Spoilers follow for Episode 6 of Marvel’s What If…? For more, see our review of the previous episode of What If.
As we cross the halfway point of What If’s first season, the show’s strengths and weaknesses are coming into clearer focus. Inventive action choreographed in ways that would be tough for live-action to pull off? Easy. Reliably strong voice acting? Absolutely not. Worthwhile reinterpretations of established canon? Well, as is the nature of an anthology show, that we take on a week-by-week basis. Episode 6 sees Michael B. Jordan return to his excellent Killmonger role, giving him the chance to further his cause in a totally new way. While the episode leaves intact Killmonger’s motivations and so doesn’t deepen our understanding of him, it does broaden what we know about him in ways that make him an even more impressive foe, even in the context of 2018’s Black Panther.
Episode 6 starts at the very beginning of the MCU: Tony Stark’s (Mick Wingert) kidnapping at the hands of the Ten Rings. Well, near kidnapping. Killmonger’s (Michael B. Jordan) rescue of Stark was a solid starting point for the episode, rooted in MCU history, as we know the mercenary was in Afghanistan around the same time Stark was there showing off the Jericho missile. Especially after last week’s nonsensical quantum zombies, watching Killmonger’s tactical expertise be employed out of combat and in the more nuanced world of corporate espionage – where he’s no less effective – felt like a great use of the character. His exploitation of a Tony Stark who hasn’t benefited from lessons learned in captivity feels especially insidious, not only because Stark’s tech is the perfect resource for Killmonger to mine, but because we can feel Killmonger pushing Stark away from his heroic destiny.
The chance to spend more time with fan-favorite MCU characters who may not have appeared in 6 or 7 movies is one of What If’s biggest draws. Michael B. Jordan’s Killmonger is nothing if not a fan favorite. Jordan brings all the confidence and intellect of his live-action portrayal of the character to his animated counterpart, slyly manipulating Stark Industries and the US Government into fabricating an army of combat drones of his own design (Gundam-inspired, in a nice nod to Jordan’s love of anime.) Sure, there’s not a lot of subtlety in the American-made drones’ “Liberator” moniker, but at least their function in the story dovetails with Killmonger’s long-held belief that the oppressed people of the world should be armed against their oppressors with weaponry advanced enough to even the playing field. Killmonger stands as a top-tier MCU villain and tragic figure in his own right because we understand that he’s a product of the system he’s fighting against – making Rhodey’s (Don Cheadle) suggestion that he work within that system feel appropriately tone deaf – so despite his twisted morality, it’s not hard to sympathize with him. It was the right call not to alter Killmonger’s motives or goals, which are sacrosanct to what makes him work, but learning more about his MIT doctoral thesis (Doctor Killmonger??) and his ability in Machiavellian maneuvering retroactively makes live-action Killmonger – and T’Challa’s victory over him – all the more impressive. It calls to mind a similar strength that Star Wars’ Rogue One had, which fleshes out the destruction of the Death Star in a way that actually makes A New Hope even more thrilling upon subsequent viewings.
Killmonger’s carefully orchestrated frame job of Wakanda for the death of Tony Stark serves as reminder that What If is at its best when expanding our understanding of established characters by putting them in wholly new situations, as the show did with T’Challa’s Star-Lord back in Episode 2. T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) returns this week as the serious, leery Black Panther we’re familiar with from the MCU movies. Boseman’s third What If performance is, appropriately, significantly more subdued as he cautions Killmonger about his methods from the Ancestral Plane.
Episode 6’s other returning MCU vets rise above the relatively low bar for voice acting the series has set up to this point. Andy Serkis’ Klaue is just as off-the-wall as ever and Danai Gurira’s continually great work as Okoye makes the wait for the Disney+ Wakanda-set series even more unbearable. Her dig on the Liberators (“they’re built by Americans, we’ll be home by lunch”) makes her 2-for-2 dunking on the U.S. after last week’s hilarious comparison of American reality shows to horror movies.
Things start to fall apart by the end, though, as Killmonger pulls a Syndrome and defeats his own drones to look like a hero to the Wakandan people. The climactic battle against the Liberators looks good, but lacks any real stakes, as there’s no real effort made to mask the fact that Killmonger is staging this invasion as a means to further his conquering of Wakanda (and claiming of the Black Panther mantle.) Worse, it’s hard to believe that T’Chaka (John Kani) wouldn’t see this double-cross coming from his nephew after killing his brother N’Jobu for the exact same reason. Wakanda’s king may have held on to the nation’s isolationist tendencies for too long, but a fool he was not. Of course, there’s hope for Wakanda as Shuri (Ozioma Akagha) arrives at Stark Industries to enlist Pepper Potts’ (Beth Hoyt) help, but the meeting’s abrupt nature hardly feels like a resolution. Other episodes this season have suffered the same fate, and it’s yet another area of improvement for What If to focus on next year.
