon Hounsou). This Star Lord reveals himself to be T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) rather than Peter Quill and elicits the reaction from Korath that Quill wanted, as he immediately starts fanboying and will continue to do so for the rest of the episode (Korath is definitely this episode’s Howard Stark in terms of comic relief). He’s not even angry when T’Challa tricks him into shocking himself unconscious by punching the Orb’s forcefield, merely having another fanboy moment—“Classic Star Lord!”—before collapsing with a smile on his face. He must have impressed or endeared himself because T’Challa decides to take him along, remarking that he’s “hired worse.” The rest of Ronan’s soldiers aren’t such big fans however, and they have him surrounded. But, as T’Challa says, “a Ravager never flies solo”, and Yondu (Michael Rooker) knocks them all out with his Yaka arrow. He comments on how, in the old days, they would’ve sold the Orb to the highest bidder, rather than use it to save a system by jump starting a dying star, to which T’Challa points out that if they made like the old days Yondu would only have half of his teeth and that “no treasure is worth as much as the good that can be done with it.” To which Yondu merely says “that’s my boy.”

They fly away in their ship, now named the ‘Mandela’ instead of the ‘Milano’, and the Watcher shows us how T’Challa came to be in space. We then flashback to twenty years earlier in 1988 and see a young T’Challa (Maddix Robinson) in the throne room of the palace of Wakanda with his father King T’Chaka (John Kani). T’Challa is tired of “living in a bubble” and thinks that there must be more out there if they’re brave enough to look for it. His father understands his son’s restlessness, that though the blood of kings runs through his veins it’s “pumped by the heart of an explorer”, but tells him that, as someone who has seen the wider world, all he would find would be destruction and pain.

Regardless, that night T’Challa sneaks outside the Wakanda barrier, and is promptly abducted by the Ravagers. Turns out, in this universe, Yondu outsourced the job of finding & abducting Peter Quill to Kraglin (Sean Gunn) and Taserface (Chris Sullivan), who think all humans look the same. Yondu is not amused that they’ve taken the wrong kid but Kraglin argues that the cosmic readings—what they’d be using to track the child of a Celestial—from where they took T’Challa were off the charts, and T’Challa helpfully points out that this is because his home is built on top of a Vibranium meteorite. Yondu expresses surprise and interest that T’Challa doesn’t seem to freaked out by the situation and asks what he was doing out there all be himself. T’Challa answers “exploring the world”, to which Yondu says why stop at exploring one world when they can show him all of them?

Back in the present, the Ravagers arrive on Contraxia, the snow covered planet from Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2, but, unlike in that film, instead of hanging out in the scuzzy establishments at street level, they enter a much classier establishment. They reminisce about past heists (Korath fitting right in as if he’s always been there) and it transpires that, thanks to T’Challa’s altruistic influence, the Ravagers are no longer mercenaries for hire but rather intergalactic Robin Hoods (who, like he did with Mary Poppins, Yondu later misname-checks) which has made them better people and the galaxy a better place.

T’Challa even managed to convince Thanos (Josh Brolin) into abandoning his plan to decimate half the population of the universe. As he says, “sometimes the best weapon in your arsenal is just a good argument”, and since he comes from a culture that is untouched by imperialistic and has learned to settle disputes and share resources between its tribes, he’s certainly well placed to have a convincing argument for better ways of resource allocation—and recruit him to their side. Though, amusingly, he does still try to point out that his original plan had some merits; genocide has now become the boring political argument that that one relative wheels out every Christmas. I could comment on this but as Digital Spy do a much better job, I’ll let them do it for me: “It’s funny then to think that in another reality, Star-Lord was the one who saved the universe from Thanos and they don’t even know it, because the Mad Titan is now too busy being a loveable himbo.”

