What If…Peter Quill Attacked Earth’s Mightiest Heroes?
This second episode speculating what if Peter Quill Attacked Earth’s Mightiest Heroes creatively embraces the idea of shaking up the MCU right from the start. Not surprisingly, it’s one of the strongest of the series simply for taking so many imaginative and bold choices.
Writer Matthew Chauncey doesn’t have to work too hard drawing the connective thread between the future Star-Lord into a threat that Earth’s Mightiest Heroes have to face. Using the foundation of the first Avengers film and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Chauncey tells a very engaging and well-thought-out manner to deliver on this idea.
Chauncey plays up some ideas casually mentioned in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and expands on them in a clever way.
Ego (Kurt Russell) gets his hands on Peter much sooner than later in this timeline. So much earlier that the Invasion of New York is still a decades-plus away. But if Captain America, Iron Man, Black Widow, etc. aren’t around yet who’s capable of stopping a super powerful pre-teen trying to please his dear old dad?
One of the cooler aspects of What If is it allows Marvel Studios to work with actors who might have been slighted with quality screen time in the live-action roles. Peter Quill Attacked Earth’s Mightiest Heroes is a fantastic example of the MCU reaching into its bullpen and calling in some heavy hitters to bathe in the spotlight.
And it’s always great to at least hear some familiar voices back in action under the Marvel Studios banner.
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The lineup is inspired and consists of some logical members (Michael Douglas’ Hank Pym and Laurence Fishburne’s Goliath) and a few wild cards. This team is actually very compelling playing off each other.
Short of last season’s finale What If…? hasn’t done a lot of revisiting worlds and further exploring a new status quo. If that trend changes, this group of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes should get to the front of the line. Their adventures would be a lot of fun for future episodes.
Ego is a tremendous villain with near spam level power set, but he’s got enough vulnerabilities that he can still be defeated by a team working in unison. Another welcome aspect of Ego is he’s got enough power that both he and the heroes can let loose for some epic carnage-filled mayhem.
This pre-Avengers story is an excellent look at another world that shows with a threat serious enough to challenge the world, it’s heroes will emerge ready to defend…or avenge it.
Rating: 10 out of 10
Photo Credit: Disney
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