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The latest episode of What If…? ponders a relatively simple question — what if T’Challa (who originally became the Black Panther) became ‘Star-Lord’ instead of Peter Quill? Of course, the specific difference here is due to a mistake by the Yondu crew, on the wrong side of the planet while a young T’Challa has escaped Wakanda’s shield to find his own adventure.
There is a pretty explicit theme in the episode, as the narrator The Watcher asks us how we and our stories are defined, destiny by your nature or the nature of your world? It’s a sort of classic nature versus nurture tale. We know that a young Peter Quill would become a rapscallion and thief, even if he’s not a murderous pirate. So in his case, the environment did help make him who he becomes — but here the intriguing counter-tale is offered, that T’Challa’s inherent (or already learned) knowledge of right and wrong causes everyone else to change instead.
The first amusing little change is when Guardians of the Galaxy villain Korath (Djimon Hounsou) is starstruck by Star-Lord, a ‘huge fan of [his] work’, contrasted with how in the Guardians movie he didn’t even recognize the Star-Lord name. All well and good, and T’Challa naturally kicks ass during his escape, and sure, he carries Korath with him, but then something truly extraordinary happens when he reunites with Yondu.
He says that ‘No treasure is worth as much as the good that can be done with it’ — and Yondu agrees! So we know that the galaxy is a far different place, worse in some ways, better in others. His crew of now-Robin Hood like Ravagers includes the joke villain Taserface, but also Nebula (Karen Gillian), who calls our hero ‘Cha-Cha’ while sporting a cool head of stylish blonde hair. There’s no Gamora to be seen here, so maybe Zoe Saldana was unavailable — we do see Drax, not played by Dave Bautista, but apparently there was some sort of miscommunication (or so Disney reps have said) and hopefully that was unintentional.
The next big shock is that our former big bad villain Thanos (Josh Brolin returning to play the character’s voice) is now a friend, because T’Challa convinced him that his plan to balance the universe was wrong, saying that the ‘best weapon is a good argument’. And other characters call him ‘jokingly’ Captain Genocide. That’s pretty … apt, I guess, if a bit odd as a joke. But then we discover that all is not well for in the vacuum of space crime left by Thanos’ absence, our old pal Tivan The Collector (Benicio Del Toro) has become the new crime lord.
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Thus we get a new heist with twists and turns, and a classic space aphorism misunderstanding, confusing Robin Hood with Robin Leach — that’s a great joke because the latter was all about ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous’. We get a fun little cameo from Howard the Duck (Seth Green also returning for his longest performance in a Marvel property so far), but then it appears that Nebula has betrayed the heroes.
Of course, she really hasn’t and it’s a classic double double-cross, but in the meantime we see a fun action scene with Tivan versus T’Challa and company as the new space gangster uses a variety of captured weapons. We see such weapons as the literal fist of a Kronan (which sadly means that the rock monster from Thor: Ragnarok was killed), Mjolnir, Captain America’s shield, and Hela’s helm and sword. So that means Tivan and his crew killed a lot of our favorite Avengers and friends, doesn’t it? Suddenly, just in the background, the episode has killed off a bunch of people and barely acknowledges it.
And then, somehow, the episode makes us root for Nebula to save her father Thanos from death — that’s really quite impressive, honestly. And joining the ever growing team of heroes is the Russian space dog Cosmo, which had a blink and you’ll miss it cameo in Guardians — I do love that sort of obscure reference.
The episode closes things off as Yondu and T’Challa reconcile over the former’s lies about Wakanda, and they all show up in T’Challa’s home country. And we get the really sweet line that there’s ‘no place you don’t belong’. Considering that this show has the last performance of Chadwick Boseman, it takes on a deeper, more meaningful meaning. It’s perhaps unreasonably wholesome.
But of course, this is What If..? and that means things can’t simply end happily, so as the classic notes of the awesome 80s song ‘Space Age Love Song’ by Flock of Seagulls plays, we see the unfortunately overpowered Ego (Kurt Russell) finding Peter as the Watcher asks if this divergence was in fact the end of the world.
What all this means is that I really dug this episode — it had a very big change, in many ways, while keeping one thing the same — the true gallantry and goodness of T’Challa, who changed others by example, even if he couldn’t simply fix the galaxy on his own. After all, that’s a joint effort.
New episodes of What If…? stream Wednesdays on Disney Plus.
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