We get an amusing moment with Drax (Fred Tatasciore—whose performance is so good that if you didn’t already know it wasn’t Dave Bautista you’d swear it was) who’s now a bartender after T’Challa saved his planet—and consequently his wife and daughter, the reason behind his quest for revenge in the original films—from being invaded by the Kree. Then Nebula (Karen Gillan) arrives, whole and mostly unscarred—presumably not having been subjected to the years of torture and abuse from Thanos—with a full head of blonde hair, looking every inch the attractive Femme Fatale. They greet each other warmly, Nebula even referring to him by the pet name of “Cha-Cha” (I suspect there will now be many people shipping them). The relationship between her and father still seems strained however, and though T’Challa encourages her to talk with him, mentioning that he’s changed to point where he’s taken up gardening (as he did after the snap in the original timeline), Nebula replies that people may change but that the past doesn’t, pointing out that T’Challa still wears his past—his Wakandan necklace—around his neck. We then learn why T’Challa never went back: apparently, Yondu did attempt to return him to Wakanda when he was younger but it had been destroyed in another of humanity’s senseless wars. He lost his home and so now he saves everyone else’s. Nebula then says she has a job for him.

We cut back to the Ravagers’ ship. The job turns out to be to steal something called the ‘Embers of Genesis’, nutrient rich cosmic dust from an ancient supernova. With just an ounce you can heal a dying planet in minutes, so with the size of the payload they’re after they could effectively eradicate hunger across the galaxy. (“Don’t tell Captain Genocide.”) Unfortunately, the person who they’d be stealing them from is Taneleer Tivan, AKA The Collector (Benicio del Toro) who, in this universe, has not only been hitting the protein shakes but is now, the most ruthless kingpin in the galactic underworld, seeing an opportunity to fill the power vacuum left by Thanos after he went straight. Yondu is not happy, seeing it as a suicide mission that he refuses to sanction.

He and T’Challa have a talk elsewhere on the ship. Yondu remarks that T’Challa may be the soul of the group but that is still the captain but T’Challa argues that Ravagers don’t back down from a fight, comparing what they’ve been doing so far to picking pockets for loose coins and that, if they really want to change the galaxy, it’s time they robbed the bank. Yondu admits that he’s never been any good at saying ‘no’ to him.

So we go into the planning of the heist, intercutting between the planning and it being carried out. They deduce that the Embers will be housed with the rest of his conquests, in his Museum/base of operations in the mining colony in the severed head of the Celestial Knowhere. To get past the Black Order, who are in charge of security (proving that just because the boss goes straight doesn’t mean the henchman will),  Nebula and Yondu pose as sellers, smuggling T’Challa in, while, at the same time, the Ravagers will cause a distraction by starting a riot outside (Thanos has a little fun with Korath as his payback for the latter’s earlier “Captain Genocide” comment). This succeeds in drawing Proxima Midnight (Carrie Coon), Corvus Glaive (Fred Tatasciore) and Cull Obsidian away before the security scan can be completed, allowing T’Challa to slip out and search the collection.

Said collection is vast however, and as he passes Cosmo the space dog and a Dark Elf, T’Challa wonders what the point of all this suffering is and voice answers: “my guess, he’s compensating for something big. Or small, if you catch my drift.” Yes, Howard the Duck (Seth Green) just insinuated that the Collector’s collection is his way of compensating for a small penis. T’Challa asks him if he knows where he can find the Embers of Genesis and Howard gives him directions that are essentially a laundry list of MCU references, to the point where T’Challa decides it’s easier to just say “screw it”, bust Howard out and ask him for the tour.

Outside, Proxima Midnight breaks up the fight but, seeing that it’s the Ravagers, realises it’s a diversion and sounds the alarm. The building begins to lock down and T’Challa and Howard are separated when Howard stops for a drink. T’Challa runs into what appears to be The Collector’s garage, when his vibranium necklace begins to glow and resonate with something. That something turns out to be a Wakandan space craft— Wakanda was already a technologically advanced society but has obviously got to the point where they’ve mastered space travel in the intervening years. Inside the space craft are some mannequins wearing Dora Milaje uniforms (which doesn’t look good for what or who might’ve been wearing those uniforms) and a message from his father, revealing that his family have been searching for him all this time (it’s also here we get the first of several uses of the Black Panther score). T’Challa is obviously not happy with the revelation that Yondu lied to him, but, before he can do anything, Nebula enters, appearing to betray him by holding him at gunpoint and revealing that she had a debt with the collector and he was the payment.

