Black Panther was one of the most exciting Marvel Cinematic Universe solo events. The movie was a worldwide success due to the power of the message that it carried on its shoulder. The movie delivered us with a superhero and a complete world around with a completely unique vision. The movie didn’t even require any other existing Marvel character in order to help it to invoke into the MCU. One of the most interesting parts of the movie was how each character was dealt with in the movie. This includes the character of the villain Killmonger. What If…? was always intended at exploring storylines that we might never get to explore in the movies. The MCU brings Killmonger back but wastes him the second time.
The Episode
What If…? was intended into exploring the world of MCU with slight changes caused by taking certain decisions that might make drastic changes. The past few episodes have run absolutely wild with this concept and given us stories that we won’t have dreamt of in the movies. Often certain characters go through a massive transition with a complete change in their perspectives. This was not what we got to see from the latest episode of the animated series. In this episode, we got to see one of the most critically acclaimed characters in the MCU make a return, and yet it failed to make any of the impacts that its previous appearance had.
Poor Attempt At Killmonger
One of the major reasons that the character suffers in its portrayal in the episode is because of the fact that he was forced to share the screen with Tony Stark. Tony is one of the most essential characters in the MCU as he is one of the driving forces behind the MCU. His presence in the smallest roles makes him an important character in the show anyway.
This is not in any way trying to say that the storyline of Tony Stark in the episode was bad. Even though it didn’t take the Iron Man path yet it had a lot of expectations. The character of Killmonger only becomes of prime interest after he ends up killing Stark. The viewers were a lot much intrigued by the idea of Stark not becoming Iron Man instead of any other plotlines.
The episode did have some interesting parts where it hinted at the possible events that could have followed up into making the storyline much more similar to the MCU movies they were a spin on. This includes the original Iron Man movie which showed us the Iron Man’s origin and an interesting villain with Obadiah Stane. Both of these things are dealt with at the very beginning of the episode.
Even the final battle in the episode was an interesting sight to see as we got something similar to the final battle in Black Panther itself. The only twist was Killmonger was playing with both sides this time. The similarities in the plot included the part where Killmonger kills Klaw after doing a partnership with him. He then uses the latter’s body as a means of entrance into Wakanda.
What Else…?
The episode did end up providing us with some of the most interesting moments with a show of the cunning of the character of Killmonger. But it still manages to fall short of the expectations that fans had in exploring certain parts of the character. As the episode doesn’t explore things that we might have not explored in Black Panther. A much interesting story could have been about the dramatic change in his vision and his perspective.
Fans have been assuming that he might have been alive in the MCU and since Chadwick Boseman’s demise Killmonger might actually end up taking the mantle of Black Panther. This episode could have taken us to this very storyline and had fun with that plot. But, it is what it is. Hopefully, we’ll get a better continuation to the sequel of this episode.
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