What If...? is back for a third and final season. We start off with an episode that truly captures the feel of early morning Saturday cartoons, with a side helping of Godzilla for good measure.
The influences for this episode are obvious, and I would probably care more about just how blatant it was if they weren't all things that I adore beyond reason. For some unknown reason, I decided that Godzilla was the coolest thing ever when I was six years old, so obviously Pacific Rim was right up my alley. And then you add in Power Rangers? Hell yeah!
Really, that's the best way to engage with the episode. It's silly Saturday morning fun that you don't need to devote any thought to. To be fair, the episode doesn't ask for any brainpower from you either. I spent many scenes just quietly marveling at just how pretty the animation was. Sure, some of the movement in the fight scenes was a little choppy, but when people were standing still? The backgrounds? Hulk's eye with Sam's reflection in the pupil? Absolutely gorgeous. Ridiculously so. So much prettier than you would ever expect a show to be. Gold stars all around for the animators.
My main complaint is the same one that I've had for the entire series: the episode was just too short. We barely got to see any of the titular mech fighting, and what we did see was kind of uninspired. The mechs themselves were really cool and the designs represented everyone's powers in really fun ways, but blink and you miss that Shang-Chi's had giant power rings or that Hawkeye's looked just like his classic purple costume.
But it was also difficult to actually tell who was in the mechs. Some people, like Shang-Chi or Rachel Weisz and the Red Guardian were obvious, but I didn't realize that we had Moon Knight until the last five minutes. That's problem one.
Problem two? The Might Avenger literally got one-shotted, though. Like if you're going to go full Power Rangers morphing sequence, then let me actually see it fight! Let me see it do something different than what they were doing with individual mechs! It was such a wasted opportunity.
We also got very little of Godzilla-Hulk which was disappointing. At the very least, I had hoped that his spikes along his back would glow green with gamma radation or something, but that might have flown a bit too close to the copyright sun.
Sam and Banner's relationship could have also used a bit more breathing room, although this didn't suffer quite as much as the fight scenes. I did really like the dynamic. It made for an interesting inflection point. I like the small, reasonable changes that then spiral off into something completely ridiculous.
Most of the MCU could benefit from going to therapy, and I did really like that Sam tried to get Banner help through that. I'm less sure on the slight implication that Banner trying therapy is what unleashed thousands of Gamma Monsters and killed the original Avengers, but at least the Watcher did say that Sam abandoned his role of counselor in order to be Banner's friend instead.
Either way, this is a mostly promising start to the season. At this point, the flaws of the show are too baked into its inherent premise. There's still enough good for me to be excited for the next episode tomorrow. Especially considering the title...
Random Thoughts
Am I a bad person for hoping that Godzilla-Hulk would step on Sam and crush him into paste? Yes? Yeah, okay. But it would have been fun!
Nice touch having The Watcher be the opening cartoon's voice over.
Also nice touch having the screen aspect ratio be different for that opening cartoon as well. It's truly the little things.
Moon Knight had the funniest line of the episode with "Khonsu says light him up!" I only saw the first episode of Moon Knight. It's almost enough to make me give it another try.
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An Honest Fangirl loves video games, horror movies, and superheroes, and occasionally manages to put words together in a coherent and pleasing manner.
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