Corvus Glaive throws T’Challa and Yondu into the cell with the other Ravagers, and we get the somewhat obligatory third-act conflict as T’Challa angrily confronts Yondu about why he lied to him and Yondu claims that he was doing it to protect him, that “sometimes you need to hear a lie to see the truth”, that he’s an explorer, just like them, and the past, for people like them, is nothing but a prison. He tells him that he doesn’t belong down there but with them, his family. To which T’Challa responds “you are not my family. You never were.” Korath says what everybody is thinking: “damn, that hurts.” Glaive then returns to take T’Challa to the Collector, knocking him out.

When T’Challa awakes, he finds himself in one of the Collector’s exhibit cages. He tells the Collector that, where he comes from, history doesn’t look too kindly on people who put other people in cages, which seems to touch a chord with the Collector’s servant Carina (Ophelia Lovibond). Disappointed that T’Challa doesn’t have any superpowers, the Collector hands him over to Ebony Maw (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor) for dissection.

Meanwhile, back in the Ravagers’ cell, Nebula returns with Corvus Glaive. Korath yells at her for betraying them, only for her to turn around and shoot Glaive. She reveals that this was the plan from the beginning: a ruse to settle her debt with the Collector and steal the Embers of Genesis from under his nose. It was T’Challa’s idea to keep the Ravagers in the dark because he knew Yondu would never let him walk into a trap. She then says that T’Challa is keeping his escape plan “close to his chest.”

What she means is T’Challa’s vibranium necklace, which he uses to smash the glass. He escapes and goes for Ebony Maw, who manages to telekinetically restrain him, but is saved by Carina, who shoots Maw in the back. She liked that thing he said “about not locking people in cages.” T’Challa thanks her and says he owes her a debt. The alarm sounds as both T’Challa and the Ravagers escape, and T’Challa runs straight into the collector. Or rather, he runs straight into the Collector’s fist, which is covered in a rocky gauntlet that the Collector claims to have hacked off of the “carcass of a terribly chatty Kronan.” And, of course, he has plenty of other weapons to play with: Malekith’s dagger, Captain America’s shield, Mjolnir, and—what the Collector finally chooses—Hela’s helmet, which allows him to conjure and wield her necroswords (considering where we are in the MCU timeline, does it make sense for him to have these? No, of course not but just go with it), with which he manages to pin T’Challa down.

Meanwhile, Nebula and the Ravagers (minus Yondu, you’ll notice) are being pursued by the rest of the Black Order as they try to escape. After saving Nebula from Proxima Midnight, Thanos tells everyone to get to the ship, while he stays behind and holds them off. Nebula tells him he’s crazy as he’ll never do it by himself, to which Thanos replies he’s not crazy, just “mad”, giving us a teeny tiny glimpse of the Mad Titan of old. He does a good job, until Cull Obsidian and Proxima tag-team him, and—back at the Ravagers’ ship—Nebula hears his scream.

Back with T’Challa and the Collector, the latter taunts the former about he abandoned his home and family only for his new family to now abandon him (“karma”). But T’Challa reminds him that a Ravager never flies solo and Yondu has a ‘Big Damn Heroes’ moment, his arrow shooting Hela’s helmet of the Collector’s head and smashing it, saying that “Ain’t no way in hell I was going to leave here without my kid.”

Proxima Midnight and Cull Obsidian have Thanos on the ropes, but before Proxima can deliver the final blow, she’s shot down by Nebula. She gets Cull Obsidian by making him swallow a tiny amount of the Embers of Genesis, causing plant matter to erupt out of him, and Thanos and Nebula run as it starts to take over. They just make it back to the ship (with the help of an epic jump) and fly off.

