What If… 1872? review S3 E6

April 1, 2025 Jeffrey Lyles Disney's What If?, Hailee Steinfeld, Meng'er Zhang, Simu Liu, Walton Goggins, What If?

What If…1872 was one of the more promising episodes of this season. That’s a low bar to climb, but there was some substance to this one and featured a character that has been sorely underused since his debut at the start of Phase 4 — Shang Chi.

1872 finds Shang Chi, who’s voiced by the live-action actor Simu Liu, teaming with Hawkeye Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld also reprising her role from the Hawkeye TV series). They’re both in search of The Hood, a mysterious figure who’s responsible for the death of Kate’s family and a slew of missing Chinese immigrants. One of them is Shang Chi’s sister, Xialing (the returning Meng’er Zhang), who battled The Hood and suddenly went missing.

Given the ‘twist’ in Shang Chi’s MCU debut, it seemed like the 1872 writers really needed to do basically anything but this telegraphed and transported via Pony Express revelation. They did not, which cast a shadow on much of 1872 as viewers were so much farther ahead of Shang Chi and Hawkeye throughout this episode.

Sure, it’s not a second appearance in the live-action MCU, but it was nice to see Shang Chi return even if it’s in an alternate universe where he and Kate are cowboy vigilantes fighting for justice. They actually make for a solid pairing as well. All roads in the main MCU lead to the Young Avengers, but maybe having Kate and Shang Chi going on an adventure without another underutilized Phase 4 hero could be fun for a standalone adventure.

Plus, Hawkeye Kate sure beats Awkwafina as a sidekick/partner for Shang Chi. It did seem like having John Walker (Wyatt Russell) be the third member of this squad would have been more fun than having him be a quick adversary.

In fairness, this is a pretty fun action sequence that showcases Shang Chi’s martial arts prowess and Kate’s quickdraw skills. Ironically this is a time period where Kate using a bow and arrow wouldn’t have been horribly out of place.

Instead, the duo is joined by Kwai Jun-Fan (Allen Deng), a young boy with some martial arts prowess whose father has been taken by The Hood. This is an Easter Egg for comic book fans as Jun-Fan was the first Iron Fist who began his career in 1878. That’s a fun nod to Iron Fist fans.

The Hood has a train that operates on Stark arc reactor technology, a plot point that really could have been developed more. Sonny Burch (Walton Goggins), another deep cut from the comics, runs the train for The Hood.

With the big twist for 1872 hardly a shock, it’s just a matter of Shang Chi reaching that point in his battle with The Hood and Hawkeye fighting Burch’s goons. The action sequences in the final act are decent, but don’t feel as significant since Shang Chi’s fight is really a holding pattern and Burch’s goons can’t offer much resistance to Hawkeye.

Maybe the biggest development is that once again The Watcher decides to get involved, this time aiding Jun-Fan. Naturally, this doesn’t sit well with The Watcher’s fellow Watchers, who take some aggressive steps to ensure that he won’t keep interfering in the affairs of various humans he breaks his voyeurism in order to help out.

That’s an interesting twist as the other Watchers are now being spurred to action because their brother is becoming too active. Does this in turn mean that they’re breaking the rules as well?

What If…1872 was a fairly solid episode as it again showed that Shang Chi is a character that needs more spotlight in the MCU. And maybe a Western spinoff featuring the Marvel heroes wouldn’t be a bad idea?