Marvel’s advent calendar of What If…? episodes for season 2 has ended, with one each night until the entire nine episode season was completed. While it wasn’t my favorite, it really pulled things together by the end, and I figured it was time for a ranking order now that the finale is here.
From worst to best, here’s the ranking of all What If…? season 2’s episodes, which no doubt many of you will disagree with. But here we go (spoilers follow):
9. What If…Happy Hogan Saved Christmas? – While there is some amount of comedy found within most What If episodes, this Die Hard parody pushed things a little too far, including overusing Kat Dennings’ Darcy and making a Hulkified Happy the hero of the day. While I did like seeing the return of Justin Hammer, he made for a poor Hans Gruber in the grand scheme of things. Could have been better.
8. What If…Nebula Joined the Nova Corps? – Don’t get me wrong, while I’m always open to seeing more of Karen Gillan’s Nebula, this noir mystery was pointing a finger at Nova Prime from moment one. I also absolutely forgot who Yon-Rogg was, one of the MCU’s most ignorable villains from Captain Marvel, even if he was played by Jude Law. Just not compelling or interesting enough to hold attention.
7. What If…Peter Quill Attacked Earth’s Mightiest Heroes? – You may be sensing a pattern here, that these are the first three episodes. Hey, I said it didn’t start strong. The ‘80s Avengers were not as fun as some of the other variants we’ve seen in What If, and Peter Quill turning on Ego through the power of Hope van Dyne’s friendship was a bit lame. Eventually his face turn made some amount of sense, especially once he figured out Ego killed his mom, but it’s a very skippable episode.
6. What If…Captain Carter Fought the Hydra Stomper? – Half the episodes in this season feature the de facto lead of What If, Peggy Carter, but some are better than others. I did enjoy her team-up with Lake Bell’s Black Widow, and there was some good action here, but I’ve never really liked Steve in the Hydra Stomper as a plotline, and I don’t think it was compelling the second time around either. And how many times can we do “Peggy loses Steve again” at this point.
5. What If…The Avengers Assembled In 1602? – This one wasn’t bad, and it was kind of fun to see all the different medieval-ified versions of the main heroes. Again, Captain Carter is in the lead here, but this was admittedly pretty fun all around, even with one of the goofier concepts of the season. But hey, that’s what What If is for, right?
4. What If…Hela Found The Ten Rings – I would argue that few if any of these What If episodes allow for enough time for significant character development, but this is an exception. We only know Hela from Ragnarok, and her transformation from scheming villain to redeemed “Hela the White” was indeed pretty compelling, and I wish we saw more of her elsewhere in the season. But hey there’s always season 3.
3. What If…Iron Man Crashed Into the Grandmaster? – I feel like other people might rate this lower, but I actually really liked this a lot. Part of that is that it’s nice to see Tony back, even if he is being voiced by Mick Wingert instead of Robert Downey Jr. But Wingert does a really good job! And the obvious highlight of the episode of Jeff Goldblum returning to voice the Grandmaster, and the entire ridiculous “race for the fate of the universe” storyline was actually very fun.
2. What If…Kahhori Reshaped the World? – It is extremely difficult to create an entirely new Marvel hero from scratch when all these other characters have 40-80 years of history behind them, but they did a great job here. Kahhori, voiced by Reservation Dogs’ Devery Jacobs is a great new addition to the universe, and it was excellent that the entire episode was filmed in the Mohawk language instead of translated to English. And then we got to see even more of Kahhori in the #1 episode…
1. What If…Strange Supreme Intervened? – I mean just, extremely impressive. Kahhori and Captain Carter taking on a traitorous Strange Supreme as multiversal villains battled around them was thrilling and so well choreographed. At one point when Carter gets Infinity Stone armor, Hela’s helmet and Odin’s spear, which is hilariously over the top, but it totally works in this context. And Kahhori shows just how overpowered she can be with practically Doctor Manhattan level powers (but in a fun way). Cumberbatch’s Strange is a worthy villain, one of the MCU’s best, I’d argue, despite behind animated. Just an excellent finale drawing on both seasons’ worth of storylines. Even if I was so-so on most of season 2, it ended very well.
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