The Collector proves to be a match physically for both Yondu and T’Challa, so they need to try something else. Time for “sticky fingers.” Yondu goes for the Collector again but seemingly gets his lights punched out. T’Challa readies his jet boots and the Collector finds that Yondu has stolen his gauntlet control, which he uses to open an empty cage behind him, allowing T’Challa to use his jet boots to kick him, providing enough force to knock the Collector into the cage, so he ends up exactly where he (or his illusion at any rate) ended up in Infinity War. The Collector claims that this will not contain him, and that there’s no where in the galaxy they can go that’s beyond his grasp, but Yondu and T’Challa are unimpressed. T’Challa gives the gauntlet control to Carina whom he trusts will know what to do with it, to which she replies that she has “some ideas.” She then takes great relish in ignoring the Collectors commands and freeing the rest of his collection before opening his cage. As his former prisoners advance upon and surround him, The Collector sums things up pretty well: “oh, karma.”

T’Challa and Yondu escape in the Wakandan spaceship, as the Embers of Genesis turns Knowhere into a giant Chia Pet in space. T’Challa contacts Nebula, who reveals that they all got out OK and that they will meet at the rendezvous point. Yondu reveals they have a stowaway in the form of Cosmo, to which T’Challa replies “you always did have a soft spot for runaways.” This leads Yondu to try and apologise for lying, for T’Challa stops him, acknowledging that he was the one who said that he wanted to see the world and so he can’t blame Yondu for showing him the universe. But he also admits that the revelation has left him uncertain, as he’d always felt at home in space but now isn’t sure where he belongs. Yondu tells him that, if he’s learnt anything from watching him, it’s that “on any planet, among any people, there ain’t no place in this galaxy where you don’t belong.” But where he wants to be is a question he’ll have to follow his heart to answer.

The Ravagers then journey to Wakanda, where T’Challa is tearfully and happily reunited with his family, whom he takes great pleasure in introducing to his space family (“pleased to meet you sir, your son is a galactic hero”). There’s a celebration where the Wakandans and Ravagers mingle (including Thanos embarrassing Nebula by wheeling out his ‘my-genocide-plan-did-have-some-merits-and-was-at-least-efficient’ schtick with Okoye (Danai Gurira), Korath claiming to Shuri that he’s basically T’Challa’s best friend, and T’Challa helping Yondu out of a hole when T’Chaka asks how his son ended up on his ship in the first place).

But then the Watcher takes us from one family reunion to another, to a grown up Peter Quill (Brian T. Delaney), mopping the floor of a fast-food place (which turns out to be the Dairy Queen in his mother’s hometown that we saw in Guardians Volume 2) while listening to music (‘Space Age Love Song’ by A Flock of Seagulls). Peter hears the bell ring as a customer walks in and turns to around to apologise for the fact they’re closed. Unfortunately, this customer is Ego (Kurt Russell), who’s come to find Peter himself. His eyes glow and the Watcher remarks that it’s too bad that this could spell the end of the universe—showing that, in the nature vs nurture argument, this episode makes a compelling case for nurture, as we’ve already seen how T’Challa changed the Ravagers for the better and they expanded his worldview in turn, but while it seems like T’Challa made for the better Star Lord right away, it turns out that while Quill’s journey to become a great Star Lord may have been longer but it was necessary, he needed to meet and have his experiences with the Ravagers and the Guardians, and be nurtured by them, in order to fight back against Ego—but that that’s another story.

And while we leave on the bombshell (which I really, really hope will get picked up again at some point or it’s a massive tease to leave us on), before the end credits, we have a heart-warming dedication to the late Chadwick Boseman: “our friend, our inspiration, and our hero.” What If…? was, of course, one of the final projects Boseman worked on and this episode is a fitting tribute. T’Challa will also, thankfully, be returning in three more episodes this season.

So if a complaint of last week’s episode was that it was just The First Avenger with a Peggy Carter skin on (a bit reductive, I feel, but I can understand where they’re coming from) this week really shows what they can do with the concept. And if last week was a solid opener, here they’ve hit the ground running.

