One of the strongest familial bonds in the MCU is between Thor and Loki. The relationship started when Odin took Loki, son of Laufey of the Frost Giants, into his care and raised him as his own child. This set into motion a rivalry between Thor and Loki, with each competing for Odin’s affection and the eventual throne of Asgard. The latest episode of Marvel’s What If…? seeks to undo that relationship by exploring “What If…Thor Was An Only Child?”
Beware: I go in-depth into the episode and offer several spoilers, so if you’ve yet to watch it, you may want to do that first.
The conceit of the episode is that Odin, after finding baby Loki, decides to return the child to the Frost Giants instead of raising him as he does in our world. Since Thor and Loki didn’t grow up as siblings, Loki’s pranks never tempered Thor’s anger, and Thor didn’t feel the need to best anyone in his father’s eyes (or ‘eye’ as the case may be). Because of this, Thor grew up spoiled and entitled, searching out the next party instead of the next battle.
While Odin sleeps and Frigga spends the solstice with her sisters, Thor convinces Sif and the Warriors Three to go to Midgard for a grand party. Jane Foster and Darcy pick up on the energy signature of Thor’s arrival, just as they do in Thor. However, instead of landing in the deserts of New Mexico, Thor chose a different dessert for his arrival: Las Vegas. Makes complete sense as Vegas is a massive party town.
Afraid of what will happen to the planet, S.H.I.E.L.D. calls in Captain Marvel to try and convince Thor to take his party and leave. A fight ensues with Thor and Captain Marvel going toe to toe. In the end, Thor emerges victorious, but only because Captain Marvel was hesitant to exert her full power for fear of cratering a populated city. Maria Hill and Captain Marvel decide that they should lure Thor to a deserted area, like Siberia, and let Captain Marvel unleash her power there.
Afraid for Thor’s life, Jane makes contact with Heimdall in Asgard and convinces him to send her to where Frigga is. She tells Frigga what Thor is up to, and just before Thor gets nuclear-punched in the face by Captain Marvel, Frigga makes contact with her son and tells him she’s coming to Midgard to see him.
Thor, afraid of his mother’s wrath, convinces the other aliens and demi-gods to help him clean up the mess from the party, and in true 80s teen comedy fashion, gets everything done in time for her arrival. Even Captain Marvel gets in on the ruse, giving Thor an iPad full of Earth knowledge and saying she’ll check in on him the following week.
After convincing Frigga that he’s done nothing wrong, Thor visits Jane as a thank you for helping him see the error of his ways. He asks her out on a date and all seems like it wraps up well. Even The Watcher is pleased to see a happy ending for once. Until he notices a portal open up in the distance and out steps a platoon of android soldiers. The troops are led by Ultron wielding the Infinity Stones, and the final shot of the episode is Ultron’s face opening up, revealing the face of Vision beneath it.
I have to say, of all the What If…? episodes so far, this was my least favorite. The take on Thor was original, and his actions fit that new characterization well enough. But what bothered me was all of the different side characters who also arrived to party with Thor. I can understand Sif and the Warriors Three to a point; Thor has a specific influence over them, and they’d be likely to join him in his revelry. But why would the Frost Giants join Thor? Aren’t they and the Asgardians bitter enemies? Even if Loki is now one of them (which was probably the more interesting reimagining of the episode), it seems odd that Thor would pull them into his sphere of influence, despite Frost Giant Loki calling Thor his “brother from another mother.”
And then there are characters like the Grandmaster, Korg, Howard the Duck, and the Guardians of the Galaxy. In Avengers: Infinity War, we see the Guardians finding Thor floating in space, and they have no idea who each other is. How would the Guardians know Thor in this universe?
It’s a similar situation in Thor: Ragnarok when Thor is captured by Valkyrie and brought before the Grandmaster. The Grandmaster has no idea who Thor is, so again, why would he in this universe? Is Thor’s reputation as a party animal stronger than his reputation as a warrior? Maybe I’m just overthinking it, but I feel like this episode just added as many familiar faces as they could just to bring as many different movies together as possible. But doing that defies the purpose of the What If…? premise, in that one small action has deeper consequences.
I would have preferred to see how Thor’s new attitude made these changes. How his life as a partier spread his reputation across the cosmos, with even an immortal like the Grandmaster taking notice of him. How Thor was able to bypass centuries of animosity between the Frost Giants and the Asgardians and befriend Loki. But instead, we get an MCU reimagining of Can’t Hardly Wait.
I didn’t dislike everything about the episode. Darcy and Howard’s interactions were fun, and I loved seeing Captain Marvel back in action. I also liked Maria Hill stepping up to run S.H.I.E.L.D. while Nick Fury was out of commission after being knocked into a coma by Korg. There were a few laughs along the way, but ultimately, this didn’t feel like an MCU story to me, despite all of the characters that were shoved into it.
This episode was clearly meant to be fun, counterbalancing the bleakness of the worlds we’ve visited thus far. But the ending asks an interesting question: even if these worlds aren’t doomed through their own actions, are they still doomed, nonetheless? After all, Thor learned his lesson about his selfishness and managed to find a meaningful connection with Jane. He cleaned up his mess and prevented the Earth’s destruction by turning down his partying. But the world was still invaded by a cosmically powered Artificial Intelligence. Would that have happened despite Thor’s actions? Is the rest of the multiverse doomed despite the actions of its heroes?
Though I didn’t enjoy this episode much, I did appreciate the quandary it presented, as well as the introduction of the Infinity-Stoned Ultron. I just hope that we get to see that character play out more and that it wasn’t meant to be a cliffhanger to this specific ending. But judging by how things have gone in previous episodes, and the glimpses we’ve gotten from the mid-season trailer of What If…?, it’s very likely to pay off in an interesting way.