What If has Killmonger fulfilling his plans, he was not entirely wrong, but some of the writing is inconsistent here! The opening is the beginning of Iron Man, this seems to be on repeat with this show, Afghanistan, we have the military convoy driving along. Tony Stark (Mick Wingert) is riding along until the ambush. Wingert played Tony in the episode, “What If… The World Lost Its Mightest Heroes”? The actor has the devil-may-care playboy down which is public persona of Tony, but not his deeper side. Stark sees the missile with Stark Industries logo, it is tossed by Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) and explodes!, he continues firing his rifle. Killmonger tells him that the Ten Rings are sending reinforcements, he doesn’t seem to know anything about who and what power is behind the Ten Rings. He walks off with Stark. It is great having Michael B. Jordan back as Killmonger, but we all know he is a villain, right? The Watcher shows glimpses of the MCU 1.0. We’ve seen most of the Avengers with only a cameo of Thor and then get a repeat of Stark.
The Watcher explains that his injury changed Stark from a hero. True, but he did see a Stark Industries munition that almost killed him, but I guess that is unimportant. He is at his press conference announcing that Stark Industries would no longer produce weapons, he is there with Obadiah Stane, voiced by Kiff VandenHeuvel who provided voice for video games and the Tom and Jerry Show shorts. In the audience is Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau, his second episode) and Pepper Potts (Beth Hoyt). It seems like this is Hoyt’s first voice role and she is known for comedy programs. Killmonger is now in his dress suit, it looks like his assassin cover is blown. Tony is still a billionaire with a quick joke. He resolves himself to create better weapons and brings in as his chief of security, Lieutenant Erik Stevens also known as Killmonger. Happy notes that his boss passed him up for the promotion. Christine Everhart (Leslie Bibb), the reporter from the first movie, asks the question of how Lt. Stevens appeared at the battle when his units was stationed far from that point.
Killmonger admits he found plans to kill Stark while undercover for the Ten Rings. Stane tries to cut short the press conference, but Erik reveals that the assassination was funded by Obadiah Stane! Killmonger shows all of the documents pointing to Stane. Stane knocks out a security guard, but is punched out by Happy! Later, Tony is having a drink with Erik, they seem to be bonding, but of course Killmonger is a mastermind. He gives him the COO position with Pepper questioning it. The big part is that Tony can hack into any computer especially with Jarvis, but doesn’t dig into Killmonger’s past? Pepper leaves them to meet with Rhodey (Don Cheadle). He gives her the military intel on Erik, but Pepper is still suspicious. Tony shows Erik his garage including the Jericho turned into a firearm. Killmonger tells Tony about his automated drone, Project Liberator, and Stark agrees to build it with Stark tech. He drops a joke about worst case ending up with an “expensive Gundam model”! Very funny.
Erik and Tony work together on the work benches to build the robot. Killmonger uses his fighting skills which are matched to the bot, another Big Hero 6 (2014)-type scene. At a test, Erik faces his creation, but it falls down in a heap. Jarvis (Paul Bettany), we finally get him after the build, saying the mecha was overloaded. Stark theorizes that they could use a miniature arc reactor, wasn’t the arc reactor built (with Yinsen) when Stark was injured, then made larger when he returned? Killmonger suggests they use Vibranium and tosses him a ring, doesn’t this set off the alarm bells? Agent Coulson was involved, how about Nick Fury?, not interested in any of these developments? He knows that Ulysses Klau could get him some Vibranium, Pepper disagrees with him, and Killmonger is on her side. So Tony sends in Rhodey. We get the African coast, which is where we saw Klau in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis) shows Rhodey a Dora Milaje spear, I’m not how it ended up in the black market.
He sells it for $10 million, once Rhodey accepts, Klaue takes him to a refrigerated room filled with Vibranium. It seems implausible that that much Vibranium went outside of Wakanada and that Klaue was just building it up, not using it for weapons. Klaue suddenly gets report of a breach, Rhodey tries to contact Killmonger, the villain retreats into the shadows. The gunmen are taken down by the Black Panther! Rhodey shoots his gun at the Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), the bullets are deflected, he wants the Vibranium. I like the return of Boseman after the really good What If…? episode. Killmonger strikes T’Challa and Rhodey down with a sonic weapon. He takes care of both of them. We had changes of villains into protagonists what comes to mind is What If #22 (1980), “What If Dr. Doom Had Become a Hero?” Really, it should be “What If Killmonger Killed the Marvel Universe?” Killmonger uses the Vibranium to make battle droids very like Star Wars: Phantom Menace (1999) as part of his manipulations. He gets General Ross (Mike McGill) to build the bots. I really like the return of the Black Panther cast; John Kani (why would T’Challa be Black Panther with his father still there?), Angela Bassett, Danai Gurira, and Ozioma Akagha as a young Shuri! This What If? episode has the merging of Iron Man and Black Panther casts which is great, but the story problems are numerous!
Three Stark Liberator Drones out of Five!
#WhatIf, #KillmongerRescuedTonyStark, #MichaelBJordan, #MickWingert, #DonCheadle,#BethHoyt, #JonFavreau, #ChadwickBoseman, #JohnKani, #AngelaBassett, #DanaiGurira, #OziomaAkagha, #AndySerkis, #MikeMcGill
No comments:
Post a Comment