The post What If…? Recap: 1.02 ‘What If… T’Challa Became a Star-Lord?’ appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

SPOILERS AHEAD

We begin, as ever, with the Marvel Studios logo, which shifts into animated brushstrokes. Then we hear the voice of Uatu the Watcher (Jeffery Wright)—one of a race of cosmic beings whose job it is to observe and record history throughout the multiverse and our cosmic Rod Sterling who will be guiding us through this Marvel Twilight Zone—telling us that time, space, and reality are more than just a linear path but a “prism of infinite possibility where a single choice can branch out into infinite realities.” As he explains this, reality prisms into various moments from throughout the series. The prism shatters and we see that one of those moments— Captain Carter (it will be interesting to see if this changes each episode)—contains even more variables, as one variance will inevitably lead to a domino effect of more as those familiar with Captain America The First Avenger —which this episode begins as a more or less straight retelling of—will soon notice.

After the opening titles, Uatu sets the scene for us: Earth, June 1943, and the Nazi army is marching throughout Europe, leaving death and destruction in their wake. In response, the Allied armies band together to create a new kind of soldier: a super soldier. In the reality we know, it’s Steve Rogers, “the skinny kid from Brooklyn,” who would become Captain America. But in this universe, a single choice will create a new hero. We then cut to Project Rebirth, just as Steve (Josh Keaton, doing an uncannily good impression of Chris Evans) is about to undergo the serum procedure. But here, when Doctor Erskine (Stanley Tucci) asks Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) whether she’d be more comfortable in the observation booth, Peggy decides to stay, and it’s this that changes everything, as it leads to everyone else who would’ve been on that observation deck staying as well, including the Hydra assassin. The assassin detonates a bomb that kills Doctor Erskine and blows up a lot of the equipment, shoots Colonel Phillips and seriously injures Steve before he’s killed by Peggy. Howard Stark (Domonic Cooper) notes that the power levels are dropping and that if they don’t act immediately they’ll lose the project altogether. Steve is too injured to undergo the procedure so, over the protestations of Colonel Flynn (Bradley Whitford, who was originally an SSR agent who appeared in the ‘Agent Carter’ one-shot), Peggy takes his place and becomes the super soldier.

Howard decrees the project a success but the misogynistic Flynn is incensed, saying that women aren’t soldiers. Peggy takes out her frustration on a punching bag, which she manages to knock off the chain, and by frisbeeing a weight into the wall (the shot then revealing that she’s already done this with several of them foreshadows how good she’s going to be with that shield), while Steve undergoes physical therapy. In a fun little nod to/poke at The First Avenger, he tells her things could be worse as Flynn could stick her on a USO tour. The sight of soldiers marching outside then prompts him to mention Bucky, who’s just deployed with the 107^th , and that the army won’t even tell him where he’s going. Peggy agrees it would be nice to able to fight for the people who’re fighting for them and apologises to Steve, as he was meant to be the one to end the war, but Steve confidently tells her “now you will.”

Meanwhile, in the town of Tonsberg in Norway, the Red Skull arrives (Ross Marquand, who took over the character from Hugo Weaving in Infinity War) to steal the Tesseract. Howard and Peggy understand its importance, knowing that if it reaches Hydra high command it’s game over, but Flynn is unwilling to expend any resources over what he sees as a “glorified battery.” Later in a bar however, Howard presents her with what was supposed to be her “USO let’s go sell some war bonds” costume which he’s made a few “upgrades” to, and a vibranium shield, now emblazoned with the Union Flag.

Cut to Berlin and a fully suited and booted Peggy manages to stop the convey carrying Arnim Zola (Toby Jones) and the Tesseract—meaning Hydra now cannot torture and experiment on Bucky or create their Tesseract-based weapons—in a brilliant action sequence which shows off how smooth and fluid the animation is. Peggy tells Flynn that if they’re going to win the war it won’t be with her behind a desk, and when Flynn counters that she’s only an agent and therefore not qualified for field duty, she responds by saying that he then better promote her PDQ and that “Captain” has a nice ring to it. The Tesseract ends up with Howard, who uses it build something, asking Steve if he’s “ready to join the war effort.”

