The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been expanding at an unprecedented pace. We expected that the franchise would take a breather after the events of Endgame but things have only escalated in phase IV with the release of OTT shows one after the other. WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier set the stage but then things took a left turn with Loki and What If…? Since the timeline was freed and the multiverse was made canon, things have been rather crazy. The What If…? series is giving us a taste of what life could have been like in the MCU by showing us different universes across the multiverse. But it keeps coming back to come back to some things. Here are 3 major What If tropes that happen throughout season 1.
Major What If Tropes
Iron Man Keeps Dying
It is strange that the What If…? episodes keep killing off Iron Man in almost every episode. Even the episode that was to be about Killmonger killed off Stark to show off how powerful Killmonger is. It shows that the writers either thought it necessary to rid the world of IronMan before things could go-to shot. Or they wanted the villain to make an impact by kill g if the mightiest Avenger. It is heartbreaking to see it happen again and again but we cannot help it.
The story almost demands this kind of sacrifice when cosmic level threats like Infinity Ultron are rampaging in the galaxy. At least the first death of Iron Man came at the hands of Hank Pym. At least it was a planned assassination. The rest of the deaths have been outright defeats for the hero. One at the hands of zombies, the next at the hands of Ultron. This makes us wonder whether Marvel Studios gave notes to the writers to kill off Iron Man onscreen as much as they could.
Thanos is Inevitable
No matter which episode we are watching, the Mad Titan keeps showing up in one capacity or the other throughput What If…? It seems we are following the universes most closely linked to the sacred timeline. The writing team is exploring only slight variations in the story that lead to drastic changes in the fate of the heroes. The most interesting part about all of this is that Thanos keeps turning up in the most unexpected of places. His first appearance in the series was the most surprising one.
He showed up in the T’challa star-lord episode as an ally to the hero. He is a good guy in this universe. The next appearance came in the form of Zombie Thanos standing over a destroyed Wakanda holding the incomplete infinity gauntlet in his hand. The latest appearance was the Thanos that showed up to fight Ultron but was split in half by the android. The show seems to be using Ultron for a cliffhanger or comedic relief. It seems that the writers were unable to decide whether the Mad Titan is an actual threat or not.
Cliffhangers
Almost every episode of What If…? has ended in a cliffhanger. The purpose of these cliffhangers is to amp up the tension for both the season finale and the next season of the show. The most interesting of these cliffhangers come from Thanos himself. One features a Zombie Thanos eagerly awaiting the arrival of the survivors of the Zombie verse. The next cliffhanger comes in the form of Killmonger assuming the throne of Wakanda. It is all done to create anticipation for the future. This means that the writers want us to be excited for the next phase of things.
One of the greatest cliffhangers comes to us in the form of the latest episode where Ultron controls the infinity stones. He battles and defeats the watcher and lets himself lose on the multiverse. This Ultron plans to kill everything and everyone in the multiverse and we are left wondering how The Watcher and Strange Supreme will stop the monster from his rampage. We think we know the answer to that question but let’s just wait for next week’s episode of What If…? These were the 3 major What If Tropes that happen throughout season 1.
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