'What If... T'Challa became Star Lord?'


After being a little bit disappointed by 'Loki' (sorry but I was...), all it took was one episode of 'What If?' to have me fall in love with the MCU all over again. Which is really ironic given that the events of 'Loki' set the scene for all these 'What Ifs' to play out across this suddenly expanding multiverse. Basically, it really doesn't take a lot to get me back on side; I'm easily swayed ;o)

All of a sudden then, this week's 'What If...?' was suddenly a 'must see' thing and that was pretty much the first thing I did when I got back after a day's book-shopping and museum visiting (which was lovely, by the way, but that's another post entirely).

As always, the big spoiler is in the title but that's given me a little to throw spoilers around in the post itself. I mean, if you already know what the episode is going to be about... Just so you know though, you might want to go away and watch 'What If... T'Challa became Star Lord' first ;o For everyone else, lets go.

Before we even get onto the story itself, lets just take a minute and sit with what it meant to have Chadwick Boseman as T'Challa one more time. It's been a long time since I watched 'Black Panther' (which I may have to do something about now...) but just hearing his voice makes you realise all over again just why T'Challa won't be recast in 2022's 'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever'. Chadwick Boseman is T'Challa and that's that. It was good to have him back, just one more time.

The story itself is a fairly simple one on the outside. Starlord and the Ravagers are doing a heist, with all that entails. Loads of spaceships and double crosses and aliens throwing down, all with T'Challa/Starlord in the middle. It's a lot of fun but there's so much more to it, you're missing the point if you think that's all there is to it.

The clue is in the title and the answer is a real in depth look at how one man can make a real difference to a whole galaxy if it's T'Challa. And he does, he really does. Right from the start, we see that things are totally different now and by the time you see Thanos as a member of the Ravagers, it's a cool moment but I was just like 'of course this would happen, it's T'Challa; the guy was born to rule and be a good king, of course he is going to be able to talk Thanos round.'It's not just this though, we also get to see how these little moments push other characters down new paths (I'm looking at you, 'Black Order') as well a little reminder that the more thing change, the more Howard the Duck stays the same ;o) You too Drax.

At the heart of it all is a neat little continuation of the concept of 'Family vs Found Family' that originally played out in the 'Guardians' movies. This theme almost gets lost in all the other stuff but it's there and it's important.

This week's 'What If...?' left me feeling all warm and fuzzy for loads of reasons and the show as a whole continues to get off to a flying start. More of the same please but I wouldn't mind seeing the show take a few risks as well. Not every ending is a happy one after all... Hopefully we'll see some of that in the 'Marvel Zombies' episode... 

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