We then hear that the 107^th have been captured by Hydra. Peggy steals a motorbike and infiltrates where they’re being held, rescuing Bucky (Sebastian Stan) and the rest of the Howling Commandos, and finally getting to introduce herself as “Captain Carter.” They escape the facility in a shot almost identical to the iconic one from First Avenger but are pinned down by enemy fire. Peggy calls for air support and is amazed and delighted that this turns out to be Steve piloting Howard’s invention: an armoured suit—making Steve the first prototype Iron Man—powered by the Tesseract, nicknamed the “Hydra Stomper.” We then get a swing music montage of Peggy and Steve fighting Hydra, beating up their soldiers (all we’re missing is the on-screen onomatopoeia) and taking out their planes—once again showing off the fluidity of the animation with an impressive tracking shot—while Flynn takes credit for it all.

Meanwhile, in the Red Skull’s base—Castle de Krake (remember that Hydra’s emblem is a stylised squid? Put a pin in that) in Germany’s Black Forest, a Nazi general tells the Skull that—with all the havoc created by Captain Carter and the Hydra Stomper—Hitler is demanding his presence back at high command. But, as before, Red Skull has delusions of Godhood and grandeur and is going to conquer the world under the banner of Hydra not the Third Reich, and kills him.

Peggy and Steve enjoy a drink back at the bar, Peggy remarking that—like main MCU timeline Steve—she can no longer get drunk. They discuss how the serum has changed how people view her, Peggy acknowledging that she no longer has to fight to be heard or to be in the room. As Steve says, “the outside finally matches the inside.” Steve laments that without the suit he’s still just the skinny kid from Brooklyn, but Peggy very firmly tells him that it’s the suit that’s nothing without the man inside it, admitting that he’s her hero. They lean in for a kiss but are interrupted by Howard (insert “wah-wah-wah” sound effect here).

We then cut to the train mission, here codenamed operation “Where Eagles Dare.” Steve, in the Hydra Stomper, slows the train down, allowing Peggy, Bucky and the rest of the Howling Commandos to zipline onto it. Bucky slips but Peggy is there to catch him. He thanks her, letting her know that she almost ripped his arm off (yes Marvel, we see what you did there). Instead, it’s Steve who’s presumed dead when the train turns out to be a trap. Seeing that it’s full of explosives, he tells them to get away. Peggy and the others manage to escape, but the train explodes, taking Steve with it, devastating Peggy and the Howling Commandos.

Back at SSR headquarters Flynn is angry at the loss of the Hydra Stomper, which Howard told him was indestructible, and Peggy is furious that he’s concerned only about the armour and not the man piloting it. She goes to see Arnim Zola, who they have in custody, and refuses to tell her anything. One humorous smash cut later reveals he told her everything—the location of the Red Skull’s base and his plan to use the Tesseract to summon a champion for Hydra from “beyond the stars”—i.e. another dimension. Peggy also gets a brilliantly cathartic moment when she finally puts Flynn in his place. They decide to storm the castle to put a stop to Red Skull’s plan so that Steve’s sacrifice won’t be in vain, even persuading Howard to come along as they might need “someone to push a button.”

We’re then treated to another beautiful tracking shot of Peggy running through the Black Forest, jumping over the castle walls, taking down the guards and opening the gates for the Howling Commandos to come through. They then split up, Peggy and Howard taking the high route, the Howling Commandos taking the low. Inside, the Red Skull uses the Tesseract to successfully open a portal, decades before project Pegasus would, through which a many-tentacled monster emerges. “De-Krake” > Kraken, get it? I’ve heard some speculation that this could be Shuma-Gorath, one of the rumoured villains for Doctor Strange 2, but since the show started development back in 2018 and the creators said they were told not to use any characters that hadn’t yet been introduced in the films, I’m not so sure.

The Howling Commandos find the Hydra Stomper in one piece and Steve still alive. Peggy and Howard find the Red Skull, who gloats about summoning Hydra’s champion, only for said champion to kill him. Back in the basement, without the tesseract the Stomper has lost its power source but they manage to hook it up to a generator in order to restart it, allowing Steve to fly off and help Peggy and Howard, who are in dire need of it as the inter-dimensional monster has killed the rest of the Hydra scientists and continues to emerge. She gets Howard behind the console so he can shut the portal down, while she grabs a sword—looking every inch the English knight—and tries to beat the monster back.

