Marvel What If… Episode 9 Season 1 Finale Spoilers Sets Up MCU’s Avengers 5 & Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness?!
Well, in today’s Season 1 episode 9 finale, now streaming, we had the threat of Ultron, possessing the body of the Vision and all the Infinity Stones, continue to be a threat to the Multiverse.
He/it debuted in Episode 8 (What If… Ultron Won?).
That required the Watcher to break his oath after literally being found out and battled by Ultron in the last episode.
How did we break his oath? Well, he formed the Guardians of the Multiverse to take on Ultron.
The team Episode 1’s Captain Carter (What If… Captain Carter Were The First Avenger?).
Episode 2’s Black Panther (What… T’Challa Became Star-Lord?).
Episode 3’s Black Widow (What If… The World Lost Its Mightiest Heroes?).
Episode 4’s Doctor Strange (What If… Doctor Strange Lost His Heart?).
Episode 6’s Killmonger (What If… Killmonger Rescued Tony Stark?).
Episode 7’s Thor (What If… Thor Was An Only Child?).
Episode 9’s Gamora (What If… The Watcher Broke His Oath?).
The finale did include Doctor Strange summoning Zombies from Episode 5 (What If… Zombies?) and dropping them, all of them, on Ultron literally.
The Guardians of the Multiverse eventually win, by separating Ultron (whose body had taken over by Arnim Zola) from the Infinity Stones as he and the team’s Killmonger fight to possess the stones.
The two mid-battle get trapped in time in a pocket dimension by Doctor Strange who must now guard this bauble; perhaps by putting it on his mantle or some such.
The episode ends with the Watcher not returning Black Widow to her dead world, but one in which the Avengers lost their Black Widow.
You may recall that in the live-action Avengers Endgame film Black Widow died.
The recent Black Widow was a prequel to those two last Avengers films; so the OG Black Widow remains deceased.
The White Widow is expected to appear in Disney Plus’ Hawkeye series, that debuts on November 24, 2021, hunting down the OG Hawkeye blaming her for her spiritual sister’s death.
It is strongly implied in the What If… finale that the world that this Black Widow completes the Avengers on is the MCU cinematic universe’s main Earth, but time will tell; the animated series are considered MCU canon afterall.
It definately feels like What If… introduced the concept of the multiverse, in a material way, ahead of the Doctor Strange II film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness; the adjusted pandemic release date for that movie is March 25, 2022 in North America.
There is a rumored Avengers 5 film focusing on a New Avengers team as part of the MCU Phase 5, but that has yet to be confirmed; we may need to wait to till then to see the fate of Black Widow. Considering the lawsuit between Marvel and the actress who portrays her as been settled, it’s anyone’s guess if Scarlett Johansson she will return or wants to return.
The What If… finale ended with a mid-credits scene with Captain Carter returning to her world and finding the Hydra Stomper and being told by her Black Widow someone is inside; implying it is a time-tossed Steve Rogers.
In my opinion, prior to the last 2 episodes of What If…, I felt the series was disjointed. I only watched the few I found interesting. However, since the finale essentially brings back most of the core or leading characters from those previous episodes, I will go back and watch the ones I missed.
I’d like to see the Guardians of the Multiverse again too.
What If… Season 2 is expected and may come as early 2022; stay tuned.
It is interesting that at the same time as Marvel is launching an Avengers Forever series, basically a Multiversal Avengers team taking on a Multiversal Masters of Evil (to be formally introduced in the milestone Avengers #750 / #50), we get the MCU introduction of a Guardians of the Multiverse.
Interesting.
