Editor's note: The below recap contains spoilers for What If...? Season 3 Episode 1.
Marvel's What If...?: a prism of endless possibility, where a single choice can branch out into infinite realities, creating alternate worlds from the ones you know. I am the Recapper. I am your guide through the third and final season of the hit anthology series. I am also done with this joke, but not nearly ready to be done with this series. Marvel's animated anthology has been a breath of fresh air for the franchise, putting the characters into comedic, or unlikely, new scenarios as a way to continue their stories, or take them down a new avenue while the live-action MCU takes the road towards the old and familiar. Season 3 is a season of highs and lows, and Episode 1, "What If the Hulk Fought the Mech Avengers" kicks things off on a high. As in way up high. As in kaiju high. Let's dive in.
The Avengers Fight the Gamma War in the 'What If...?' Season 3 Premiere
The episode opens, not with the series' signature animation style, but with a style that instead invokes vintage cartoons from the '60s, with a tinny announcer voice to match. The series is "Go-Avenger: Heroes of the Gamma War" and follows the Avengers -- that is, Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Black Widow and Hawkeye -- who kept the world safe until the Hulk, in his rage, unleashed Godzilla-esque terrors on the world, the kind that could only be fought with mech-suits designed by Iron Man. It's good, in-universe exposition, but it's all we're going to get for now, as the teenage girl (Ozioma Akagha) watching the series finds her viewing interrupted by a Wi-Fi outage. If only the issue were as minute as a modem needing to be reset, rather than what's actually causing the service disruption: those same monstrous creatures she saw in her cartoon, now rampaging through her city.
If you're confused, don't worry, so am I, but luckily the Watcher (Jeffrey Wright) is here to catch us up, taking us back to the dawn of the Gamma War. The scene he sets looks awfully familiar. As in Captain America: The Winter Solider familiar. But instead of Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) out for a jog near the Washington Monument, it's Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) begrudgingly out for a run, passed on his left by Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie). Sam catches up with Bruce after their runs while Bruce catches his breath, explaining that the cardio is supposed to relieve his stress, and is just his latest way of coping with his stress. Sam suggests an alternative way for Bruce to deal with his little green problem: therapy.
The therapy helps at first, with Bruce admitting that the thing that scares him most about his transformation is his awareness that everyone else is afraid of him, and that he's just as afraid of himself as they are. As Bruce tells Sam the fear leads to loneliness, Sam decides that Bruce also needs a friend, and that he will be that friend for him. He takes Bruce out on the family boat, along with his sister Sarah, and the outing goes well until the water turns a bit rougher and one of the masts on the boat falls and nearly hits Sarah. Bruce gets her out of the way in time, but the mast knocks him over instead and the combined stress becomes too much, causing him to transform. He's pulled out of his rage, the Bruce part of his brain taking over, when he clocks the fear in Sarah's eyes, and maybe a bit in Sam's -- though it doesn't carry into his voice -- and Bruce takes off.
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Posts Bruce Banner Accidentally Creates a Gamma Monster in 'What If...?' Season 3 Episode 1
The fear of that day was enough to motivate Bruce to once again hit himself with gamma radiation, this time aiming to take the Hulk out of him entirely. I got a language degree in grad school, so I'm not even close to being a specialist in gamma radiation, and even I could have told Dr. Banner that doing more of a thing is not likely to undo your problem, but instead magnify it. That turns out to be exactly Bruce's problem, as the gamma radiation causes him to Hulk out, and subsequently causes another creature to split off from Bruce/the Hulk entirely. This Godzilla-like creature, known as The Apex, is all of the Hulk's rage with none of Bruce's conscience or cuddliness. And that's not even touching on the colossal size, the lizard-like appearance, and the fact that he can spawn smaller Hulkzillas out of his back on a whim, creating a legion of monsters.
In order to face the threat, Tony Stark created giant Hulk-buster suits for each of the Avengers. This only went so far, as the original Avengers died in the fight against the creatures, inspiring those left over to pick up where they left off, and they were eventually successful, with the remaining creatures retreating into the ocean, though they believed them destroyed. Which brings us back to present day, a decade after the end of the war, with Sam leading the new Avengers. made up of Photon, AKA Monica Rambeau (Teyonnah Parris), and Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) among others. The trio call the other Avengers -- Shang-Chi (Simu Liu), Moon Knight (Oscar Isaac), Nakia (Brittany Adebumola), Red Guardian (David Harbour) and Melina (Kari Wahlgren) -- to decide how to deal with the issue without all dying like the Avengers did. Nakia tracks the beast's signature back to the Arctic, saying it matches the signature of the original Apex, and Monica tells Sam they need to call in Bruce. Sam is reluctant to call his former friend, and says that he and Monica will head to the Arctic to investigate while everyone else holds down their respective forts. As they leave, Monica orders Bucky to look into Bruce's whereabouts, pointing out that they can't win without him since they barely won the last time.
Arriving in the Arctic, Sam and Monica follow the signal to a seemingly deserted plain of ice, until three of the Apex's creations come bursting through the ice to fight them. Their big guns aren't much of a match for the creatures, and the fight only ends when a massive explosion knocks both of them underwater. At least they have those suits to keep them warm and dry. On the way to the ocean floor, they pass thousands of the creatures, all on their way to the surface, and all thankfully wildly uninterested in Sam and Monica. It turns out that the creatures are headed topside to muster for the Apex, who is very much alive and well. He leads the creatures into the sea and Sam and Monica realize that the Apex is planning an invasion of civilization. Not that they can do anything about it anytime soon, given that the sheer power of the creatures causes a shock wave and earthquake so massive, it knocks the mech suits out of commission.