It turns out that Howard can’t read the console—he spent a weekend with Hedy Lamarr (the Austrian born American actress and inventor) but learning German wasn’t one of the activities they engaged in. Steve (whom Peggy is overjoyed to find out is alive) and the Howling Commandos arrive to help, but the creature lets out an ear-splitting cry that brings everyone but Peggy and Steve to their knees, so Steve gets the Commandos to safety. Howard finds the right lever and the portal begins to close, but the monster is hanging on, so Peggy realises she needs to physically push it back through. Steve arrives but the Stomper runs out of power. He and Peggy have the dance date conversation from The First Avenger, only this time with the roles reversed. Peggy pushes the monster back through the portal, which then closes. Leaving Steve heartbroken.

Sometime later, the Tesseract opens a portal again and Peggy—along with numerous chunks of tentacle—jumps through. But this isn’t Castle De Krake—it’s the Project Pegasus basement of 2012, where she’s met by Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), who recognises her as Captain Carter. Peggy asks where Steve Rogers is and Fury has to gently break it to her that the war ended 70 years ago. He asks her if she’s going to be okay and she replies “of course: we won the war,” but the look on her face tells another story.

Her actions saved her world but cost her everything. The Watcher formally reintroduces himself and reminds us that he only observes—he cannot and won’t interfere. Though the Watchers have interfered in the comics, so we’ll see how long that lasts.

And so that was the first episode of Marvel’s What If…? Beautiful animation and pacing that makes you feel like you’re getting 40 or 50 minutes worth of content rather than 30, and introducing a character looks set to become a fan favourite. There are already rumours that she might be making a cameo in Doctor Strange 2!

Though the MCU (or the MCM as it really should be now, I suppose) is a little more interconnected than the original ‘What If?’ comics, so even though the majority of these stories themselves are going to be self-contained, the way the multiverse seems to work in the MCU is that one nexus event leads to more, which means more alternate timelines or universes branching off from that. Trailer footage seems to suggest they’re working towards a big in-show crossover (and we already know that T’Challa Starlord is in four episodes) and not only has the showrunner confirmed that Captain Carter will be in season 2 but that she’s also the character who will connect each multiversal season of the show.

But if this first episode is any indication of quality, this show’s going to be amazing!

What did you think of the episode? Tell us in the comments below!

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Luca is the feature length directorial debut of Enrico Casarosa (who previously directed the academy award nominated 2011 short film La Luna) and is a “deeply personal” coming-of-age story, taking inspiration from his childhood in Genoa, something reflected in the film’s look, which is deeply rooted in the Italian Riviera of the 1950s & 60s—an era that Casarosa has described as a “golden age that feels timeless”—saturated with both the warm colours evoking a Mediterranean summer and the cool blues and greens of the ocean. The soundtrack even includes era-appropriate Italian pop. The core theme is the celebration of friendship, and so the central narrative thrust is the friendship between Luca and Alberto, which is based on Casarosa himself and his best friend Alberto Surace: “I met my best friend when I was 11. I was really shy and I found this troublemaker of a kid who had a completely different life. Wanted to make a movie about those kinds of friendships that help you grow up…”

So, like Casarosa’s Alberto did for him, film Alberto pushes Luca out of his comfort zone and helps him learn to articulate and chase his dreams. Through this we also organically explore another theme everyone who’s been an adolescent will recognise: the feeling of otherness. This is where the sea monster element comes in. The designs were inspired by Italian myths and regional folklore and function, according to Casarosa, as a metaphor for “feeling different—like being a teen or even pre-teen—any moment where you feel odd.” This fantastical element also lends itself to some wonderful imagination sequences, including one that is aesthetically reminiscent of both Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and Hayao Miyazaki, which were also inspirations for La Luna. And this Ghibli influence can be seen all over the film, from the town of Portorosso itself (which could be seen as a word play on Miyazaki’s 1992 film Porco Rosso), which is the kind of beautiful European setting typical of Miyzaki films—the kind of place you just want to explore and can easily see yourself enjoying a gelato or a pasta dish under an awning—to the narrative itself. For, while there is incident and an antagonist, the plot is firmly character driven, the stakes personal and the pacing fairly leisurely, reminiscent of Ghibli films like Kiki’s Delivery Service and My Neighbour Totoro.

