The second season of Marvel’s What If…? is here. The animated series will once again take us through various hypothetical situations that put some of our favorite characters in completely new circumstances. And with the final episode of the new season, we get an answer to the question, “What If… Strange Supreme Intervened?”
Before we even get to the episode itself, it is preceded by a new Marvel Studios scroll that only features clips from What If…?, including this new season. The episode then opens with a recap of the “1602″ episode, catching us up to Strange Supreme meeting Captain Carter in a bar.
Strange brings Carter back to his home as The Watcher recaps the events of season one and the story of Strange Supreme. Strange gives Carter a tour of the Sanctum Infinitum, his new home. He explains that he’s been collecting universe destroyers and protecting various universes, much like Carter just did for “1602.” He also tells her he needs help catching one the destroyers and explains that she would see him coming. He agrees to send Carter home once she locates this mysterious destroyer.
Carter heads off into the South Dakota Badlands in another universe and quickly realizes something is wrong when she sees Mt. Rushmore with only the face of the Red Skull. The Watcher explains that, in this universe, the blast killed both Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter and Hydra ended up winning the war.
Soon after, we see a blue blur whistle between the trees. It proves too fast for Peggy and knocks her off of her feet. She tries to fight back and eventually the blur reveals itself to be Kahhori. The Mohawk hero now speaks English and proves to be familiar with Strange Supreme already. She tries to tell Peggy she is not the universe killer, he is. She is interrupted though by a portal opened by Strange, bringing them both back to the Sanctum.
Strange immediately blasts Kahhori with some Kirby Krackle while she tries to explain to Peggy what’s really going on. Strange has built a machine called the Forge and he’s feeding these universe destroyers into it in order to recreate his own universe, including Christine. He tries to tell Peggy she would do the same for Steve but she tells him Steve wouldn’t want her to as she jumps in to save Kahhori.
Clearly overmatched by his power, Peggy makes a desperation play of throwing her shield to free the universe destroyers from their prisons. In seconds, they are surrounded by variants of Loki, Star-Lord, Vision, the Great Protector and so many more. She tell Kahhori they need to destroy the Forge before Strange can feed his prisoners into it. They find a much bigger fight between prisoners like Wenwu, Corvus Glaive, Korg, Skrulls and more. Strange starts wrangling them up, not paying attention to Kahhori and Carter as they make their way to the Forge.
The two heroes find themselves in a dark hall where they hear some faint but familiar growling. They turn to see Zombie Wanda raise an army of the undead, surrounding them with zombies. As they fight off the undead, they get interrupted by Hela, who takes control of the horde. Hela orders the heroes to kneel and Kahhori tells her the last woman who demanded that of her “regretted it,” referencing her altercation with the Queen of Spain. The Goddess of Death threatens the heroes before Surtur marches in and the two pick up where they left off at the end of Thor: Ragnarok.
Kahhori and Carter run off again before they are stopped by Thanos, wielding the Infinity Stones. The Mad Titan starts to overpower Peggy before we see a hand snap and Thanos blips away. Surprised, Carter and Kahhori fins they are being approached by Killmonger wearing the Infinity Armor. It’s a true gauntlet of villains being thrown at these two, but just like the others, this one is easily dealt with. Kahhori uses her Tesseract powers to transport Killmonger out of the armor and back to the battle in the main hall. Carter puts on the armor, giving her a weapon that gives them a chance against Strange.
They hear the Forge begin to start up and make their way there only to be headed off by Strange, who unleashes one of his many dark creatures on them. The fight is on and they begin to inflict some damage to the Forge, which Strange warns is making it unstable.
After a long display of various powers, including an army of Stranges vs. an army of Carters, Strange uses an illusion to make Peggy think she is right back at what was supposed to be the creation of Captain America. However, before Steve gets into the machine, she sees through the illusion and forces Strange to break it. He makes it clear she is giving up the opportunity to go back to her time and be with Steve.
Strange then opens portals and begins to drop his prisoners into the Forge. Kahhori stops them from falling and begins to lift them back up into portals that would send them home. Strange attack Kahhori, forcing her to release them to drop back to the Forge. It’s a back-and-forth that would have you thinking this is an inevitable retheme of Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission – BREAKOUT! in Disney California Adventure.
Peggy saves the prisoners again before Strange takes the fight to her. Seeing what is happening, some of the prisoners begin to throw their weapons at Carter’s feet to help her with this fight. Hela’s crown, Mjolnir, the Ten Rings and more all make their way to the heroes. Now armed with some of the most iconic weapons in the Marvel Universe, Carter and Kahhori are ready to take on Strange.
They get the best of him for a moment before he unleashes a monster that looks a bit like Chernabog. One by one, Strange destroys the weapons they fire at him and takes both heroes off their feet. Kahhori finds the Infinity Stones loose on the ground and Peggy leaps at Strange. Kahhori tosser her the stones, which she hits the monster with, temporarily knocking it out of Strange. For a moment, she reasons with Strange, who shows some remorse before the monster returns. Peggy knocks it into the Forge and Strange emerges, seemingly resigning himself to death in order to undo what he has done.
A flash of light overcomes Peggy and she awakens to find herself in the home of The Watcher, who explains that he saved both her and Kahhori. He then takes her to Strange’s recreate universe, which now exists without him ever being a part of it. Carter asks to be taken home but to take the scenic route along the way. The Watcher shows her the same green and purple glowing representation of Yggdrasil, the world tree, that we saw at the end of Loki season 2, the one housing what is now the God of Stories. Could this be a bridge between Marvel’s live-action and animated universes?
This was a perfect finale for the second season of What If…?. Along the way, it certainly seemed as though this season was following the same formula as its predecessor and we would eventually see a team of heroes assembled to stop a multiversal threat. That was kind of the case, but instead we got two heroes coming together to stop another corrupted hero. It was epic and included plenty of fan service while still telling a compelling and complete story. Now, all that’s left is to look forward to season 3.
The complete second season of Marvel’s What If…? Is now streaming on Disney+.