What If…? Season 3 Episode 1 Review
The first episode of ‘What If…?’ season three sees a new team of Avengers team up with one another to fight an army of Hulk monsters after Bruce Banner accidentally unleashes them after an experiment gone wrong. The only way to fight these kaiju monsters is of course with mechs, leading to strong action with some uninspired emotional moments.
The star of the show for this episode is of course the mechs. Each Avenger has their own mech, with sharp edges and colours to match the person who’s piloting them. They have visual flair, which is something that’s carried over into the action. It has the appropriate weight with the mechas slamming into the Hulk monsters.
This looks like it takes place in a post-Endgame world, as the team is made up of characters introduced after that film. It’s a nice change of peace to see different characters take the spotlight, again adding yet more variety to what’s happening. It also hints to what audiences might be able to expect from the next ‘Avengers’ film, as it seems Sam Wilson will be stepping up into a leadership position in the main MCU.
All of the action borrows liberally from well-known mecha and kaiju franchises like ‘Voltron’, ‘Pacific Rim’, ‘Kong’, and of course, the king of kaijus, ‘Godzilla’. The Hulk monsters come out from the sea like the aliens from ‘Pacific Rim’ and the final Hulk form looks very much like Godzilla. Banner’s island seems very much like Skull Island. There is also the appropriate amount of destruction that these battles bring. These homages are all very deliberate, and are done with a Marvel twist, like a massive Captain America shield.
The setup for all of this mecha and kaiju action is helpfully given out at the start, with the Watcher explaining that Sam formed a friendship with Bruce Banner instead of Steve Rogers, and invited Banner to his therapy group. Unfortunately, this didn’t go as planned, and when Banner Hulked out and put Sam in danger, he tried to cure himself by trying to suck the Gamma radiation out of him. Naturally, this doesn’t go as planned, leading to the dangerous Hulk monsters present in the episode. Banner hides himself out of shame.
The rest of the episode focuses on the aftermath of the First Gamma War, where the first Avengers have been wiped out and Banner is missing. However, unfortunately for the heroes, Hulk monsters begin to remerge, threatening the planet. This second half is where some of the predictability of the emotional arcs sets in, as Monica Rambeau suggests Sam goes to find Bruce. He refuses, but is forced into it when it becomes clear that the threat is too great not to. When he does, Bruce naturally doesn’t want to rejoin, until at the end he makes a heroic sacrifice. Sam’s goodbye to his friend at the end does elevate this beyond typical fare, helping the journey stand out more and connecting to his roots as a counsellor.
This episode opens up the third season of ‘What If…?’ strongly, as while the emotional core of the episode isn’t too nuanced in where it goes, the visual spectacle that audiences get from the huge fights is more than enough to make up for that. The Hulk makes a perfect stand-in for Godzilla and many other kaiju monsters, giving the creative team the perfect excuse to create beautiful mech suits for the heroes. This design is backed up with brilliant action, exactly what audiences would expect from this premise.