While Sam and Monica perform repairs on the suits -- in the first of many instances in Season 3 where characters are just out in the snow without nearly enough layers. I swear its a recurring theme -- Bucky calls Monica to report what he found about Bruce's location. He tells her that he found him at a black site, somewhere that officially doesn't exist, leading Monica to believe he went there for a reason. She tries again to bring the subject up to Sam, but he shuts it down, claiming this is all Bruce's fault in the first place. Monica points out that Sam's more reluctant and afraid to face his former friend than he is to face the Gamma Beasts, and realizes it's not fear of Bruce himself, or even anger at Bruce, that's keeping him away. It's the fact that Sam tried to help him overcome his demons and it didn't work, so he's holding himself at least partially responsible. With that out of the way, Sam agrees to go speak with him. The coordinates take him to an extremely remote island, and there in the jungle, Sam and Bruce come face to face for the first time in a decade.
Sam Wilson Tries to Win the War With the Power of Friendship in 'What If...?' Season 3 Episode 1
Bruce leads Sam to his home, a nuclear combat bomber on top of a derelict government facility. He leads him through the plane, past the inactive nuke, and over to his home, which is a hut he built on the wing of a plane. For a man whose survival depends on staying calm and stress-free, he sure concocted one hell of an exposure therapy program for himself. Inside, Sam explains their Gamma Beast problem, and Bruce refuses to get involved, saying he hasn't had an incident in years -- which given his living situation, I am extremely skeptical about -- and says he can't get involved in the fight the way Sam wants. Instead, he gives him a plug-in he wrote for the mech's interface to be used against the Apex. Sam takes it, but calls Bruce a coward for not wanting to get involved in the fight against the monsters he created, choosing to hide while the rest of the world tries to stop them. But Bruce tells him that the plug-in wasn't just written to stop the Apex. It was written with any unstoppable monster in mind, himself included.
Sam leaves then, but not before telling Bruce that he never saw him as a monster, only as his friend, and he'd hoped that having Bruce help in this fight would change his perspective. He calls Monica on the flight home to tell her that the plan didn't work, and Bruce isn't coming, but she at least has some updates of her own to offer, telling him that she and the others are heading for New York, tracking the Apex and the Gamma Beasts. Sam tells her about the plug-in and uploads the plans to their shared server, so everyone can see what he's designed. The team is skeptical at the complexity and scale of the weapon, pointing out that a failure of the untested tech could leave them dead and the world vulnerable, but with the creatures already attacking New York, they're out of options.
The team stalls by taking on the beasts one at a time until Sam arrives, at which point he orders the "Avenger" to assemble. Their mech suits contort and combine to form one giant mech suit with combined interfaces, and yes, this did just turn into a Power Rangers episode. They take out the Gamma Beasts before turning their attention to the Apex, but their attempts to blast him only cause his gamma levels to spike, which blasts the suit back and knocks out their systems. If Monica wanted a Hail Mary before, she certainly gets one now, as Bruce arrives in the nuclear bomber, with an upgraded nuke in tow, complete with a fresh gamma core -- him. Bucky worries about that much gamma radiation being unleashed on the city, but Nakia correctly guesses that his plan is to absorb it instead, an action he won't be able to come back from.
Bruce launches the nuke, and therefore himself, onto the city, causing another gamma-infused blast. It didn't kill the Apex and the Gamma Beasts, but instead turns Bruce into a comparable monster -- albeit one with a conscience, since he's embracing this side of his now -- able to take on the Apex. His plan, which becomes clear as the other beasts stop to track the outcome of the fight, is to kill the Apex and assume leadership of all the creatures. The Apex gains the upper hand, so Sam hops back into his mech suit to provide a distraction while Bruce rallies himself to end the Apex once and for all. He does, with a long blast of lime-green fire, and assumes control over the Gamma Beasts. He turns his attention on the Avengers next, and they're ready to fire on him, but Sam orders them to stand down. After all, there's nothing a little chat between buddies can't solve. And absurd as this sounds, the plan does work, with a kind, calm word, and a promise that they're still friends being all Bruce needs to stand down. He leads the Gamma Beasts out into the ocean, and back to his island, with the Watcher concluding that it's the friends who see us for who we really are that get us through humanity's darkest moments. Or maybe even just our own. It's a sweet note to cap things off as the final season of What If...? gets underway.
The first episode of What If...? Season 3 is streaming now on Disney+.
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7 10 What If...? Review
What If Season 3 Episode 1 kicks things off with a Mech vs Kaiju fight that explores the power of friendship.
Pros Fixing our problems with friendship and therapy, we love to see it! The new roster of Avengers is made up of characters who definitely need more screentime. Cons I wish we had more time with the other Avengers, particularly Moon Knight.
Based on the Marvel Comics series of the same name, this animated anthology looks at alternate timelines in the multiverse that would happen if specific moments in the MCU occurred differently.
Release Date August 11, 2021 Finale Year November 30, 2023 Cast Samuel L. Jackson , Stanley Tucci , Michael Douglas , Sean Gunn , Mark Ruffalo , Karen Gillan , Tom Hiddleston , Jeffrey Wright , Michael B. Jordan , Toby Jones , Sebastian Stan , Paul Rudd , David Dastmalchian , Natalie Portman , Josh Brolin , Dominic Cooper , Jeff Goldblum , Hayley Atwell , Djimon Hounsou , Chadwick Boseman , Taika Waititi , Chris Hemsworth , Neil McDonaugh , Jeremy Renner , Michael Rooker Seasons 3 Writers Ashley Bradley , Matthew Chauncey Streaming Service(s) Disney+ Franchise(s) Marvel Cinematic Universe Directors Bryan Andrews Showrunner Ashley Bradley Expand
Watch on Disney+