According to Casarosa, Luca is meant to be a “love letter” to the summers of youth, and in this he has succeeded. It’s a lovely film that captures the “timelessness” of childhood summers, celebrating those friendships that come to have a profound impact on us and revelling in what makes us different, all wrapped up in a gorgeously animated bow. A film particularly perfect for the summer holidays, the only shame being Disney chose not to give it a theatrical release, as it definitely deserved one.

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So, if Happy Death Day was Christopher Landon asking ‘what if Groundhog Day was a horror film?’ (and its sequel, Happy Death Day 2 U, explored more of the idea’s sci-fi elements), Freaky is him asking ‘what if Freaky Friday was a slasher film?’ And, like Happy Death Day, the answer is a fun, smart, horror-comedy that manages to be both genuinely funny and suitably tense, as well as a body swap story that avoids most of the clichés associated with them.

Of course, the body swap isn’t an original story idea, nor is the gender swap, and they work best when the contrast is stark. And what could be a starker contrast than a teenage girl and a middle-aged male serial killer? When we first meet them, Millie (Kathryn Newton) is an ordinary high-schooler, kind but unconfident—fragile under the surface from the upheavals her family has gone through following her father’s untimely death—with a tendency to try and be all things to all people that leads some to bully and mistreat her (although the ‘wallflower whom nobody finds attractive until she puts on a different outfit and some makeup’ being played by someone gorgeous is a cliché that just needs to be allowed to die Hollywood, please). The Butcher (Vince Vaughn) is the archetypal, Michael Myers-esque, implacable masked killer.

So, having established who we’re supposed to root for, the body swap completely turns this on its head. Vaughn’s performance is worth the price of admission alone; funny without resorting to being camp and with a core of emotional sincerity. Newton isn’t given quite as much to do but she has a great line in unnerving Kubrick-stares. In fact, the performances are so good, and you spend so much time with them swapped, that when things are inevitably resolved (I don’t think that fact alone is too much of a spoiler) I actually felt sad that Vaughn was back to being the bad guy and was still giving “murder Barbie” the side-eye. The supporting cast are also good, particular standouts being Celeste O’Connor and Misha Osherovich as Millie’s best friends Nyla and Josh, and the inclusion of Alan Ruck (Ferris Bueller’s best friend) as a bullying teacher is a fun touch.

Aside from the odd, clunky line of exposition, the script is smart, taking inspiration from post-modern teen slasher flicks by giving us some timely observations about power dynamics. Millie, as the Butcher, is able to get back at some of those who’d picked on her, admitting that she kind of enjoys the physical power his body gives her. The Butcher, meanwhile, notes how physically weak Millie’s body is in comparison but realises the subtle power it gives him—after all, no one’s going to suspect the innocent teenage girl of being a vicious murderer are they? It’s also very funny. Yes, we get us gags about peeing standing up but there are also some cracking lines that deconstruct everything from current culture, popular culture and even horror film tropes—Misha Osherovich is a veritable fountain of these—as well as great moments of physical comedy. But it also shows love for the old-school style slashers. The font used for the dates and titles, for instance, is the same as the Friday 13^th franchise, and Millie’s love interest (Uriah Shelton) is called Booker Strode—a reference, of course, to the Heroine of the Halloween franchise. Another way it reflects these are the violence. If you like your slashers bloody, you’re going to be happy. Freaky is definitely more violent than Happy Death Day and doesn’t mess around, with four deaths within the first ten minutes. There’s also a good mix of brutal and inventive—knives and other assortment of bladed weapons? Check. Now how about freezing someone solid, to the point where they shatter into pieces?

Landon has confirmed Freaky and Happy Death Day are set in the same world, and has teased a potential future crossover. As he himself stated, both films definitely “share the same DNA”, and a crossover sounds intriguing. However, in order for the formula not to go stale, it will need to move beyond ‘take high-concept X and turn it into a horror film’. But for now, Freaky is another bullseye.

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